GENEVA, Switzerland — An international
coalition of journalists, editors, and publishers demanded Wednesday that
WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange be immediately released from a UK jail and
that all charges against him be dropped.
اضافة اعلان
Fifteen representatives of international journalist
and publishers’ unions and organizations gathered in Geneva for the “call to
free Julian Assange in the name of press freedom”.
“We are demanding that Julian Assange be freed,
returned to his family, and finally permitted to live a normal life,” said
Dominique Pradalie, head of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ),
which counts some 600,000 members across 140 countries.
“If Julian Assange is freed today, they will still
have stolen 10 years of his life,” she told the event.
The call came after the British government last week
approved Assange’s extradition to the US, to the dismay of his supporters and
free press campaigners.
Assange, 50, has said he will appeal against the
decision.
Assange’s long-running legal saga began in 2010
after WikiLeaks published more than 500,000 classified US documents about the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is wanted to face trial for violating the US
Espionage Act, and could face up to 175 years in jail if found guilty.
The Assange case has become a cause celebre for
media freedom and his supporters accuse Washington of trying to muzzle
reporting of legitimate security concerns.
‘Flagrant violation’
Wednesday’s event condemned
the British decision as a “flagrant violation of human rights and a showing of
total contempt for freedom of the press”.
Pierre Ruetschi, the head of the Swiss Press Club
hosting the event, warned that “democracy is being taken hostage”.
“This attempt at criminalizing journalism is a
serious threat.”
Tim Dawson, of the National Union of Journalists of
Britain and Ireland, agreed.
“If Julian Assange can be threatened with
prosecution as a spy, what might that mean for other journalists?” he said.
Assange’s self-proclaimed status as a journalist has
been questioned by US authorities and others.
But several of
Wednesday’s speakers stressed that regardless of whether he can be considered a
traditional journalist, he is being targeted for typical journalistic
activities, setting a “dangerous precedent”.
“Assange revealed war crimes, human rights
violations, and all the information revealed is of course of public interest,”
said Edgar Block, the co-president of Swiss journalist association Impressum.
“If he is extradited and condemned today, other
journalists will be condemned as well.”
A number of the petitioners also called on Swiss
authorities to facilitate his release by offering him a safe haven from further
prosecution in
Switzerland.
Assange has been held on remand at a top-security
jail in southeast London since 2019 for jumping bail in a previous case
accusing him of sexual assault in Sweden.
Before that he spent seven years at Ecuador’s
embassy in London to avoid being removed to Sweden.
The Australian was arrested when the government
changed in Quito and his diplomatic protection was removed.
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