Biden accused of hypocrisy over seeking extradition of Julian Assange

Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists detained around the world as he continues to seek the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from the UK.

As a candidate in 2020, Biden released a powerful statement about the importance of press freedom.

“At least 360 people worldwide are currently imprisoned for their work in journalism. We all stand in solidarity with these journalists,” Biden said in 2020.

On Friday, the campaign aimed to pressure Biden to drop charges against Assange, moved to Washington DC for the hearing of the Belmarsh Tribunal, the gathering of legal experts and supporters named after the London prison where Assange is being detained.

Organized by Progressive International in partnership with the Wau Holland Foundation, it was held at the National Press Club, close to the US Capitol building, which houses the US Congress.

The hearing was held in the same venue where Assange in 2010 exposed the “collateral murder” video showing US aircrew gunning down Iraqi civilians, the first of hundreds of thousands of leaked secret military documents and diplomatic cables published in major newspapers around the world.

Collateral Murder is 39 minutes of unedited, leaked footage from a gun cam that had caused severe embarrassment in Washington as it showed a US military drone attacking Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, a suburb of Baghdad, and killing 12 civilians.

“President Biden is normally advocating freedom of the press, but at the same time continuing the persecution of Julian Assange,” The Belmarsh Tribunal co-chairperson Srecko Horvat said.

He also warned that continuing the prosecution could serve as a  bad example to other governments.

“This is an attack on press freedom globally – that’s because the United States is advancing what I think is really the extraordinary claim that it can impose its criminal secrecy laws on a foreign publisher who was publishing outside the United States,” he said.

Currently, Assange faces 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents, most of which were leaked by former US army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning.

Manning has stated that she acted on her own initiative in sending the documents to WikiLeaks and not at the urging of Assange.

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison but was later released after former president Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.

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