Three months after his release from Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange joined a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). On October 2, 2024, the assembly adopted a resolution formally recognizing him as a political prisoner and warning of the rising global threats to press freedom.
In his speech, a day before the vote took place, Assange told the assembly members about his concerns regarding the growing attacks on free speech, stating that, from his perspective, the world now faces more impunity, more secrecy, and more censorship than when the United States first began targeting WikiLeaks for its publications 14 years ago.
European legislators involved in the drafting of the report on Assange’s case, including rapporteur Thórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir, highlighted the chilling effect the case is certain to have on the global media sector. The report emphasized that Assange was the first publisher prosecuted under the US Espionage Act for making classified information public, sending a dangerous message to journalists and editors elsewhere. Ævarsdóttir also outlined the disproportionately harsh treatment Assange was subjected to by the US authorities and their allies, explaining that this treatment would ignite a climate of self-censorship all across the media sector.
Assange himself reflected on the weakness of the legal mechanisms that should protect publishers and journalists in similar circumstances. At the time when he accepted the plea tabled by the US, he was choosing freedom over “unrealizable justice,” he said.
“I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today because after years of incarceration I plead guilty to journalism. I plead guilty to seeking information from a source. I plead guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I plead guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else,” Assange stated.
Many representatives voiced concerns about possible consequences of the case, warning that other governments might follow the US’s example of persecuting those who reveal classified information in the public interest. Representatives from the ranks of the Unified European Left, in particular, were uncompromising on the fact that Assange’s imprisonment was political, despite opposition from figures like UK representative Richard Keen, who argued that Assange was detained purely on legal grounds.
“Britain has a long history of denying political prisoners,” countered Sinn Fein’s Paul Gavan, calling on PACE to take a firm stand. Andrej Hunko of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance for Reason and Justice added that international solidarity movements were crucial to securing Assange’s release, reminding the assembly of the broader significance of defending social and human rights.
While PACE’s recognition of Assange as a political prisoner is an important breakthrough in the struggle to protect and advance press freedom, the effects of the case will certainly continue to reverberate as conservative and neoliberal governments around the world remain eager to limit access to reports on their imperialist and anti-people policies.
