‘I have pleaded guilty to journalism,’ Assange of Wikileaks

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday that he was only released after years of incarceration because he pleaded guilty to practicing “journalism,” which he described as a pillar of a free society.

Assange has spent most of the past fourteen years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid arrest, or locked up in Belmarsh prison in the British capital.

He was released from prison in June after serving a sentence for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents.

“I’m not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism,” Assange told the Council of Europe rights body at its headquarters in Strasbourg in his first public comments since his release.

“In the end, I chose freedom over unrealizable justice… justice is now out of the question for me,” Assange said, noting that he faced a prison sentence of 175 years.

Speaking calmly and flanked by his wife Stella who fought for his release, he added: “Journalism is not a crime, it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”

“The fundamental issue is simple. Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their work,” Assange said.

The trove of confidential documents released by Wikileaks include candid descriptions of foreign leaders by the US State Department, accounts of extrajudicial killings and intelligence gathering on allies.

Assange argued that his case provided insight into “how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression” against their enemies, adding that this “cannot become the norm here.”

– ‘More impunity, more secrecy’ –

He said that during his incarceration “ground was lost” and regretted that he now sees “more impunity, more secrecy and more retaliation for telling the truth.”

“Freedom of expression and everything that flows from it is at a dark crossroads,” he told the hearing of the legal committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

“Let us all commit ourselves to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never goes out and that the pursuit of truth lives on and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of a few,” he said.

Assange’s case remains highly controversial.

Advocates call him a champion of free speech and say he has been persecuted and wrongly imprisoned by authorities. Opponents see him as a reckless blogger whose uncensored publication of ultra-sensitive documents endangered lives and compromised American security.

US President Joe Biden, who is likely to issue some pardon before leaving office in January, has previously described Assange as a “terrorist”.

Assange’s timing and choice of location have puzzled some observers.

The Council of Europe brings together the 46 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights, with little say over Assange’s legal fate.

Assange is still campaigning for a US presidential pardon for his conviction under the Espionage Act.

The post ‘I Plead Guilty to Journalism’, Wikileaks’ Assange first appeared on Digital Journal.