WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday said that he was freed after years of incarceration because he \u201cpled guilty to journalism.\u201d Addressing the European Parliament committee on his detention and conviction, Assange said: “The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs.\u201d \u201cJournalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society,” he added. According to him, the CIA \u201cdrew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks and the planting of false information.\u201d \u201cMy wife and my infant son were also targeted,\u201d he said, adding that instructions were given to \u201cobtain DNA\u201d from his \u201c6-month-old son\u2019s nappy.\u201d Assange emphasized how \u201caggressive\u201d the CIA acted at that time against him. \u201cThis assembly is no stranger to the extraterritorial abuses by the CIA,\u201d he stressed, pointing to \u201csecret detention centers\u201d and \u201cunlawful renditions on European soil.\u201d \u201cIn February this year, the alleged source of some of our CIA revelations, former CIA officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation,\u201d Assange said, adding: \u201cHis windows are blacked out, and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it.\u201d According to the WikiLeaks founder, such conditions are \u201cmore severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.\u201d Assange also highlighted the absence of adequate protections against \u201ctransnational repression,\u201d which he added leaves Europe \u201cvulnerable\u201d to foreign powers exploiting its \u201cmutual legal assistance\u201d and extradition agreements. He said CIA Director Mike Pompeo succeeded in securing a US government warrant for his extradition, which the UK kept secret for two years while the US and Ecuador shaped the conditions for his arrest. Washington, according to him, asserted a \u201cdangerous new global legal position. Only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights, but the US claims its Espionage Act still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So, Europeans in Europe must obey US secrecy law with no defenses at all.\u201d If Europe values free speech and publishing, it must act to prevent future transnational repression, he suggested. Thanking all the people and organizations that have supported him throughout these years, Assange said: \u201cIt is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.\u201d \u201cFreedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad,\u201d he warned and said: \u201cI fear that unless institutions like PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late.\u201d \u201cLet us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never dims, that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few,\u201d Assange said. Assange rose to fame in the 2010s for leaking classified US documents on the internet, gaining international accolades and detractors when he exposed sensitive American diplomatic correspondence and military records, including a video of a 2007 US airstrike in Baghdad that killed several people, including two Reuters journalists. He also gained notoriety for exposing confidential data seen as helping then-candidate Donald Trump win the US presidency and for allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange doggedly opposed extradition to the US and spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in a bid to stay free. He was ejected from the diplomatic compound in 2019 and has spent the last five years in a British prison as he fought an extradition order to the US. He was freed after formally accepting a plea deal in a federal court on the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote US territory in the western Pacific, that saw him plead guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act related to his publication of military and diplomatic documents. He then flew on to his native Australia where he was greeted by his wife, Stella.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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