MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ enfoca a Geopolítica: Julian Assange: True Journalism on Trial

Listening Post: Julian Assange and Journalism

The most important press freedom case of the 21^st Century is resumed in London’s Old Bailey - The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales - on Monday.

After years of background noise swirling around the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, it is sometimes hard to focus on exactly how blindingly simple the issue at the heart of this hearing remains.

It is this: should the Trump administration be able extradite Julian Assange to the US and put him on trial under the 1917 Espionage Act for revealing material about the Afghan and Iraq wars, Guantanamo Bay prison, and diplomatic communications between states?

The Trump government’s justification for this unprecedented use of the Espionage Act is that in the words of Secretary of State and former boss of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, WikiLeaks acted as a ‘non-state hostile intelligence service’.

This designation has huge consequences. It allows the US to extend the territorial reach of its punitive legislation while simultaneous refusing its targets the right to free speech under the provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

But a moment’s thought reveals that Pompeo’s categorisation of WikiLeaks as a ‘non state intelligence service’ is either a nonsense or an unintended compliment.

The whole point of espionage is that it is carried out by one state against others. It is intended to find out secrets, keep them secret except to the state doing the spying, and thereby give that state a political, economic, or military advantage over its rivals.

What (some) journalism does is to openly publish material that the state (or others) would prefer to keep secret so that it can be known and evaluated by an informed public debate. This journalism acts on behalf of the public, not a rival state. And it does so openly, not in secret.

Pompeo’s use of the words ‘non-state’ admits half this case and, in doing so, undermines the other half of the case. A non-state actor intent on publication cannot be spying in any normal sense of the word.

Using a century-old espionage act in such circumstances is simply an attempt to criminalise journalism.

And this is indeed, in the minds of the Trump administration, the real crime that WikiLeaks has committed. It has placed information in the public domain. This is what angers them, this is what drives their multi-million-pound pursuit of Assange.

But for this persecution to reach its zenith Assange has first to be extradited to the US and put on trial in the Eastern District Court of Virginia where the state has never lost an espionage case, not least because jurors are chosen from a population of whom 80 percent work at the nearby CIA and NSA headquarters or the Pentagon.

The British Tory government has been all too willing to expedite the US extradition request. Former Home Secretary Savid Javid signed off on it, as he was required to do, without a moment’s hesitation. His viciously right-wing successor, Priti Patel, could be a Trump family adoptee.

But beyond the global politics at stake, Assange’s treatment by the justice system betrays a political class that is happy for him to disappear into the deepest of black holes.

Leaving aside the fact that he should not be in prison while he awaits his hearing, let alone in Belmarsh high security prison, his access to his lawyers has been restricted to the point which makes a full and fair trial impossible. One moment in the opening week of the hearing in February provided a stark demonstration of this situation.

Julian Assange’s legal team requested that he be brought out of the glass cubicle at the rear of the court room so that he could sit with his lawyers and communicate effectively with them. The judge prevaricated. Then the prosecution’s QC intervened to remind the judge that this was a decision well within her powers to take and that the prosecution had no issue with Assange sitting with his defence team as this was normal practice. The judge still refused on the basis that she had to consult with the private security company that guards the court.

Julian Assange was never allowed to sit with his legal team. He remained incarcerated at the back of the court, as much a participant in his own trial as, he said, ‘a spectator at Wimbledon’.

It is hard to overestimate what is at stake in this case. There is of course plenty of bad journalism out there. Plenty of churnalism that simply regurgitates government and corporate press releases and gossip from the Westminster bubble blowers. But for those journalists actually trying to reveal information that the rich and powerful would like to keep hidden, indeed for any whistle-blower that wants to reveal dangers to the public, Assange’s extradition would be a devastating blow.

And if it’s a devastating blow to journalists and whistle-blowers it’s a devastating blow to us all. To give only the most recent example: how much less would we have known about the true numbers of deaths in the Covid crisis, the disaster in our care homes, the standing disgrace of Do Not Resuscitate notices issued to the vulnerable, or the failure of track and trace, let alone Dominic Cumming’s tour of Britain, if whistle-blowers and journalists had not told us the facts that the government wanted hidden.

The years spent claiming asylum against extradition to the US in the London embassy of Ecuador, the year spent awaiting this hearing in Belmarsh, make it seem as if the Assange case must be reaching its conclusion. But it is not. In many ways it is just beginning.

It is a peculiarity of the British legal system that extradition cases are first heard in Magistrates Courts. These are no jury lesser courts more familiar with motoring offences than freedom of speech cases with global political ramifications.

The judge in the Assange case is clearly terrified of making any, even procedural, decision that could later be criticised. She knows that any decision, whether to extradite Assange or not, will be appealed to a higher court by the losing side.

So this titantic struggle will not be over until this hearing is over and a subsequent appeal is heard.

The tide has begun to turn over the Assange case. A once supportive paper turned hostile, the Guardian, is now supportive again, running editorials opposing extradition. So is the Telegraph, and even the Daily Mail and the Sun run neutral reports. Every major NGO, from Amnesty to Human Rights Watch and Pen, are opposed to extradition. But opinion needs to be turned into power. For that to happen all those who wish to see the punitive power of the American Leviathan contained, all those that want to see freedom of speech and freedom of the press preserved have a single, urgent task. That is to create a wave of public mobilisation that can force the Tory government to exercise a power that it does in fact possess: to refuse the extradition of Julian Assange to the US.

175 years in prison! In case of extradition

As I said above, on Monday Julian Assange Julian Assange was driven to the Old Bailey to continue his fight against extradition to the United States, where the Trump administration has launched the most dangerous attack on press freedom in at least a generation by indicting him for publishing US government documents. Amid coverage of the proceedings, Assange’s critics have inevitably commented on his appearance, rumours of his behaviour while isolated in the Ecuadorian embassy, and other salacious details.

These predictable distractions are emblematic of the sorry state of our political and cultural discourse. If Assange is extradited to face charges for practising journalism and exposing government misconduct, the consequences for press freedom and the public’s right to know will be catastrophic. Still, rather than seriously addressing the important principles at stake in Assange’s unprecedented indictment and the 175 years in prison he faces, many would rather focus on inconsequential personality profiles.

Julian Assange is not on trial for skateboarding in the Ecuadorian embassy, for tweeting, for calling Hillary Clinton a war hawk, or for having an unkempt beard as he was dragged into detention by British police. Assange faces extradition to the United States because he published incontrovertible proof of war crimes and abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, embarrassing the most powerful nation on Earth. Assange published hard evidence of “the ways in which the first world exploits the third”, according to whistleblower Chelsea Manning, the source of that evidence. Assange is on trial for his journalism, for his principles, not his personality.

You’ve probably heard the refrain from well-meaning pundits: “You don’t have to like him, but you should oppose threats to silence him.” But that refrain misses the point by reinforcing the manipulative tropes deployed against Assange.

When setting a gravely dangerous precedent, governments don’t typically persecute the most beloved individuals in the world. They target those who can be portrayed as subversive, unpatriotic – or simply weird. Then they actively distort public debate by emphasizing those traits.

These techniques are not new. After Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to journalists to expose the US government’s lies about Vietnam, the Nixon administration’s “White House Plumbers” broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in search of material that could be used to discredit him. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was falsely portrayed as collaborating with the Chinese, then the Russians. Obsession with military intelligence analyst Manning’s mental health and gender identity was ubiquitous. By demonizing the messenger, governments seek to poison the message.

The prosecution will be all too happy when coverage of Assange’s extradition hearing devolves into irrelevant tangents and smears. It matters little that Assange’s beard was the result of his shaving kit having been confiscated, or that reports of Paul Manafort visiting him in the embassy were proven to be fabricated. By the time these petty claims are refuted, the damage will be done. At best, public debate over the real issues will be derailed; at worst, public opinion will be manipulated in favour of the establishment.

By drawing attention away from the principles of the case, the obsession with personality pushes out the significance of WikiLeaks’ revelations and the extent to which governments have concealed misconduct from their own citizens. It pushes out how Assange’s 2010 publications exposed 15,000 previously uncounted civilian casualties in Iraq, casualties that the US Army would have buried. It pushes out the fact that the United States is attempting to accomplish what repressive regimes can only dream of: deciding what journalists around the globe can and cannot write. It pushes out the fact that all whistleblowers and journalism itself, not just Assange, is on trial here.

What’s at stake

“When I first met Julian Assange more than ten years ago, I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks. He replied: “Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism.”

I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way. Assange believes that journalists are the agents of people, not power: that we, the people, have a right to know about the darkest secrets of those who claim to act in our name.

If the powerful lie to us, we have the right to know. If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public, we have the right to know. If they conspire against us, as Bush and Blair did over Iraq, then pretend to be democrats, we have the right to know.

It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trumps fascist America.

In 2008, a top secret US State Department report described in detail how the United States would combat this new moral threat. A secretly-directed personal smear campaign against Julian Assange would lead to “exposure [and] criminal prosecution”.

The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its founder. Page after page revealed a coming war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and democracy.

The imperial shock troops would be those who called themselves journalists: the big hitters of the so-called mainstream, especially the “liberals” who mark and patrol the perimeters of dissent.

And that is what happened. I have been a reporter for more than 50 years and I have never known a smear campaign like it: the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club: who believed journalism was a service to the public, never to those above.

Assange shamed his persecutors. He produced scoop after scoop. He exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America’s wars, the corruption of dictators, the evils of Guantanamo.

He forced us in the West to look in the mirror. He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators: those I would call Vichy journalists. None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger: that the “sex scandal” in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination. And he was right, and repeatedly right.

The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian Assange. It is not due process. It is due revenge. The American indictment is clearly rigged, a demonstrable sham. So far, the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War.

Today, the land that gave us Magna Carta, Great Britain, is distinguished by the abandonment of its own sovereignty in allowing a malign foreign power to manipulate justice and by the vicious psychological torture of Julian – a form of torture, as Nils Melzer, the UN expert has pointed out, that was refined by the Nazis because it was most effective in breaking its victims.

Every time I have visited Assange in Belmarsh prison, I have seen the effects of this torture. When I last saw him, he had lost more than 10 kilos in weight; his arms had no muscle. Incredibly, his wicked sense of humor was intact.

As for Assange’s homeland, Australia has displayed only a cringeing cowardice as its government has secretly conspired against its own citizen who ought to be celebrated as a national hero. Not for nothing did George W. Bush anoint the Australian prime minister his “deputy sheriff”.

It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West. But which press? The Guardian? The BBC, The New York Times, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post?

No, the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely. The Judases on the Guardian who flirted with Julian, exploited his landmark work, made their pile then betrayed him, have nothing to fear. They are safe because they are needed.

Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism – those like Julian Assange.

Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to stand by a true journalist whose sheer courage ought to be inspiration to all of us who still believe that freedom is possible. I salute him. » John Pilger, australian journalist, writer, documentaru filmmaker.

Julian Assange: Power Enemy

PALESTINA

Palestinians in Gaza burned pictures of Israeli, American, Bahraini, and United Arab Emirates leaders on Saturday in protest against the two Gulf countries' moves to normalise ties with Israel.

Bahrain on Friday joined the UAE in agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, a move forged partly through shared fears of Iran but one that could leave the Palestinians further isolated.

While the United States, Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain hailed the diplomatic moves as a significant step towards peace and stability in the Middle East, the Palestinians see it as a betrayal. They fear a weakening of a long-standing pan-Arab position that calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Despite a deep political rift going back to 2007, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority (PA) has a limited rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and his Hamas rivals have been united against the Gulf states' move.

In the West Bank, Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat said the diplomatic push will not achieve peace if the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved first.

"The Bahraini, Israeli, American agreement to normalise relations is now part of a bigger package in the region. It isn't about peace, it is not about relations between countries. We are witnessing an alliance, a military alliance being created in the region," Erekat said.

Iran, meanwhile, said on Saturday that Bahrain's move meant it would be complicit in Israeli policies that threatened regional security, Iranian state television reported. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Bahrain would face "harsh revenge" from its own people and the Palestinians over the Gulf state's move.

Turkey also condemned the deal saying it undermined the Palestinian cause and would "further embolden Israel to continue its illegal practices ... and attempts to make the occupation of Palestinian territories permanent".

Bahrainis opposed to their government's agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel vented their frustration on social media on Saturday, underlining the complexities of the Gulf's rapprochement with Israel.

The hashtags #Bahrainis_against_normalisation and #NormalizationIsBetrayal were trending on Twitter after Trump announced the deal late on Friday.

Bahrain, a Sunni-ruled kingdom with a large Shia population, shares with Israel a deep enmity towards Iran, and relies on the United States, which stations its Fifth Fleet on the tiny but strategic archipelago.

Former MP Ali Alaswad wrote it was "a black day in the history of Bahrain".

The kingdom - a small archipelago located between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran - has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shia-led protests demanding reforms.

Opposition group Al-Wefaq criticised the normalisation deal : "The agreement between the despotic regime in Bahrain and the Zionist occupation government is a total betrayal of Islam and Arabism and a departure from the Islamic, Arab and national consensus," it said on Twitter.

Other anti-normalisation groups, based in Bahrain and abroad, expressed their anger in statements sent to media calling the deal "shameful".

Sari Nusseibeh, a former top PLO official, said the Palestinian leadership was "very upset". "But I don't think they are more upset than in the past about the Arab world in general. Palestinians have always complained that the Arab world has not stood behind them as they should have," said Nusseibeh.

The Palestinian cause had already become less central as the region has been rocked by the Arab Spring upheavals, the Syria war, and the bloody onslaught by the armed group ISIL (ISIS).

At the same time, hostility has deepened between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"There have been all kinds of problems in the Arab world - disputes, revolutions, civil wars, tensions between different Arab countries," said Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib. "Palestinians are now paying the price for the deterioration in Arab unity."

The PA maintains the validity of the so-called "Arab consensus" and rejects the notion that it is isolated. That consensus has long held that Arab states will only normalise ties if Israel meets a number of conditions.

One demand is for Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967. Another is to agree to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a third to find a just solution for the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

One Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, shared the view that at the moment "the Palestinians don't really have a way out". They are also stuck because of those who want to support their cause, whether it is Turkey or Iran."

Iran already has relations with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and slightly cooler ties with the PA. The Palestinian cause has also received backing from Turkey, a regional power increasingly at odds with Israel and that militarily backs a rival faction in the Libya war to the UAE and Egypt.

"Turkey does have an ambition to lead this cause and is pointing to the hypocrisy of both Arab states and the West for not emphasising this issue enough," said Gallia Lindenstrauss of Israel's National Institute for Security Research.

Rajoub insisted: "We are not ignoring any country. Turkey is a regional superpower, it's an Islamic country and we are on good terms. We'll keep cooperating with everybody."

But Khatib argued the Palestinians should keep their distance. "It's not wise for the Palestinians to be caught within the regional tensions and competition between regional superpowers," he said. "If you side with Iran, you'll lose Saudi Arabia. If you side with Turkey, you'll lose someone else. It's better for the Palestinians to keep a safe distance from these different regional superpowers."

The problem is that the Palestinians are so abandoned that they need any help they can get.

INTERACTIVE: Palestinian Remix