After more than 13 years of being a prisoner, founder of Wikileaks, a website that published millions of sensitive leaked documents that primarily exposed the functioning of the US federal government and the wars it engaged in, walked free on Wednesday and returned to his native Australia where he was welcomed by family and friends.
Assange shot to fame after WikiLeaks released a classified US military video shot in 2007 depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. The Barack Obama administration at the time said the release of documents endangered the lives of US citizens and their partners.
Previously Wikileaks had also released millions of documents pertaining to diplomatic cables concerning the war in Afghanistan. His actions led him to be charged by US prosecutors for espionage and publishing US Military secrets where, if extradited, tried and found guilty, he faced as many as 175 years in prison.
Instead, thanks to a deal that his lawyers secured with US prosecutors, Assange would plead guilty to a single charge of releasing US Military secrets and in exchange he would be sentenced to the time he has already spent in prison and as such would be allowed to walk free.
It is 13 years since Assange first applied for and secured asylum and was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after he was initially charged by Swedish prosecutors on charges of rape and molestation after an accusation by two women. The charges at the time were widely seen as a ruse to extradite Assange to the US where he would face prosecution and possibly lengthy jail time.
While the current deal is a win for Assange, who can now finally put his incarceration behind him, and represents a win for the US government which secured a guilty plea out of him, the ultimate loser is the cause of transparency and the defence of journalism whose raison d’etre is to shine light on the misdeeds of government especially in times of universal deceit.
The arrest of Assange and Chelsea Manning, the US army man who leaked the sensitive files to Wikileaks has had a chilling effect on whistleblowers who have since been few and far in between.
The publication of information, especially concerning acts of commission and omission of government, should never be a prosecutable offence. Even the publication of sensitive information, including that of military operations should not be a prosecutable offence provided that it is done in a manner that does not endanger ongoing military operations or personnel.
But prosecuting someone who exposes the government’s misdeeds, be it as a whistleblower, a publisher, or a journalist should never be a prosecutable offence. More importantly, it should not be the government or its agents that should decide what is a prosecutable offence or not.
Recent years are littered with examples of the government going after journalists, whistleblowers, dissenters and the like on flimsy grounds. Back home in India, the prosecution and long incarceration of Siddique Kappan is a case in point. Similarly journalists from Kashmir continue to be in jail on flimsy charges of threatening national security or unfounded charges of terrorism. More importantly a government should be allowed to be the arbiter in its own cause.
