“The press is not a crime,” Joe Biden said on World Press Freedom Day. good news! So he’s perfectly in tune with Dominic Brady, president of the International Association of Journalists, whose slogan he copied word for word. A good addition to the fight to get the growing number of dailies jailed for doing their jobs.
But let’s put that in context. By introducing the slogan, the US president took aim at the case of the “Wall Street Journal” reporter who was recently arrested and detained by Russian authorities. Dominic Brody took part in an appeal launched last year at the Swiss Press Club by a dozen Swiss teachers and countless professional associations for the release of Julian Assange.
The contradiction is obvious. Biden cites freedom of expression as a key virtue of democracy and transparency. But when the information directly affects the interests of the US government, that’s a different matter. Julian Assange has spent four years in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison awaiting extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison for espionage.
Is he guilty? Along with some of the most prominent international media outlets, after releasing classified documents revealing attacks against civilians in Iraq by the US military. It could be a war crime. But WikiLeaks founder Assange was jailed after seven years in solitary confinement at the Ecuadorian embassy.
“Australia’s Prime Minister, Assange’s Home, Raises Voice.”
Everything in Julian Assange’s life smells of brimstone. Man divides, his methods compete. False allegations, including rape, and massive smear campaigns launched against him made him irradiated. Even the media, including his ex-partners, have distanced themselves. As for politicians, who wants to lecture America?
However, the tide is beginning to turn. Because this tragic farce cannot go on any longer. The carefully cultivated fog is being lifted to reveal the limitless grandeur and relentlessness, including the plan to assassinate Assange, created by Trump-era CIA director Mike Pompeo. And so the prime minister of Assange’s home country of Australia raised his voice and vowed to challenge Joe Biden next time around the Quad summit. Brazil’s new president, Lula, is also pressing.
In the United States, six Democratic congressmen have publicly called to drop the lawsuits, which “undermine America’s moral authority and violate the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of the press.” For their part, the media and journalists, long divided and uncomfortable with the whistleblower issue, are gradually rising to the editorial forefront, as evidenced by the Tribune for Assange, published by former associates of WikiLeaks.
Whether Assange is a journalist or not is irrelevant in this matter. Not only because the most basic human rights were violated, but also because Assange, with or without a press cover, was carrying out a journalistic act: seeking information, analyzing it and disseminating it.
Tomorrow, if Assange is condemned, the entire press will be put in a bind. A precedent that opens the door to all abuses. Imagine for a moment that, with a disastrous election, Donald Trump returns to power. We know his own slogan, “The press is the enemy of the people.” He had to lock it.
* Executive Director of the Swiss Press Club
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– Journalism is not a crime. Still…
Pierre Ruetschi – Journalist *