(FILES) In this file photo taken on May 19, 2017 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was behind a massive dump of classified US documents in 2010, has been charged in the United States, WikiLeaks said on November 15, 2018.(Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS, AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON Federal prosecutors may be preparing criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to media reports.

A federal prosecutor in Virginianamed Assange twice in a court filing in August for an unrelated case concerning a man accused of coercing a minor for sex. The prosecutor was attempting to keep the unrelated caseunder seal.

Noting the sophistication of the defendant, aprosecutor wrote a judgein the filing that no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged, The Washington Postreported.

The newspaper reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer in the Eastern District of Virginia told the judge that the possible charges need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested.

Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the Eastern District of Virginiasaid the court filing was made in error.

On Twitter, WikiLeaks described the disclosure as an apparent cut-and-paste error.

Seamus Hughes, Deputy Director ofthe Program on Extremism at George Washington University, found the filing and posted part of it on Twitter Thursday night.

To be clear, seems Freudian, its for a different completely unrelated case, every other page is not related to him, EDVA just appears to have Assange on the mind when filing motions to seal and used his name," Hughes said in a tweet.

Assange, 47, currently lives in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he took refuge in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning on rape allegations. The investigation was dropped last year, but Assange still faces charges in Britain for skipping bail.

The Australian national has decided to remain in the embassy out of fear that the United States would immediately seek his arrest and extradition over the leaking of classified documents to WikiLeaks by then-U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning.

WikiLeaks is also the focus of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections by distributing hacked materials.

Contributing: Doug Stanglin and the Associated Press.

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Originally posted here:
Julian Assange: US court filing hints at charges for ...

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder whose disclosure of secret documents has angered American authorities for the past eight years, has been criminally charged in secret by the US justice department, a court filing has indicated.

The court filing, submitted apparently in error by US prosecutors in an unrelated case, mentioned criminal charges against someone named Assange even though that was not the name of the defendant.

Assange, who has been holed up in Ecuadors embassy in London since seeking asylum in 2012, has long been under investigation by US law enforcement agencies for publishing classified diplomatic cables and other secret government records.

The 47-year-old Australian is also ensnared in the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 US election, due to his websites publication of tens of thousands of emails stolen by Russian hackers from Hillary Clintons presidential campaign and other Democrats.

One of Assanges attorneys, Barry Pollack, said late on Thursday that it would be a dangerous path for a democracy to take for a government to bring criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information.

The news that criminal charges have apparently been filed against Mr. Assange is even more troubling than the haphazard manner in which that information has been revealed, Pollack said in an email.

Earlier on Thursday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US was making preparations to prosecute Assange and was confident of being able to detain him and make him stand trial.

The court filing, written by assistant US attorney Kellen Dwyer, did not specify the nature of any charges against Assange. It was submitted to the federal court in the eastern district of Virginia, which handles many cases involving national security.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has been investigating WikiLeaks for publishing the emails taken from Democrats in 2016, disrupting Clintons campaign. US intelligence agencies concluded the emails were taken by Russian government hackers as part of an operation aimed at helping the campaign of Donald Trump.

But the group has also been under scrutiny for years for its publication of troves of US government data, including hundreds of thousands of files taken by Chelsea Manning, the former soldier jailed for almost seven years.

The mistaken court filing was a motion asking the court to seal charges, meaning they are shielded from public view. It argued that due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.

It later said: The complaint, supporting affidavit and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.

Legal analysts said the error was likely to have been caused by prosecutors copying and pasting from sealed documents outlining charges against Assange. Prosecutors are known to copy text from past court filings to make similar arguments in new cases, typically changing names and other relevant details accordingly.

Assange and his supporters have frequently claimed US authorities were already prosecuting him in secret. WikiLeaks said on Twitter that the filing reveals existence of sealed charges (or a draft for them) against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

A spokesman for the Justice Department in Virginias eastern district would not directly address the question of whether the document meant Assange had already been charged by the US.

The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing, the spokesman, Joshua Stueve, said in an email.

WikiLeaks published more than 50,000 Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign, beginning with a batch taken from the partys servers that was dumped online shortly before its national convention in July 2016. The leak prompted the resignation of the partys chairwoman and disrupted Clintons campaign. WikiLeaks later published more emails taken from the account of Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta.

Assanges group featured in Muellers indictment in July of a group of Russian hackers accused of carrying out the email thefts but was not charged itself. Identified only as organization 1, it was accused of receiving the stolen emails from the Russian operatives after exchanging messages.

The July indictment said WikiLeaks urged the Russians to give them the first batch of stolen emails in the days before the Democratic convention so it could publish them in a way that would have a much higher impact than what you are doing. The filings did not, however, say whether Assanges group knew it was dealing with Kremlin-backed operatives.

The mistaken court filing was first noticed on Thursday by Seamus Hughes, an academic at Georgetown University and former US government official. It was filed in the case of a man named Seitu Sulayman Kokayi. It was submitted to court in Kokayis case in August this year and was initially sealed. The reason for its unsealing was unclear.

Kokayi, 29, is charged with coercing a 15-year-old girl to have sex with him and to give him pornographic images, and with sending her a video of him masturbating.

But prosecutors told the court that investigators also collected sensitive information relating to national security as part of the case. They told the court last week that they intend to use evidence gathered via electronic surveillance.

A handwritten note on a filing in the case said Kokayis father-in-law had been convicted of terrorism charges and accused Kokayi of having a substantial interest in terrorist acts.

Continued here:
Julian Assange charged in secret, mistake on US court ...

WASHINGTON The Justice Department has secretly filed criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, a person familiar with the case said, a drastic escalation of the governments yearslong battle with him and his anti-secrecy group.

Top Justice Department officials told prosecutors over the summer that they could start drafting a complaint against Mr. Assange, current and former law enforcement officials said. The charges came to light late Thursday through an unrelated court filing in which prosecutors inadvertently mentioned them.

The court filing was made in error, said Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the United States attorneys office for the Eastern District of Virginia. That was not the intended name for this filing.

Mr. Assange has lived for years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and would have to be arrested and extradited if he were to face charges in federal court, altogether a multistep diplomatic and legal process.

The disclosure came as the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is investigating links between President Trumps associates and Russias 2016 election interference. WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers. The hackings were a major part of Moscows campaign of disruption.

Though the legal move against Mr. Assange remained a mystery on Thursday, charges centering on the publication of information of public interest even if it was obtained from Russian government hackers would create a precedent with profound implications for press freedoms.

[Mr. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for years. Heres how he got there.]

Mr. Assange has been in prosecutors sights for years because of WikiLeakss publication of thousands of secret government documents. Mr. Assange and his upstart website rose to prominence when Chelsea Manning, a low-ranking Army intelligence analyst, handed over thousands of classified Pentagon and State Department documents to WikiLeaks, which began publishing them in 2010.

Barry Pollack, an American lawyer representing Mr. Assange, denounced the apparent development.

The news that criminal charges have apparently been filed against Mr. Assange is even more troubling than the haphazard manner in which that information has been revealed, Mr. Pollack wrote in an email. The government bringing criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information is a dangerous path for a democracy to take.

Seamus Hughes, a terrorism expert at George Washington University who closely tracks court cases, uncovered the filing and posted it on Twitter.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to say on Thursday what led to the inadvertent disclosure. It was made in a recently unsealed filing in an apparently unrelated sex-crimes case charging a man named Seitu Sulayman Kokayi with coercing and enticing an underage person to engage in unlawful sexual activity. Mr. Kokayi was charged in early August, and on Aug. 22, prosecutors filed a three-page document laying out boilerplate arguments for why his case at that time needed to remain sealed.

While the filing started out referencing Mr. Kokayi, federal prosecutors abruptly switched on its second page to discussing the fact that someone named Assange had been secretly charged, and went on to make clear that this person was the subject of significant publicity, lived abroad and would need to be extradited suggesting that prosecutors had inadvertently pasted text from a similar court filing into the wrong document and then filed it.

Another procedure short of sealing will not adequately protect the needs of law enforcement at this time because, due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged, prosecutors wrote.

They added, The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.

The Justice Department has been studying how to charge Mr. Assange or WikiLeaks with some kind of criminal offense since the site began publishing its trove of secret military and diplomatic documents. Prosecutors, for example, toyed with the idea of charging Mr. Assange as a conspirator in Ms. Mannings crime of unauthorized disclosure of secrets related to national defense. And it eventually became public that a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia was investigating people with links to WikiLeaks.

But even as the Obama administration brought criminal charges in an unprecedented number of leak-related cases, it apparently held back from charging Mr. Assange. Members of the Obama legal policy team from that era have said that they did not want to establish a precedent that could chill investigative reporting about national security matters by treating it as a crime.

Their dilemma came down to a question they found no clear answer to: Is there any legal difference between what WikiLeaks was doing, at least in that era, from what traditional news media organizations, like The New York Times, do in soliciting and publishing information they obtain that the government wants to keep secret?

And such organizations, including The Times, have published many news articles based on documents that WikiLeaks published starting in 2010, including tranches of logs of significant combat events in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and diplomatic cables leaked by Ms. Manning, and the Democratic emails in the 2016 election that were hacked by Russia.

The debate over whether to charge Mr. Assange continued under the Trump administration and was being accelerated by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to former government officials involved in the discussions, about whether Mr. Assange qualified as a journalist.

Charges against Mr. Assange raised the question of whether the Justice Department abandoned concerns about setting a precedent that would chill press freedoms after WikiLeakss role in Russias 2016 election interference and its publication of documents about C.I.A. hacking tools, or whether prosecutors decided that the new circumstances raised by the publication of the stolen emails opened a new legal avenue.

While prosecutors in the Manning era were focused on WikiLeakss publication of classified government documents activity that they analyzed primarily through the lens of the Espionage Act the Democratic emails were not government documents or national security secrets.

In July a month before the erroneous court filing Mr. Mueller charged 12 Russians with several crimes related to hacking and disseminating the emails as part of a foreign conspiracy to interfere in the election, which that indictment styled in part as a conspiracy to defraud the United States. Part of that indictment referred to WikiLeaks, which it identified as Organization 1.

In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the D.N.C. and the chairman of the Clinton campaign to Organization 1, the July indictment said, referring to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. The conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Mr. Stueves explanation about the inadvertent filing left open the possibility that the language in the unrelated court document was lifted from a draft document written in preparation for eventual charges, not necessarily one handed up by a grand jury and sealed by a court.

Mr. Assange became something of a cult figure for those advocating greater transparency in government and in the corporate world. The prominence of WikiLeaks also generated a debate about the boundaries of journalism and the protections of free expression in the digital age.

At the same time, Mr. Assange was pursued by Swedish prosecutors on charges of sexual abuse ultimately forcing him to seek refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in the summer of 2012. He has remained there since.

In October, Mr. Assange sued the Ecuadorean government for limiting his visitors and online activity.

WikiLeaks has been attacked for its publication of the hacked Democratic emails. In April 2017, the C.I.A. director at the time, Mike Pompeo, called it a hostile intelligence service that was aided by Russia and accused Mr. Assange of making common cause with dictators.

Mr. Hughes, the terrorism expert, who is the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, posted a screenshot of the court filing on Twitter shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Justice Department was preparing to prosecute Mr. Assange.

You guys should read EDVA court filings more, Mr. Hughes wrote, cheaper than a Journal subscription.

See original here:
Julian Assange Is Secretly Charged in U.S., Prosecutors ...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears to have been charged with a federal crime, according to newly discovered court documents filed by federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia.

The revelation was inadvertently included in documents filed in an unrelated case in August. It was not immediately clear what Assange has been charged with.

U.S. Attorney Kellen Dwyer filed a motion to seal a criminal complaint in a sex crime case in August. Within the report, while arguing for the specific details of the ongoing case to remain sealed, the complaint made mention of "Assange."

In urging a federal judge to keep that unrelated case sealed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen Dwyer wrote: "Another procedure short of sealing will not adequately protect the needs of law enforcement at this time because, due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged."

Dwyer apparently failed to alter Assange's name in the document so it applied to the newer, unrelated case.

The WikiLeaks founder's first name is not written in the document, but his last name was mentioned again later, regarding possible evasion or avoidance of arrest in the matter.

"The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter," Dwyer wrote.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said the court filing was "made in error."

"That was not the intended name for this filing," the spokesperson said.

An attorney for Assange told ABC News he has been given "no notice" of charges.

It is inexplicable that the government would file in a public document a claim that Mr. Assange has been charged when no notice has been given to Mr. Assange, Assange's attorney Barry Pollack said.

Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought asylum and has lived for years, after facing sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Sweden dropped the investigation into the alleged offenses in 2017, but Assange still faces possible fears of extradition.

The mention of Assange's name comes as investigators with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, continue their probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. That year, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from Democrats, which officials said had been stolen by Russian operatives.

ABC News' Ali Dukakis contributed to this report.

Read more here:
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, appears to have 'been ...

While the media focused on Julian Assanges cat rather than his continuing arbitrary detention, evidence shows that Britain worked hard to force his extradition to Sweden where Assange feared he could then be turned over to the U.S., as Stefania Maurizi explains.

By Stefania MauriziSpecial to Consortium News

Lets start with the cat. You never would have thought one of these beloved felines would play a crucial role in the Julian Assange case, would you? And yet look at the latest press coverage. The mainstream medias headlines werent about a man who has been confined to a tiny building in the heart of Europe for the last six years with no end insight, they were about orders from Quito to feed his cat. There you have a man who is at serious risk of being arrested by the UK authorities, extradited to the U.S. and prosecuted for his publications. A man who has been cut off from any human contact, with the exception of his lawyers, and whose health is seriously declining due to prolonged confinement without even an hour outdoors. Considering this framework, wasnt there anything more serious to cover than the cat?

But theres a story to be told behind Assanges cat. One of the last times I was allowed to visit Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, before the current government of Lenin Moreno cut off all his social and professional contacts, I asked the founder of WikiLeaks whether his cat had ever tried to escape from the embassy given that, unlike his human companion, he can easily sneak out of the building without the risk of being arrested by Scotland Yard.

Assange didnt take my question with the lightness with which it was intended, quite the opposite, he became a bit emotional and told me that when the cat was small, it had in fact made some attempts to escape from the building, but as it had grown, it had become so accustomed to confinement that whenever Assange had tried to give thecat to some close friends so the animal could enjoy its freedom, it showed fear of wide open spaces. Confinement has a deep impact on the behavior and health of all creatures, animal and human.

Strength

I have worked as a WikiLeaks media partner for the last nine years, and over these nine years I have met Assange many, many times, but only once did I meet him as a free man: that was back in September 2010, the very same day the Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for allegations of rape. Initially he was under house arrest with an electronic bracelet around his ankle, then he entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London on June 19, 2012. Since then he has remained buried in that tiny embassy: a depressing building, very small, with no sunlight, no fresh air, no hour outdoors. In my country, Italy, even mafia bosses who strangled a child and dissolved his corpse in a barrel of acid enjoy an hour outdoors. Assange doesnt.

In these last eight years, I have never heard Julian Assange complain evenonce: at least in my presence, he has always reacted to the enormous stress he has been under with strength and whenever I have contacted his mother, Christine Assange, she has never wished to discuss the details of her personal feelings and concerns about the conditions of her son.

But for all his strength, this harsh situation is seriously undermining Assanges physical and mental health. In an op-ed in The Guardian last January , three respected physicians, Sondra S. Crosby, Chris Chisholm and Sean Love, tried to draw attention to this problem, yet nothing has changed. Assange remains buried in the embassy in extremely precarious conditions due to the complete lack of cooperation from the UK authorities which have always refused to offer him safe passage to enjoy his asylum in Ecuador.

This lack of cooperation from the UK authorities which can be reasonably interpreted as a deliberate effort to make Assange feel helpless, to break him down, so hell step out of the embassy and they can arrest him has helped create this Catch-22 situation, with Ecuador attempting various options to find a solution, like giving Assange diplomatic status so he can leave the embassy protected by diplomatic immunity. But at the end of the day there is very little a small country like Ecuador can do, and with Lenin Moreno in power, Ecuadors interest in protecting Assange seems to be fading to the extent that Ecuador is considering stripping Assange of his Ecuadorian citizenship, one of the most important shields protecting the WikiLeaks founder from extradition to the U.S..

The UKs Special Interest?

Having spent the last 3 years fighting in four jurisdictions Sweden, the UK, Australia and the U.S. to access the full documentation on the Assange and WikiLeaks case under FOIA, I have acquired a few documents which leave no doubt as to the role played by UK authorities in contributing to create the legal and diplomatic quagmire which is keeping Assange confined to the embassy. Why have the UK authorities done this? What special interest, if any, do they have in the Assange case?

I mention a special interest because documents reveal that from the very beginning of the Swedish case, the UK authorities advised the Swedish prosecutors against the only investigative strategy that could have led to a quick solution of the preliminary investigation against Assange: questioning the WikiLeaks founder in London rather than extraditing him to Stockholm. It was this decision to insist on extradition at all costs that led the Australian to take refuge in theEcuadorian embassy, fighting tooth and nail, convinced that if extradited to Sweden he could end up extradited to the U.S.

Documents reveal that the UK authorities referred to the Assange case as not an ordinary one from the very beginning. Please do not think that the case is being dealt with as just another extradition request, they wrote on January 13, 2011 to the Swedish prosecutors. A few months later, a UK official added: I do not believe anything like this has ever happened, either in terms of speed or in the informal nature of the procedures. I suppose this case never ceases to amaze. What is specialabout this case? And why did the UK authorities keep insisting on extradition at all costs?

At some point even the Swedish prosecutors seemed to express doubts about the legal strategy advocated by their UK counterpart. Emails between UK and Swedish authorities I have obtained under FOIA show that in 2013 Sweden was ready to withdraw the European Arrest Warrant in light of the judicial and diplomatic paralysis the request for extradition had created. But the UK did not agree with lifting the arrest warrant: the legal case dragged on for another four years, when finally on the May 19, 2017, Sweden dropped its investigation after Swedish prosecutors had questioned Assange in London, as he had always asked.

Although the Swedish probe was ultimately terminated, Assangeremains confined. No matter that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention established that the WikiLeaks founder has been arbitrarily detained since 2010, and that he should be freed and compensated. TheUK, which encourages other states to respect international law, doesnt care about the decision by this UN body whose opinions are respected by the European Court of Human Rights. After trying to appeal the UNdecision and losing the appeal, Britain is simply ignoring it. There is no end in sight to Assanges arbitrary detention.

Silence and Suspicion

There are two more suspicious elements: the fact that the UK authorities destroyed the emails regarding the Assange case, as they admitted in my litigation before the UK Tribunal, and the fact that they have always refused to provide me with any information as to whether they have communicated with the U.S. authorities on the Assange case, because they sustain that confirming or denying it would tip Assange off as to the existence or non of an extradition request from the U.S..

If there is or will be an extradition request from the U.S., the UK authorities want to be able to extradite Julian Assange for his publications just like any other criminal.

The risk of an editor or publisher being extradited for his publications should raise red flags and public debate in our democratic societies, yet we dont see any debate at all.

Julian Assanges situation is very precarious. His living conditions within the embassy have become unsustainable, and his friends speak as if there is no hope: When the U.S. gets Julian, they say, as if it is a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will get him and no journalist, no media, no NGO, no press association will do anything to prevent it.

In the last six years that Assange has been languishing in the embassy, not a single major Western media has dared to say: we shouldnt keep an individual confined with no end in sight. This treatment of Julian Assange by the UK and, more in general, by the West is not only inhumane, but counterproductive.

In these years, the Russian state-funded network RT has continued to cover the Assange case intensely. It isnt hard to understand why Russia is so ecstatic about the Assange case. The case provides Russia with the evidence to affirm that while the West is always preaching freedom of the press and aggressive journalism, it in fact crushes journalists and journalistic sources who expose state abuse at the highest levels. Chelsea Manning spent seven years in prison, Edward Snowden was forced to leave his country and seek asylum in Russia, Julian Assange has spent the last six years confined to a tiny building and in seriously deteriorating health. Its time to stop this persecution.

Stefania Mauriziworks for the Italian dailyLa Repubblicaas an investigative journalist, after ten years working for the Italian newsmagazinelEspresso. She has worked on all WikiLeaks releases of secret documents, and partnered with Glenn Greenwald to reveal the Snowden files about Italy. She has also interviewed A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, revealed the condolence payment agreement between the US government and the family of the Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto killed in a US drone strike, and investigated the harsh working conditions of Pakistani workers in a major Italian garment factory in Karachi. She has started a multi-jurisdictional FOIA litigation effort to defend the right of the press to access the full set of documents on the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks case. She authored two books:Dossier WikiLeaks. Segreti ItalianiandUna Bomba, Dieci Storie,the latter translated into Japanese. She can be reached atstefania.maurizi@riseup.net

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The West is Failing Julian Assange Consortiumnews

Over 7 months have passed since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was deprived of his ability to communicate with the outside world in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted asylum with the risk of extradition to the US, relating to his organizations publications. Recently, after UN Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression and Refugees visited the country, it appeared that Ecuador would finally end this isolation of its refugee and own citizen, which Human Rights Watch general counsel described as being similar to solitary confinement.

Yet, injustice on Assange continues. President Lenin Moreno who was said to partially restore Assanges communication, now with a special protocol, imposes prison-like surveillance and restriction on his free speech. Under the new rules, Assange is banned from expressing opinions that are considered political or could interfere with Ecuadors relationship with other nations. Journalists, lawyers and anyone else who seek to visit Assange are required to disclose their private details including email accounts and links to their social media, which then will be shared with UK authorities.

On Monday, a judge in Ecuador ruled against the suit filed by WikiLeaks lawyer, the former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon who argued that this Ecuadorian governments inhumane treatment of Assange violates his basic human rights. This came while there is an increasing pressure from the US on Ecuador to evict Assange. Joining the aggression of the Trump administration, members of the US Congress urge the Ecuadorian President to persecute Assange, calling him a dangerous criminal and a threat to global security.

Assange has become a high profile Western dissident. He has been arbitrarily detained for 6 years without charge, deprived of fresh air, sunshine and an access to a proper medical care. What made him be considered dangerous by the most powerful government in the world? WikiLeaks has published material that exposed the crimes and corruptions of governments and institutions. Their disclosure of secret documents challenged those in power. But this is not the only reason that made him become an enemy of the state. He has been silenced and attacked because of a particular voice he carries that is critical for a future of our civilization.

Ghandian struggle for the oppressed

Assange, an Australian born computer programmer and journalist, together with a small group of dedicated people, launched a media outlet that radically altered the face of modern journalism. He is not just an excellent journalist or an editor in chief of a publisher that performs its job better than other media organizations. Over the years, through his work with WikiLeaks, Assange has become a champion of the oppressed, regarded as a hero around the world, especially by those who live under authoritarian and oppressive regimes, where human right abuses are rampant.

At its inception, WikiLeaks was conceived with aspiration of human civilization to better itself, which was manifested in common peoples desire for liberation. In his Oslo speech in 2010, where he spoke in front of an audience who was just about to witness a huge tide shift in the media landscape, Assange articulated the organizations vision and its goal of achieving justice. He made it clear that the aim of WikiLeaks is to create intellectual records of how civilization actually works in practice, and by using that knowledge to stop abuse before it happens.

As the whistleblowing site has blazed into a mainstream spotlight with a series of sensational publications, Assange never wavered in his commitment to justice and ordinary peoples struggle for freedom. Until before he was cut offline, from a tiny room in the embassy, he spoke in defense of Catalans non-violent resistance against Spanish Central governments abuse of their democratic rights. He called their peaceful self-determination in the face of police brutality the most disciplined Gandhian project since Gandhi and said that its results will spread everywhere.

In a sense, WikiLeaks has become a modern embodiment of the Gandhian project. Almost a century ago, Mohandas Gandhi, a spiritual and political leader led Indias independence from Britain. For Gandhis time, it was the colonial rule of the British Empire that his people fought against. Now, this old empires ambition for domination is carried on by American hegemony. It is this unaccounted Western power that WikiLeaks came to confront through a trove of original source documents with a pristine record of accuracy.

Cryptography as a weapon for non-violent resistance

So, how does WikiLeaks make itself become a modern day Gandhian project? Gandhi put the principle of non-violence at a center of his efforts. He wanted to end wars and state abuse of power, not by the methods of oppressors, perpetuating further violence, but with different means. For this, he employed a non-violent civil disobedience as a way for people to engage in the peaceful resistance against injustice.

Now, in this digital age, WikiLeaks revived this Gandhian tradition of peaceful resistance online at a global scale. Assange saw potential in cryptography to offer a way for common people to non-violently resist the domination of powerful states. He once articulated the potent revolutionary force inherent in cryptography:

Cryptography can protect not just the civil liberties and rights of individuals, but the sovereignty and independence of whole countries, solidarity between groups with common cause, and the project of global emancipation. It can be used to fight not just the tyranny of the state over the individual but the tyranny of the empire over smaller states.

Specifically, with creative application of cryptography, Assange enabled a free speech right in a form that is resilient to government censorship and restriction. In the colonization of the past, the empires aggression was naked, where people who were oppressed by colonial masters were able to see their savagery and brutality. Now, the beast inside civilization hides its claws behind a faade of democracy and conspires to bring humanity down in secret.

Permissionless free speech that has been distributed across the Internet offered ordinary people a non-violent democratic weapon to combat against the patronage network that tries to control people through deception and secrecy. An invention of an online anonymous secure drop box made it possible for people anywhere in the world, regardless of their jurisdiction, to expose governments wrongdoing and corruption of institutions, without fear of political retaliation. They then could stop violence and mitigate the harm inflicted by those in power.

Pursuit of truth through scientific journalism

Gandhi has shown the world the effectiveness of his non-violence in opposing oppression. He characterized the revolutionary force inherent in his peaceful method with the term satyagraha (from the Sanskrit for truth-force) (as cited in Dear, 2002, p. 19). He noted satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means (p. 22) as well as steadfast, nonviolent direct action for truth and nonviolent civil disobedience (p. 83).

With the creation of WikiLeaks, Assange made an investigative journalism into a platform for pursuit of truth. He firmly believed that for justice to prevail, people ought to have an accurate knowledge about how the world works. He once noted, If we are to produce a civilized society, a more just society, it has to be based upon the truth.

In his engagement of people in this search for truth, Assange recognized how the media has become not a purveyor of truth, but of lies, actively promoting and defending the force that violates and destroys truth. Speaking in defense of the disclosure of classified US military documents on the Iraq War, Assange pointed out how most wars that are started by democracies involve lying, and noted how the start of the Iraq war involved very serious lies that were repeated and amplified by some parts of the press.

WikiLeaks, with its method of transparency steadily upheld a doctrine of satyagraha. Through scientific journalism, Assange found a way to resist governments perversion of truth by truthful means. Full archives of the original source material countered media propaganda that works to distort truth through censorship, omission and manipulation of information.

Sword of love

Gandhi reminded how realizing Truth means realizing that all human beings are one (as cited in Dear, 2002, p. 84). For him, justice meant to restore this truth. Calling a person who is dedicated to truth a satyagrahi (p. 89), Gandhi noted how the sword of the satyagrahi is love and the unshakable firmness that comes from it (p. 93). For his fight for justice, Gandhi voluntarily submitted himself to suffering, being imprisoned and in the end was assassinated.

This Gandhis fierce commitment to truth ignited the minds and hearts of revolutionaries, inspiring movements for civil rights around the world. Political leader Nelson Mandela took up a sword of satyagrahi to bring unity between blacks and whites in South Africa. By uncovering the truth of human rights violations that had occurred during apartheid, he facilitated the country to attain restorative justice. The leader of the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his stride toward freedom for African Americans, surrendered himself to the ethics of love to combat racist laws. Just like Gandhi who was willing to suffer for his cause, both out of their own volition chose to engage in speech and an action that would bring consequence. Mandela was being put on a US terrorist watch list and served 27 years in prison. Dr. King was put into jail and shot dead.

Similarly, WikiLeaks derives its courage from ordinary people around the world who are willing to take great risk on behalf of truth. What drives WikiLeaks scientific journalism is inspiration of its sourcestheir love for humanity, manifested in their concern for their fellow men and women that transcend nationality, color of skin and language. On April 5, 2010, with the publication of the collateral murder video, the sword of satyagrahi once again struck a chord on the Internet. The conscience of whistleblower Chelsea Manning cut through deception, shedding light on human affairs that were kept in the dark.

In uncensored images of modern war that depicted a US Army helicopter gunship killing innocent civilians in New Baghdad, American people were able to see the real face of those who are made into enemies, being kept on the other side of the barrel of the gun held in their name. Mannings compassionate account of this forbidden landscape, seen from a perspective of not either American or Iraqis, but from a view of humanity opened up a vantage point of equality, where we were able to recognize our shared humanity and truly witness atrocities and violation of human rights committed by the powerful. For this courageous act to restore truth, she was condemned, being tortured and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Give peace a chance

With the work of WikiLeaks, Assange took up a Gandhian tradition of peaceful resistance, instigating a worldwide non-violent movement on the Internet. Through publishing full archives, the organization made it possible for ordinary people to directly connect with the source of legitimacy and begin a quest for truth that has so long been obstructed by the media that functions as a gatekeeper of power.

WikiLeaks opened a path of redemption for our civilization. By enabling free speech rights, this Gandhian investigative journalism restored the laws of peace, helping people reconnect with the true impulse behind enlightenment ideas. The idea of free speech brought a departure from the old rule of the jungle and its logic of might and conquest. It made it possible for humanity to learn to solve problems through dialogue and diplomacy rather than violence.

As released documents began illuminating the way of peace, a shadow of a colonial past grows to resist this new light emanating from the conscience of ordinary people. In 2012, a small country of South America showed enormous courage to stand up to protect the journalist who was seeking refuge from Western governments persecution. Now, the US with the UK and Spain rekindles old colonialism, bullying this sovereign nation of Ecuador to go outside both international and Ecuadors own constitutional law to act subservient to its power.

Recently, Ecuador indicated that it would no longer intervene in diplomatic talks with Britain on behalf of Assange. As the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has spoken, there is a grave concern that his successor will hand over Assange to the British authorities. The UK government, by ignoring the UN ruling that indicated Assanges situation at the embassy as arbitrary detention, refuses to give assurance that they will not extradite him to the US.

Assange is a revolutionary of our times. He sacrificed his liberty in order to give civilization a chance. He now has become a world-renowned political prisoner. Just as his forerunners who fought for emancipation were attacked by the empire states, he has been subjected to a political persecution at a scale that has never been seen before. In a tiny room of an embassy under heightened security, he now quietly suffers in solitude, fighting against character assassination that is now slowly turning into a real murder.

When the justice system is controlled in the hands of oppressors, justice of this founder of the publisher of last resort relies on the court of public opinion. As Assanges plight for freedom intensifies, we can remain silent, allowing tragedy brought upon all those legendary peacemakers to repeat itself. Or, we can act with moral courage to end oppression and change the course of history. Will humanity find strength to claim its own dignity to open democracy? Or, will crudeness and barbarianism take over, bringing a society into despotism? Future of civilization rests on each individuals ability to seek in love to unite with those who struggle for the rights of ordinary people. Now it is up to us to carry out this great work of justice and realize the truth of liberty and equality for all people.

***

Reference:

Mohandas, G. (2002). Mohandas Gandhi essential writings. (J. Dear, Ed.). NY: Orbis Books.

See original here:
How Did Julian Assange Become a Political Prisoner of Our Time?

It was a fools errand.

On the day Donald Trump was elected his supporters asked him to pardon the founder and frontman of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. They flooded social media demanding Assange be allowed to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London without arrest and extradition to the United States.

Stone silence from Trump and his administration.

A few months before the election, WikiLeaks released a searchable archive of over 30,000 emails and attachments taken from Hillary Clintons not-so private email server.

Trump held no aversion to exploiting the emails. He called them the Crooked Hillary emails and said they endangered the national security of the United States.

Democrats called foul, said Assange had colluded with Putin and the Russians.

In April, they filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks. They argue there was a widespread conspiracy to swing the 2016 election.

They have zero evidence of this. Evidence is no longer required. Accusations alone now serve to take down leaders and destroy careers.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are no longer of use to Donald Trump.

He dished out pardons to ex-Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and neocon leaker Scooter Libby. Trump mulled other pardons, including a posthumous one for Muhammad Ali to wipe out his draft dodging conviction. It was reported in June Trump insiders are pushing to pardon the junk bond king Michael Milken and reverse his conviction on securities fraud. The Milken pardon is being pushed by Goldman Sachs alumnus and current Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Meanwhile, Julian Assange is left to twist in the wind.

Both Trumps attorney general and his former CIA director, now secretary of state Mike Pompeo want Assange extradited to the United States where he will face trial and possible execution for espionage.

AG Jeff Sessions said the arrest and prosecution of Assange is a priority for the United States government, while Pompeo denounced him as a hostile intelligence service, never mind he had no problem using the Clinton emails to accuse the DNC of sabotaging the Bernie Sanders campaign.

The US has leaned heavy on Ecuador.

Following a meeting with General Joseph DiSalvo of the Southern Commandostensibly to discuss security cooperationEcuadorian president Lenn Moreno rolled back security at the embassy and denied Assange access to family, friends, and doctors. They also shut down his internet connection.

This week Ecuadors Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said his government working on an exit plan to remove Assange from the embassy where he has lived the past six years. Valencia told the Associated Press the plan would be one that encourages an exit, that we do not want to be traumatic we do not want it to be an exit that may cause dissonance with international law.

Moreno said Assange interfered in Ecuadors relationship with other countries by tweeting on political events. He also lamented the nuisance of Assanges political asylum and said the Australian whistleblower is an inherited problem left over from the previous administration.

Morenos government granted Assange citizenship in a hope diplomatic immunity would be granted and he would leave the embassy. Assange knows better than to fall for this. Immunity or no, he will be arrested the minute he walks out of the embassy.

Activist and filmmaker John Pilger took the Left to task for abandoning Assange. There is a silence among many who call themselves left, he said in a statement. The silence is Julian Assange. As every false accusation has fallen away, every bogus smear shown to be the work of political enemies, Julian stands vindicated as one who has exposed a system that threatens humanity.

For the establishment, its imperative Assange be arrested, extradited, and brought up on espionage charges in the United States. The message will be priceless, the chilling effect invaluable.

The dirty secrets of war, political subterfuge, election fixing, and assorted other crimes and misdeeds are not for public consumption.

The release of the Collateral Damage video and the war logs of Afghanistan and Iraq should have resulted in a larger and more active antiwar movement. This didnt happen.

Liberal and leftist opposition to war only occurs when a Republican sits in the Oval Office. Obama effectively destroyed what remained of the Bush era antiwar movement. Eights year of Obama worked like a lobotomy on the Left.

Democrats supported Hillary Clintons war on the people of Libya. They didnt have a problem when she arranged weapons collected from the battlefields of Libya to be sent by the CIA to the rebels in Syria.

Democrats call for overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They believe Russia got Trump elected and Vladimir Putin spreads lies and false news to undermine and destroy our democracy. Large NGOs, foundations, and think tanks are pushing this nonsense.

Due mostly to indoctrination as a result of public education and a herd mentality inculcated by leaders and media, it is a relatively easy task for the financial oligarchy and its corporate partners to brainwash the public. It now disguises war and conquest as humanitarianism.

Im old enough to remember when millions of Americans praised Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers. That was then, this is now. Now liberals and progressives want to string up whistleblowers, same as their conservative Republican and neocon counterparts.

Gore Vidal said America suffers from amnesia.

Americans are largely blind to the war and financial crimes perpetuated in their name. Part of this is the result of indoctrination through propaganda media, but to a large degree Americans are incurious and unbothered by the criminality of their leaders and institutions.

Most dont care Julian Assange is a dead man walking.

They are unable to see the criminal state for what it isa global Mafia operation that shakes down entire continents and wages wars of conquest and pillage for profit.

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