Accustomed to imposing its concept of press freedom on the entire planet, the United States wanted to turn Julian Assange into a prisoner who had to serve 175 years in prison, as if any human being could reach that age.
The founding journalist of WikiLeaks committed the “sacrilege” of making known to the world part of the crimes committed by the US military forces, both in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
It was an act of audacity that the all-powerful empire could not have imagined, and so it resorted to what it knows best: trampling on the concept of freedom of the press and persecuting and imprisoning those who became a challenge to its censorship policy.
This Wednesday before a court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands (an unincorporated US territory), Assange explained that “working as a journalist, I encouraged my sources to provide information that was said to be classified for publication. “I think the First Amendment protected that activity… I think the First Amendment and the espionage law contradict each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all these circumstances.”
The Australian activist’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, told ABC television: “We believe Julian Assange should never have been charged under the Espionage Act… in 100 years the Espionage Act has never been used by the United States to go after a publisher, a journalist like him.”
And he said: “WikiLeaks’ work will continue and I have no doubt that Assange will continue to fight for freedom of expression and transparency in government. He is a strong voice, a voice that cannot and must not be silenced.”
And he concluded: “No one should spend a day in prison for giving the public important and newsworthy information, and in this case, information that the United States government committed war crimes, that there were more civilian casualties than the United States government had admitted in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Julian’s wife Stella Assange, meanwhile, said the prosecution of her husband was an attack on public interest journalism. “Julian should never have spent a single day in prison,” she said. In her words, press freedom is in a “dangerous place.”
«The only positive result for the press in general [habría sido] that the United States Government had abandoned this case completely. “Now they have the press in as vulnerable a position as Julian has been in,” he said. «This precedent can now be used and will be used in the future against the rest of the press. Therefore, the entire press is interested in seeking to change this current situation through the reform of the Espionage Law,” he added.
