Editor’s Note: The following statement was issued as a news release on February 26, 2024. For press inquiries, please contact Leonard Eiger at outreach@gzcenter.org or at 360-375-3207.
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action supports Julian Assange for exposing war crimes committed by the United States (US) government, and calls on the government of the United Kingdom (UK) release him immediately and facilitate his safe return to Australia.
Last week in London, lawyers for imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asked the British High Court of Justice to grant him a new appeal, which would likely be his last chance to avoid extradition to the United States, where he faces a 175-year prison sentence (and a possible death sentence) for publishing classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson said that Assange’s extradition would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom. “If Julian is extradited and goes on trial [in the United States] under the Espionage Act, this is a case which is going to set precedent which criminalizes journalistic activity and will be used against the rest of the media.”
Rather than being persecuted by the US government – the judicial process having been subverted by the State’s desire to maintain the secrecy of its war crimes and divert attention to those who expose the truth – Assange should be praised for shining a light on the government’s crimes against humanity.
The US government charged Assange with multiple violations under the Espionage Act of 1917, an archaic law that has been misused by the US since its enactment. If convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years in jail in what would be the first prosecution of a publisher under the U.S. Espionage Act. In a healthy democracy, journalists can reveal war crimes and cases of torture and abuse without being punished. If our government can use espionage laws against journalists and publishers, they are deprived of their most important and traditional defense – of acting in the interest of the public’s right to know.
Speaking for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in 2019, CPJ North America Program Coordinator Alexandra Ellerbeck said, “It is a reckless assault on the First Amendment that crosses a line… and threatens to criminalize the most basic practices of reporting.” 
In the US constitutional democracy, We The People have the need and the right to know what our government is doing in our name. When such information is withheld and kept secret we cannot fully take part in the democratic process, and therefore do not have a properly functioning democracy.
The erosion of democracy and First Amendment press freedoms hinder the dissemination of truth and allows the responsible parties to skirt responsibility and repercussions for their criminal actions. To date there have been no prosecutions resulting from the evidence published by Wikileaks clearly showing war crimes being committed by, and on behalf of, the US Government.
We recognize both freedom of the press and the public’s right to know – recognized in both the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. These cherished freedoms are in danger, and need protection.
Julian Assange’s so-called crime was to publish records of war crimes leaked to him from whistleblowers who shone a spotlight on US operations and the realities of the endless ‘War on Terror’. The most infamous of these was the ‘Collateral Murder‘ video footage of US helicopter attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 civilians including two Reuters journalists. Chelsea Manning disclosed the ‘collateral murder’ footage to Wikileaks along with nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents, and was court-martialed in July 2013 for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.
The US government has demonstrated that it is more concerned with covering up its war crimes around the world than upholding the Constitution of the United States, all in the name of national security. The crimes exposed with such shocking clarity and lack of repercussions to those involved demonstrate that the disregard for human life extends from the very highest levels of government all the way to the lowest levels of the military chain of command.
As Assange said in a December 20, 2012 statement, “The power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt and undemocratic power. So much so that ordinary people here in the West are now the enemy of governments, an enemy to be watched, an enemy to be controlled and to be impoverished.” Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has a deep understanding and appreciation for this statement in as much as our members, and many of our colleagues in the anti-nuclear movement, have worked for decades to speak out about and resist the undemocratic power represented by our nation’s nuclear arsenal and our government’s continuing threat of use of nuclear weapons, and many have faced legal consequences as a result.
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Inhumane Treatment, Nils Melzer, accompanied by a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, visited Assange in 2019. They examined and interviewed Assange following the internationally recognized ‘Istanbul protocol’. Melzer’s report on this inspection stated that he believed Assange showed clear symptoms of having been psychologically tortured. Mr. Assange should, therefore, be viewed as a victim of psychological torture, and his extradition should therefore be illegal under international human rights law. Melzer also said that, “While the US Government prosecutes Mr. Assange for publishing information about serious human rights violations, including torture and murder, the officials responsible for these crimes continue to enjoy impunity.”
On February 14, 2024 Australia’s parliament voted to approve a historic resolution calling on the US and UK to release Assange and allow him to return home to Australia. As Australian member of Parliament, MP Andrew Wilkie said of the resolution, “…it is the will of the Australian government, the Australian Parliament and the Australian people that Julian Assange be brought home.”
Whereas the charges brought against Julian Assange by the US government are completely baseless:
We call on the UK government to immediately release Julian Assange and facilitate his safe return to Australia at the earliest possible date.
We further call on the Biden Administration, specifically Attorney General Merrick Garland and the US Department of Justice, to immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange that relate to his publishing activities in his work with Wikileaks.
We call on the US Congress to pass House Resolution 934, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.”
We also call on the US Congress to conduct an impartial investigation into the process by which Assange was indicted as well as the US government’s role in coercing other governments (particularly the Ecuadorian and UK governments) into cooperating with the US in extraditing Assange.
Furthermore, we support all whistleblowers, and the journalists who bring their evidence of state-sponsored crimes to the public sphere, thereby keeping democracy alive.
We agree with the statement made by the Walkley Foundation in Australia in June 2022 that, “…by designing and constructing a means to encourage whistleblowers, WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange took a brave, determined, and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency that has empowered people all over the world. And in the process, they have triggered a robust debate inside and outside the media about official secrecy, the public’s right to know and the future of journalism.”
Assange’s extradition would send a chilling message to journalists and others gathering evidence to investigate war crimes, ultimately threatening initiatives seeking justice for civilians caught up in wars and violent conflicts.
Finally, we should be clear that the fate of Julian Assange will have repercussions around the world. Freedom of speech and journalistic freedom are at risk in far too many countries. The most egregious current example is the ongoing (and at least some explicitly targeted) killings of journalists in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces. Journalism is not a crime!
We call on all people who cherish freedom of expression to stand with Julian Assange and demand his immediate release and safe return to Australia. We continue to uphold all journalists who speak truth to power, and support their sources – including whistleblowers – who risk everything to make this possible.
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The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977. The center is on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the roots of violence and injustice in our world and to experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. We resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.
