Activists campaigning for Julian Assange’s release have said they should have been offered a seat at a press freedom forum organised by the Australian government, as the US court case against the WikiLeaks founder represents a “direct threat to every publisher in that room”.
Greg Barns SC, an adviser to the Australian Assange Campaign, said the case should be “front and centre” at next Monday’s media roundtable, which is billed as a discussion on press freedom reform.
“To talk about media freedom without talking about the Assange case means that you’re diminishing the importance of that summit,” Barns told Crikey.
But Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’ office dismissed the suggestion the campaign should have been invited, saying the meeting was for employers and groups representing journalists, not activists lobbying for specific causes.
“We’re inviting a range of people, and there will be other opportunities for people to contribute,” a spokesperson said.
Barns said Assange, the Australian behind the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, is facing an “effective death penalty” if he’s extradited from the UK to the US, where the 51-year-old faces decades in prison on 18 counts including a spying allegation.
The silk argued Assange’s outcome could have consequences for journalists working in Australia as well.
“In circumstances where the US is using its domestic espionage legislation to prosecute an individual who isn’t a US citizen … it creates a precedent whereby any Australian journalist who publishes material which the US deemed to be adverse to its interests could find themselves being prosecuted,” Barns said.
“This is a direct threat to every publisher in that room.”
The roundtable was billed as an opportunity for media organisations to have a “general discussion about press freedom issues in Australia and further options for reform”.
“The Albanese government believes a strong and independent media is vital to democracy and holding governments to account,” Dreyfus said in a statement announcing the roundtable.
“Journalists should never face the prospect of being charged or even jailed just for doing their jobs.”
A spokesperson from the Attorney-General’s Department said the invitations to a “range of media organisations” would “ensure a balanced cross-section in representation”.
“There is agreement across the Parliament and the community that improved protections for press freedom are needed. The Australian government intends to progress legislative reform as a priority,” the spokesperson said.
“This roundtable is only one opportunity for engagement on issues relating to press freedoms and the government is committed to ongoing engagement about press freedoms and improved protections.”
The Albanese government has been at the helm for almost 9 months – Julian Assange is still incarcerated.
Meantime the USA is shoring-up their base & facilities in the NT, threatening our sovereignty & turning Oz into a military target. With that giant bargaining chip one would’ve thought Albanese/Wong could have negotiated the small favour of no longer prosecuting Assange.
You’re assuming they wanted to in the first place. Australian governments of both stripes gave away our sovereignty long ago.
Wong made it clear in a government hearing last week that she despises Julian so she won’t be doing anything for him. When asked about Julian by the Legislative Affairs Committee she snickered and seemed hostile, which is good for those of us who support Julian’s Extradition but bad for Julian and his supporters…………
if “Journalists should never face the prospect of being charged or even jailed just for doing their jobs” then the government is damaged by its gutless inaction in relation to the US’s sick and perverse prosecution and persecution of Assange, who’s only ‘crime’ was exposing the incompetence and mendacity of the US military and foreign affairs apparatus.
The Assange case is only one of many issues on which this government is a total letdown. It’s utterly depressing.
I guess, the only thing left is to cross finger that his family’s hope that Rudd is going to work on implementing some secret plan to save Assange from American ‘justice’ is warranted.
Sometimes I check the net, and sometimes I read the emails from Phillip Adams and others about where the Assange case is, and what’s being done about it by our government. Then I yearn for something more exciting and go down to the beach to watch the granite boulders at the base of the cliff being eroded into sand by the tide.
Rudd will do nothing of the sort………Most experts interviewed have said he will end up staying out of the case altogether.
Didn’t the old Superman TV show have the saying:
There is Truth
There is Justice
Then there is the American Way!
Oh! I think that’s what it said!!
Under Trump he would have been evicted as an Alien.
I wonder what Superman would have said if he’d been brought up in the old Soviet Union?
I hope the major news publishers in the US are standing up for him – they happily used WikiLeaks at the time and none of them were punished.
It seems that war crimes and undermining foreign governments that you are not at war with is OK.
The Australian Government is very weak on this one – witness K knows all about it.
It was The Guardian that exposed the entire tranche of documents held by Wikileaks, by publicly releasing the password that Assange had protected it with. Then The Guardian went on an anti-Assange crusade to cover their backsides. Now all those media groups that benefitted from the Wikileaks files, are limply whispering that Assange should not be prosecuted. Perhaps finally, they are realising the potential dangers to themselves should the US prevail in their persecution.