Assange case: freedom of expression comes into play

The case Julian Assange, handed over by the current Ecuadorian government to the British justice after granting him citizenship and political asylum for seven years, is one of those important issues that do not make the case. # 39; object of the required attention in a country. in which, unfortunately, urgency is the most important.

I am meandering the complex story of Assange, founder and publisher of the WikiLeaks site, long ago. The founder of this newspaper, Jorge Fontevecchia, interviewed him in December 2014 at the Embbady of Ecuador in London and Assange could talk about everything: the situation in Latin America, the danger that Google was presenting to invade privacy, his role as "reporter programmer" as a new actor in mainstream media, hackers, the Snowden case and his own definition of what it means to be a journalist.

Assange will now have trouble being heard. From a complex personality, which arouses sympathy among some and rejection in others, Assange has been the pioneer of publishing truthful and truthful information about the world's most powerful government. Personalities such as the philosopher and cultural critic, famous at this time, Slavoj Zizek call him both friend and hero.

Hero C is the word used by Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon's filter researcher forty years ago, recreated in the movie The Spielberg. In addition, there are numerous human rights organizations, press freedom and communication faculties (the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National University of Cuyo voted last week in his favour). In 2017, Julian Assange gave a videoconference to the Latin American Meeting of Faculties of Communication (Felafacs) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. In the academic world, Assange strongly supports what he symbolizes, for having made known the atrocities committed by the United States in the war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Guantánamo prison, thanks to his informants (in this case, Private Bradley, now Chelsea Manning).

Let me digress now, but it seems important to me: Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are American citizens who have worked for the US government. Both felt that conscience was within the law (as Snowden said) and that, in the face of the enormous power that concealed torture and barbarity in "clbadified" documents, it was a matter of law. that is secrets, one could only risk one's own life.

Fair trial? The policy is so merged in this case that I have trouble getting a fair trial for Assange. The United States accuses him of helping Manning decipher a key with which he had access to these secret documents (a situation that is not very clear), that is to say they accused him of hacker and not journalist. The Trump government knows that attacking the First Amendment, the right to freedom of expression, is a lost case. That the government of the day decides who is a journalist and who is not, would be extremely dangerous.

In 2016, in the middle of the campaign, Donald Trump has named more than a hundred times in his speeches and tweets to the organization, when WikiLeaks filtered out Hillary Clinton 's emails and said that he' s not going to talk about it. he liked the site. Today, he responds that he knows nothing about this organization and that it will be the Attorney General of the United States who will take care of the case. The leaks against the United States took place during the Barack Obama government. He chose not to act against Julian Assange, but it is the Republicans who asked to be prosecuted.

Nor can we forget the role of Ecuador in this issue. Rafael Correa, a president who was not known for his defense of press freedom, gave political asylum to Assange seven years ago. Today, his successor, Lenin Moreno, who not only changed his political strategy in front of the voters who voted for him, also allowed Assange to be forcibly returned to the London embbady (anyone who viewed the images can only be moved to observe a deteriorated man and seven years of imprisonment). The New York Times, in a note dated April 12, indicates that the Ecuadorian government has been under great pressure to remove Asange's political asylum. The badertions of Lenin Moreno's sovereignty are unconvincing and he has been strongly criticized for this.

United Kingdom and Sweden. It goes without saying that the United Kingdom is the one now in the most complicated situation. Assange will be jailed for 12 months for failing to appear before an English judge, who let him paroled in 2012 and got asylum at the embbady. He was not extradited to Sweden for being accused of rape and violence on two women. British judges must decide whether to extradite Assange or not. For the moment, the only demand comes from the United States, for reasons still very weak, but to which the Americans promise to add new accusations.

Why has Sweden shut down the causes of the women allegedly attacked by Assange? In 2007, the Swedish government considered that, as one of the causes had been prescribed and that with asylum Assange, it was not worthwhile to progress. Many ask that the founder of WikiLeaks be extradited to Sweden before any other country. The crimes of which he is accused must be judged. They are ordinary crimes and they must answer for justice, whether guilty or innocent. In two Guardian notes, published on April 13 and 14, it is pointed out that Assange must first be tried in Sweden. As always, crimes against women are in the background when political interests are at stake. In addition, Assange should not go to the United States because it is clear that there is no guaranteed to judge in a transparent way.

We now come to answer the question of the title of this note: do extradition to the United States and the prosecution of Julian Assange compromise freedom of expression?

The US extradition request is based on insufficient evidence, as it does not prove whether Assange helped Manning decipher the key that allowed him to filter clbadified documents. The truth is that WikiLeaks published them and that Assange tried to protect his source, as would any journalist. (Let's not forget that all major newspapers have published and written notes with the leak in these documents, although some wanted to take off now, it is clear that it was like that.)

If extradition succeeds, this will set a very strong precedent (it will intimidate more than one journalist) not to use material obtained from an informant who discloses certain information about facts that the powerful want to hide. to the society.

Assange was the victim of a personal attack to withdraw his word. This is known as ad hominem error. The person is attacked because there is no weighty argument to defend a position. He was accused of mistreating the embbady staff, of lack of hygiene, of having damaged the building by skateboarding in theaters, of having put in danger the national security of a country that dominates the planet and who would be the champion of freedom. . All this scorn could be suffered by anyone who dares to say a similar truth.

The case of Swedish women, allegedly abused by Assange, has priority because it is a crime that should not be marked by political maneuvering. To accuse these women of lying, without having heard them before, is also a violation of the freedom of the press.

Trump Republicans, like Bush at the time, gave secret authorization for indiscriminate crimes to be committed in the name of so-called counterterrorism. Americans, their allies, humanity, deserve to know these truths.

Many newspapers think that WikiLeaks does not need it. That's true. The new technologies have caused a serious crisis of journalism, in which the very notion of what a journalist should be revised. Free access to public information and the freedom of the press must be preserved. You can not defend democracy and attack those who talk so that they do not have a voice.

The New Yorker, the prestigious US magazine, has made it clear that Assange should not be extradited because the First Amendment would be violated, but he does not forget that he had favored Trump when he did not. he was campaigning and that he had leaked emails from Hillary Clinton. This resulted in Democrats and Republicans making their voices heard by calling the head of the founder of WikiLeaks (note of April 12).

Finally, accusing Assange of cybercrime is the way the US government found it to not forgive the Australian for publishing secret documents. Two US citizens disclosed information because their conscience did not let them live: Chelsea Manning (currently in prison) and Edward Snowden (exiled in Russia). Do not these people deserve to be defended by journalists, since they are the ones who sacrificed their lives for the truth? The main goal of the reporter is not the search for the truth?

We said that Julian Assange is a nice character for some and hateful for others. It's in the opinion of every reader. What is not allowed is that he is not tried in Sweden for the alleged attacks against the two women. Let's hope that journalists will be more concerned about the claim of this Swedish government law than by publishing a process that will take years to resolve. Many attorneys and the world's greatest power take care of this.

* Superior School of Communication Universidad Austral.