Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to the US on charges of espionage, leading press freedom groups to launch yet another desperate plea to President Joe Biden to drop the case against the 51-year-old Australian publisher.
In a judgement handed down earlier this week, UK High Court judge Jonathan Swift claimed that Assange's appeal amounted to no more than a rehash of arguments which had already been rejected by the British judicial system.
"The proposed appeal comes to no more than an attempt to re-run the extensive arguments made to and rejected by the district judge," Swift said.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Stella Assange – Julian's wife – urged people to step up their support for her husband and announced that the couple will make a "renewed application" to the High Court to appeal against the decision early next week.
THANK YOU for your messages of support for Julian. We are focusing on the next application but he needs your urgent help:
1. CONTACT your representative, meet them in person. Watch this for points to bring up: a) https://t.co/t1lXGYBRFe b) https://t.co/PiSYfqcVqs c) Argue by… https://t.co/7jL0uTogAk — Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) June 8, 2023
"We remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the US Government," she wrote.
The High Court's announcement was also vehemently condemned by press freedom groups, with the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) declaring that it is "highly disappointed" by the decision.
"The idea of Assange or anyone being tried in a US court for obtaining and publishing confidential documents the same way investigative reporters do every day should be terrifying to all Americans," said FPF Director of Advocacy Seth Stern.
We are highly disappointed by the UK High Court’s rejection of Julian #Assange’s appeal of his extradition to the United States on #EspionageAct charges. https://t.co/sbPqRfVH8j
— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) June 8, 2023
The FPF also warned of the dangerous precedent that Assange's extradition to the US could set for journalists around the world, and pointed out that Biden himself had affirmed that "journalism is not a crime" following the arrest of American journalist Evan Gershkovich in Russia earlier this year.
"If Biden lets this case proceed, future administrations will surely use the precedent of the Assange prosecution, and the unconstitutional authority to criminalise news-gathering that Biden is claiming, to go after journalists they don't like," Stern said. "It's time for Biden to drop this case and show the world he's serious about press freedom."
Assange has now spent the past four years in Belmarsh prison – often referred to as Britain's Guantanamo Bay – where he has been subjected to "psychological torture", according to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer.
A prolific leaker
Assange rose to fame more than a decade ago, after Wikileaks published a number of highly sensitive secret documents which appeared to prove nefarious and even criminal conduct by the US and other governments.
Perhaps most notoriously, in 2010 the organisation released a video – entitled "Collateral Murder" – which showed a US Apache helicopter launching an unprovoked assault on a group of unarmed individuals in Baghdad in 2007. The attack led to the deaths of more than a dozen people, including two Reuters news agency employees.
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In addition, Wikileaks has released documents alleging tens of thousands of previously unreported civilian deaths during the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
More recently, the organisation leaked private emails from senior members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which showed that the DNC establishment heavily supported Hillary Clinton's candidacy over that of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primaries – support which even included the surreptitious provision of debate questions in advance to Clinton.
