48 Australian MPs and senators recently sent an open letter to what they say is their “closest strategic ally”, telling him that the lawsuit against the WikiLeaks founder “set a dangerous precedent”, read the press British today.
Australian politicians of all persuasions have jointly urged US Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the extradition of Julian Assange from the UK.
In unison, 48 congressmen and senators, including 13 from the ruling Labor Party, warned that sanctions against the WikiLeaks founder would “set a dangerous precedent” for press freedom and would damage the reputation of the United States, could we read in the British newspaper The Guardian.
Mr Assange, an Australian citizen, is being held in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he is resisting a US bid to extradite him so he can face charges related to the publication of hundreds of thousands leaked documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as diplomatic cables, continues the author of the article.
Members of the Labour, Coalition, Greens and opposition parties published an open letter on Tuesday imploring Mr Garland to ‘discontinue extradition proceedings and allow Mr Assange to return home him”.
“If the extradition request is approved, Australians will witness the deportation of one of our citizens from one Aukus partner to another – our closest strategic ally – and Mr. Assange risks spending the rest of his life in prison,” the letter said, according to the same source.
“It would set a dangerous precedent for all citizens of the world, journalists, editors, media organizations and freedom of the press. It would also be unnecessarily damaging to the United States as a world leader in freedom of expression. and the rule of law”, we continue.
The Mail says the charges, which include 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, relate to Mr. Assange “as a journalist and publisher” who published material “containing evidence of war crimes, corruption and human rights abuses”.
Additionally, House and Senate members compared the prosecution of Mr. Assange to the case of former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was freed in 2017 when Barack Obama commuted his sentence. sentenced to 35 years in military prison for leaking information.
In the letter, it is, moreover, written that Mr. Assange, who initially took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, was effectively incarcerated for more than a decade in one form or another, while the person who leaked classified information had their sentence commuted.
Source: lopinion