In many jurisdictions, whistleblowers have no legal protection, relying instead on the obligation journalists have to protect and maintain the confidentiality of their sources to prevent the identification of the whistleblower and hence protect them from prosecution. Unfortunately, however, journalists can face prosecution if they refuse to reveal their source in many places around the world.

WikiLeaks' model provides a practical solution: its anonymous submission system was specifically designed to provide protection to journalists and whistleblowers that the law does not provide. Together with its robust publication policy, WikiLeaks provides sources better protection and a promise that their material once verified will be published. And published with maximum global effect: WikiLeaks makes its information available to journalists, citizen journalists, activists and lawyers the world over.

This is why WikiLeaks is so dangerous to those in power with something to hide and why WikiLeaks must be defended and protected.

A supporter of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a protest outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 14.Credit:AP

So when I was approached to defend Julian Assange, I said yes without hesitation. It was September 2010: by then WikiLeaks had published "Collateral Murder", a video showing the US military killing two Reuters employees in Iraq, and the "Afghan War Diary", then "the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war". Chelsea Manning was in a US military prison about to face espionage charges and a possible death penalty for allegedly releasing material to WikiLeaks. But even then, I did not anticipate just how big the story would become.

In Australia, the revelations increased pressure on the government to withdraw from the US coalition of occupation, and in June 2008 prime minister Kevin Rudd announced a drawdown of most Australian combat troops. However, it was a US State Department document later released by WikiLeaks that showed the truth hidden from the Australian public: fulfilling a campaign pledge, Rudd withdrew approximately 515 combat troops from Iraq in June 2008, leaving in place approximately 1000 defence personnel, including a 100-man security detachment for its diplomatic mission in Baghdad, and naval and air patrol assets based in neighbouring countries to support operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soon after, WikiLeaks published the "Iraq War Logs" the largest leak in US military history. The documents demonstrated there were many thousands more civilian deaths than reported or acknowledged by the US government, as well as the systemic failure to investigate reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi forces and abuse in US detention facilities.

Days after, Assange told me there was more to come: he had over a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables and he was going to publish them: it would provide the public unprecedented insight into international diplomacy, US foreign policy and, as a result, Australian acquiescence to its ally's demands. Assange was acutely aware of the personal consequences and the persecution that would follow, but felt a duty to the source and to the public to publish the material: "They will chase me to the end of the earth, but I have to do it."

Soon his bank accounts were frozen, WikiLeaks would be cut off from public donations by Mastercard and Visa, the Australian government threatened to cancel his passport and he was wrongfully accused by then prime minister Julia Gillard of unlawful conduct, as part of what was reported to be a co-ordinated international campaign driven by a "WikiLeaks Task Force" in the US.

High-profile US politicians called for him to be killed by drone strike. Assange, busy working on the publication with mainstream media partners, was suddenly the subject of an international manhunt culminating in an Interpol Red Notice and a European Arrest Warrant for a Swedish accusation that had previously been dropped by the Chief Prosecutor in Stockholm because, she said, the evidence "did not disclose any evidence of rape" and that "no crime at all" had been committed.

Assange makes a statement from the Ecuador embassy in 2012.Credit:AP

There were also consequences for me as his lawyer. In the days before "Cablegate" was published, the US State Department leaked to the press a letter it had sent to "Ms Robinson and Mr Assange" accusing us both of putting at risk US national security, military and anti-terrorism operations around the world. The death threats directed at Assange also started being directed at me.

"Cablegate" became known as "the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain" and there is no denying the overwhelming public interest in the material. From Tunisia to Tonga, Canberra to Cairo and the West Bank to West Papua, WikiLeaks disclosures revealed corruption, abuse of power and human rights abuse.

WikiLeaks documents were cited in human rights reports about Sri Lankan military operations against the Tamils and in the groundbreaking documentary No Fire Zone, which led to a UN investigation into war crimes. The "Iraq War Logs" were used by lawyers in filing a case against the UK before the International Criminal Court. And in a landmark judgment in early 2018, the UK Supreme Court held that WikiLeaks cables were admissible as evidence before the British courts. This development is likely to be followed in courts around the Commonwealth.

But what of WikiLeaks' founder and editor the person responsible for making all of this possible?

Assange sits in Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been for over a year-and-a-half, facing US extradition. This, after spending almost seven years in London's Ecuadorian Embassy, to protect himself from US extradition. In 2017 Sweden dropped its criminal investigation, only to re-open and re-close it in 2019.

Women's allegations must always be taken seriously, but so too should due process protections which Assange was denied.

Assange was always willing to face Swedish and British justice, but not at the risk of facing American injustice for publishing information in the public interest.

Throughout that time, successive Australian governments refused to ask for the assurances against extradition he needed to be able to resolve the situation. To the contrary, then foreign minister Bob Carr wrote in Diary of a Foreign Minister that he had been deliberately misleading in his statements to the Australian public inventing his claim that Assange had more consular assistance than any other citizen in order to undermine the campaign that Assange's mother and supporters were trying to start to bring him home. (Carr has more recently written in support of Assange and the need for the Australian government to intervene.)

In 2016, we obtained a ruling from the UN that Assange was being arbitrarily detained and should be immediately permitted to leave the embassy and return home to Australia. Australia took no action.

By 2018, no one could credibly deny the threat of US extradition: US attorney-general Jeff Sessions had said that prosecuting Assange was a priority. Then director of the CIA (and now US Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo declared WikiLeaks a "hostile non-state intelligence agency" and claimed Assange should not benefit from the right to free speech under the US Constitution. Australia took no action.

In 2020, Assange faces 175 years in prison for the 2010 publications for which WikiLeaks won the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism and for which Assange won the Sydney Peace Prize.

Assange's partner, Stella Moris, right, and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, arrive at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey on September 14.Credit:AP

He is now being held on remand, in a high-security prison in London, having not had a visitor since the outbreak of COVID-19. And still Australia takes no action.

The Australian government claims it is offering consular assistance. But this case requires more: it needs diplomatic and political action.

The treatment of Assange stands in stark contrast to assistance the Australian government has offered others, such as International Criminal Court lawyer Melinda Taylor, who was visited by Carr when he was still foreign minister, had a passport delivered and then was brought out of Libya.

The fact that Assange now faces prosecution under the Espionage Act puts at risk editors and journalists not just in the US but around the world.

Assange is an Australian citizen, not based in the US, who published truthful information about the US, but he is being sought for extradition and prosecution in the US. Imagine if Saudi Arabia was seeking the extradition and prosecution of an Australian journalist for having published the truth about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, or if China was seeking the extradition of an Australian editor for publishing truthful information about the beginnings of COVID-19. Australia would definitely have something to say about that. Why not when it is about the US?

A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposes (Monash University Publishing).

The US government is trying to claim in the extradition proceedings that Assange put lives at risk with these publications. But during the Chelsea Manning trial in 2013, a US brigadier-general in counter-intelligence was unable to identify one casualty. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell had said in 2010 "there was no evidence that anyone had been killed because of the leaks".

We must now recognise this case for what it is and has always been about: the persecution of a publisher for robustly publishing what the powerful do not want the public to see evidence of war crimes, human rights abuse and corruption.

As Bob Carr has written following his term as Australia's foreign minister: "Foreign Minister Payne is entitled to courteously remind Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that ... we are a good ally to the point of giddy excess ... We are entitled to one modest request: that in the spirit with which Barack Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning ... it would be better if the extradition of Assange were quietly dropped."

Assange has contributed much to human rights accountability through his work for WikiLeaks and yet he is persecuted for that work. It is time his human rights are respected.

This is an edited extract from A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposs, edited by Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau, Monash University Publishing.

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian barrister in London. She advises the United Liberation Movement for West Papua.

Read the original:

Silencing dissent: WikiLeaks and the violation of human rights - Sydney Morning Herald

JULIAN Assanges father, John Shipton, will visit Nimbin, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby this month, to discuss his sons situation.

He said coming to the Northern Rivers was like coming home to visit extended family.

The Australian man said each time he visits the area he connects with long-term friends and former schoolmates from his time at boarding school in Bathurst, plus other local acquaintances.

He confirmed Mr Assange went to school in different places in Northern NSW with his mother Christine Ann Hawkins, a visual artist, who still lives in the area.

Mr Shipton recently returned from his sons extradition hearing at the Old Bailey in London.

The Australian activist and builder has called for the Australian government to support his son and bring him to Australia.

Mr Shipton said he was trying to put pressure on the Australian Government to help his son.

It is a task we take on, fighting to bring our speaker of truth home to family and friends. We appeal for your help to Bring Julian Home, he said.

Julian Assange, is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006.

WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

In November 2010, Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual assault. Assange said the allegations were a pretext for him to be extradited from Sweden to the United States and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London in June 2012.

On April 11, 2019, Assanges asylum was withdrawn and he was arrested. He was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison.

Assange is currently incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh.

On May 2, 2019, hearings began into the US governments request to extradite him. A decision on extradition is expected on January 4, 2021.

Mr Shipton will speak at the Nimbin Town Hall, 45 Cullen St, Nimbin, on December 8, from 7pm.

He will then appear at the Mullumbimby Civic Hall, 55 Dalley St, Mullumbimby, on December 11 from 7pm, and finally at Marvell Hall, 37 Marvell St, Byron Bay, on December 13 from 7pm.

Mr Shipton said entry to the events was free.

If too many people come along, well speak outside, he said.

More:

Julian Assange's father to speak at 3 Northern Rivers towns - Northern Star

TEHRAN An Australian academic says that killing unlawfully 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian Special Forces is just the tip of the iceberg.

Noting that Brereton Report did not touch on any of the earlier reported crimes, Professor Tim Anderson tells the Tehran Times that the 39 murders identified by the Australian Brereton Report are certainly only the tip of the iceberg.The Brereton inquiry is a long-running investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan. The investigation was led by Paul Brereton, who is both a New South Wales Supreme Court judge and a major general in the army reserve.Anderson, the distinguished author and senior lecturer of political economy at the University of Sydney, predicts the Australian government will try to maintain the war crime scandal under secrecy.The government will further hide any trial process on national security, he adds.The following is the text of the interview:

Q: How do you assess the repercussions of the Brereton Report revealing that Australian military forces in Afghanistan murdered and tortured prisoners, farmers, or civilians between 2009 to 2013?

A: When it comes to the U.S., British and Australian crimes in Afghanistan we should look at the full 19 years from 2001 to 2020. Remember, a war of aggression is the mother of all war crimes. The imperial soldier is necessarily programmed to commit atrocities, against people he does not understand, as he is not defending his country. He requires a fundamentally different mentality to the patriot who defends his country. Imperial commanders understand this, and train their troops accordingly, in notorious desensitization techniques.

The 39 murders identified by the Australian Brereton Report are certainly only the tip of the iceberg, so far as Australian crimes in Afghanistan are concerned, and before we get to the crimes in Iraq and Syria. Details of what are said to be the worst crimes in the Brereton Report have not yet been made public and, so far as I can see, the report did not touch on any of the earlier reported crimes, such as Australian complicity in the murder of ten Sabri tribespeople (mostly teenagers) on 16 May 2002, and the massacre of between one thousand and three thousand prisoners, people who were suffocated in shipping containers, after U.S. operation Anaconda operation at Shah-i-Kot, in March 2002.I mention just these two incidents from the early part of the war and occupation. They were not addressed by the Brereton report.

Q: Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) over a 2017 investigative report based on leaked military documents. How do you measure the Australian Judiciary and polices treatment of possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan?

A: Initially the AFP moved to prosecute journalists, including Daniel Oakes, who had published material provided to them by Australian army whistleblower Major David McBride. (In this sense McBride was our Bradley Manning and Oakes was our Julian Assange) However, the AFP has since decided to not proceed against Oakes but to maintain criminal charges against McBride. Charges against the soldiers have yet to be laid and are already subject to secrecy, with the suspicion that the government will further hide any trial process on national security grounds. The Australian government has already undermined the recommendation to withdraw an honorable citation from one army group and has become obsessed with defending itself from criticism that has come from China. As with the Australian Air Force slaughter of 126 Syrian soldiers in September 2016 (in support of an ISIS operation), this government seems to think it can dispose of its responsibility for shocking war crimes by simply saying sorry, mistake, and forgetting the whole thing.

Q: Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission called for the UK "to open an independent public inquiry to review and investigate the allegations of unlawful killings by UK Special Forces". It seems that there are more possible instances of a war crime. What do you think?

A: It is very important that Afghan institutions assume responsibility for such things, however much we might doubt the capacity of the current regime in Kabul, dependent as it is on the U.S. and other occupation forces. Local authorities will certainly be aware of other crimes reported by Afghan citizens, who can only seek accountability through Afghan institutions. They will never find accountability through U.S., British, Australian, or any other sort of occupation force.

Q: Do you think Australian authorities will urgently investigate war crime allegations? The Australian prime minister has stated that the issue is complicated, which means there are efforts to prolong the investigation process.

A: Public and private obstruction of the Australian processes is already underway. The government has shown it is keen to keep control of the process and not allow it to be internationalized. No charges have yet been laid and we have reason to fear a cover-up.

They will prolong and obfuscate but it is hard for them to totally bury some of the hideous and now public details. For example, the Brereton report (p.120) says Australian soldiers slit Afghan children's throats: "members from the SASR ... saw two 14-year-old boys whom they decided might be Taliban sympathizers. They stopped, searched the boys, and slit their throats. The rest of the Troop then had to clean up the mess, which involved bagging the bodies and throwing them into a nearby river". (https://afghanistaninquiry.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/IGADF-Afghanistan-Inquiry-Public-Release-Version.pdf)

Q: How was the Afghans reaction to the possible war crimes by Australian Special Forces in their territory?

A: I cannot really say, I have just heard that there is the outrage, I imagine not so much at the fact that horrific crimes have been committed they know that - but that there has been yet another exposure of these crimes and they fear that, once again, they will be denied justice and accountability.

Q: What is the Australian motive in participating in the wars that the United States start once in a while? Does it serve Australian security or the economy?

A: Canberra turned to Washington in 1942, when Britain abandoned its colony in Singapore in face of a Japanese advance. Australia swapped one big brother for another and we have paid a heavy process for this protection by participating in every war since, from Korea through Vietnam to the multiple New Middle East wars. Our ferocious pro-war media (run by a few giant investment cartels) has normalized war to the point where Australian people are either numbed or intimidated and fearful to speak out. This has seriously undermined our democracy. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (with support from another former PM, Malcolm Turnbull) recently created a petition which calls for an inquiry into the impact of the Murdoch media on Australian democracy. The Murdoch media has backed every U.S. war in living memory. Engagement with U.S. driven wars now has Australia at odds with its major trade partner China. U.S. dependence is a truly toxic relationship.

Go here to see the original:

Murder of 39 Afghans by Australian soldiers only 'tip of the iceberg': professor - Tehran Times