Assange: against extradition

Submitted by AWL on 2 November, 2021 - 11:11 Author: Mohan Sen
Julian Assange

Proceedings began at the High Court in London on 27 October for the US government’s appeal against a court decision in January 2021 to block extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on charges of violating the USA’s Espionage Act.

In 2010 Wikileaks published thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing what look like war crimes.

The US government has provided various assurances about how it will treat Assange. Given that the UN special rapporteur on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment believes he has already suffered mistreatment in the British prison system and is in poor health, these assurances are worth little. We do not see Assange as a hero of the left. His politics are a confused mix of “libertarian”, left-wing and right-wing. His seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy (2012-9) started with him seeking to avoid a hearing in Sweden on charges of sexual assaults there.

But the “leaks” for which he is charged in the US are on the whole no crime from a socialist point of view; rather, a positive virtue. We back the call for him to be released and allowed to return to his native Australia.

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