Australian-Chinese writer Yang Hengjun has been imprisoned in China for seven months. Foreign Minister Marise Payne has, rightfully, complained that he is being held in “harsh conditions” and should be released or only be detained in accordance with the rules of international law. The Australian government has been outspoken on Yang’s behalf.
But shouldn’t this attention and care be afforded to all Australian citizens?
For almost six months Julian Assange has been in the UK’s top security prison, Belmarsh. He is being imprisoned ahead of court proceedings, which are aimed at extraditing him to the US where he faces the prospect of 175 years in jail.
Yang and Assange are Australian citizens imprisoned under troublesome conditions. Each is to be charged with espionage yet denied the means of preparing their defence. Both are denounced by powerful states, threatened with years of imprisonment and possible death. And yet there hasn’t been a peep from our government — or mainstream journalists, for that matter — on Assange.
At the recent Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom Summit, there was a great focus on the need to protect whistleblowers. Here, ABC chair Ita Buttrose commented on police raids on the ABC: “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life … to intimidate journalists and to put terror into whistleblowers so they won’t come and talk to us”.
We cannot talk about the intimidation of journalists and whistleblowers without talking about Assange.
For exposing murder and mayhem in US wars, Assange has been psychologically tortured and treated as a top security prisoner. Speaking of his son’s last months in the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange’s father has claimed “[new guards] humiliated him, deliberately elbowing him aside, cutting off his telephone, denying or forgetting to provide meals, refusing toilet paper”. “His every move [was] watched and recorded”.
From the start of the controversy over WikiLeaks’ revelations, a hostile media in the US, UK and Australia has smeared Assange. US politicians have incited violence against him and essentially called for his assassination.
In May 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer and two physicians visited Assange. They concluded that he showed all the symptoms typical of someone exposed to prolonged psychological torture. Melzer said: “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”
So what would it take for politicians and journalists to express even a hint of shame at Melzer’s conclusions? Gabriel Assange, Julian’s brother, hoped a letter to Scott Morrison might do the trick.
“Dear The Honourable Scott Morrison,” he wrote. “On August 6 I visited my brother in Belmarsh prison. It was a year since I last saw him … He commented ‘this place is hell’. In an instant I knew what he meant. A yellow inmate band tied tightly around his arm exposed how emaciated he had become beneath his baggy prison clothes. His eyes and voice were signs that this hell was working hard to crush any hope he had left.
“I held back tears as I realised I might never see him again. I beg you to help us save my brother Julian’s life.”
It is commendable that Australia has confronted China over Yang’s detention and treatment. But Australia should, equally, be condemned for throwing Assange in the too-hard basket. The government should be objecting to the US over his extradition proceedings, and our journalists should be arguing for his release.
Until either of those things happen, what are we even talking about when we talk about “press freedom”?
Stuart Rees is professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and the founder/director of Sydney Peace Foundation.
Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation, really important journalistic role.
Agree this is a very important op-ed. The disgraceful debate about whether Assange is a journalist or not by people like Peter Greste is a massive red herring. The war crimes revealed are far more serious. Chelsea Manning continues to be persecuted. Australia is up to its ears in this repression. Journalists have an obligation to call out hypocrisy and bad behaviour by governments carried out in our name.
I couldn’t agree with you more…
It’s so sad the American’s have been this arrogant, using political machinations to taint a single person’s reputation, they’re scared that the truth will come out & everything fall in a huge messy heap..
Nice article, but the double-standard is depressingly unsurprising. The ‘civilised’ West is always held to a different standard than the brown and yellow people. ‘Quiet Australians’ and the MSM seem to be sympathetic to protesters blocking the streets in Hong Kong, but decidedly unsympathetic to protesters blocking streets in Brisbane, railway lines in Central Qld, or farms all over Australia. And the Australian governments that are urging the Chinese authorities to respect the right to protest are themselves introducing laws to limit that right in their own jurisdictions.
That’s the problem when you have a government that insists on, trying to “normalise”their hypocrisy, along with the ongoing attitude that they’re able to pick & choose whatever politically challenging situation, that will make them look better in the eyes of a country, that our relationship has been a little rocky over the previous years to say the least, along with all the bowing & scrapping, is on the nose, but what can be done…
This is the problem with the LNP they’re trying to please everyone but are in the long run, biting the hand that feeds,(the Australian people)….
“Australia’s”? Or the United States’?
There’s rather a lot of tosh in this article, together with a measure of downright confusion and whataboutery..
To equate Assange’s situation with that of Yang Hengjun is a disservice to him – and you make little mention of his situation, and only a brief reference in your first and last paragraphs.
Assange is currently in prison for absconding on his bail conditions and not for any other reason – and incidentally costing his presumably now ex-friends considerable amounts of money. When he completes that sentence then – and only then – will he face the possibility of proceedings to extradite him to either or both Sweden – to answer sexual assault charges – and the US.
Any complaints of conditions in the Ecuadorean embassy – where he appears to have been a not very well-behaved guest – could have been resolved by him simply walking out the door. Instead he appeared happy to abuse the hospitality of the Ecuadorean government, not least by his attempts to continue his political activities via the internet, and ignoring requests to cease this activity due to the possibility of harming Ecuador’s relations with other countries.
To call him a journalist is a bit of a stretch, and the organisation he helped to found has since been reduced in activity and influence by his behaviour over the past 7-8 years, including but not limited to his overtures to Trump, in a bid to get himself out of the tricky situation he could blame no-one but himself for getting into.
Surely you’ve all seen the recorded videos showing Assange trying to protect his sources? The larger news corps didn’t give a toss. They deliberately let Assange take the blame. They’re too big to go down.