UPDATE - WikiLeaks founder says he was freed because he ‘pled guilty to journalism’

UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS FROM WIKILEAKS FOUNDS, ADDS BACKGROUND

By Merve Berker

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday said that he was freed after years of incarceration because he “pled guilty to journalism.”

Addressing the European Parliament committee on his detention and conviction, Assange said: "The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs.”

“Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society," he added.

According to him, the CIA “drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks and the planting of false information.”

“My wife and my infant son were also targeted,” he said, adding that instructions were given to “obtain DNA” from his “6-month-old son’s nappy.”

Assange emphasized how “aggressive” the CIA acted at that time against him.

“This assembly is no stranger to the extraterritorial abuses by the CIA,” he stressed, pointing to “secret detention centers” and “unlawful renditions on European soil.”

“In February this year, the alleged source of some of our CIA revelations, former CIA officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation,” Assange said, adding: “His windows are blacked out, and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it.”

According to the WikiLeaks founder, such conditions are “more severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.”

- ‘Transnational repression’

Assange also highlighted the absence of adequate protections against “transnational repression,” which he added leaves Europe “vulnerable” to foreign powers exploiting its “mutual legal assistance” and extradition agreements.

He said CIA Director Mike Pompeo succeeded in securing a US government warrant for his extradition, which the UK kept secret for two years while the US and Ecuador shaped the conditions for his arrest.

Washington, according to him, asserted a “dangerous new global legal position. Only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights, but the US claims its Espionage Act still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So, Europeans in Europe must obey US secrecy law with no defenses at all.”

If Europe values free speech and publishing, it must act to prevent future transnational repression, he suggested.

Thanking all the people and organizations that have supported him throughout these years, Assange said: “It is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.”

“Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad,” he warned and said: “I fear that unless institutions like PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late.”

“Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never dims, that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few,” Assange said.

Assange rose to fame in the 2010s for leaking classified US documents on the internet, gaining international accolades and detractors when he exposed sensitive American diplomatic correspondence and military records, including a video of a 2007 US airstrike in Baghdad that killed several people, including two Reuters journalists.

He also gained notoriety for exposing confidential data seen as helping then-candidate Donald Trump win the US presidency and for allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Assange doggedly opposed extradition to the US and spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in a bid to stay free.

He was ejected from the diplomatic compound in 2019 and has spent the last five years in a British prison as he fought an extradition order to the US.

He was freed after formally accepting a plea deal in a federal court on the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote US territory in the western Pacific, that saw him plead guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act related to his publication of military and diplomatic documents.

He then flew on to his native Australia where he was greeted by his wife, Stella.

- Journalists in Gaza, Ukraine

Furthermore, in a Q&A session, Assange said that the only change he observed after getting free was not “the spooky sound of electric cars.”

The society itself also changed, he stressed. “Every day, there are live stream horrors from the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza.”

“Hundreds of journalists have been killed in Gaza and Ukraine combined,” he said, adding: “The impunity seems to mount and it’s still uncertain what we can do about it.”

The WikiLeaks founder also talked about the importance of political asylum.

Political asylum is “an absolutely essential relief valve” that allows individuals to escape persecution, enabling journalists to continue reporting from exile, he said.

It also pressures states to improve their behavior, as restricting asylum and employing transnational repression can lead to worsening conditions for those unable to leave, Assange added.

“There must be competition between states to be good places for people to live and to work,” he said.

Russia launched its "special military operation" on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Nearly 41,600 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 96,200 others injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.