On the 28th November 2022, La Monde first published an open letter signed by The New York Times , The Guardian , Le Monde , Der Spiegel and El Pais (Google translated from French) Five international media, including “Le Monde”, publish an open letter saying that “the United States government must stop its prosecution” against the whistleblower who revealed secret information in … Continue reading “A call from newspapers for Julian Assange: Publishing is not a crime”
On the 28th November 2022, La Monde first published an open letter signed by The New York Times , The Guardian , Le Monde , Der Spiegel and El Pais (Google translated from French)
Five international media, including “Le Monde”, publish an open letter saying that “the United States government must stop its prosecution” against the whistleblower who revealed secret information in 2010.
Twelve years ago, on November 28, 2010, our five international press organs ( The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Paisand Der Spiegel) joined together to publish, in collaboration with WikiLeaks, a series of revelations picked up by the media around the world.
More than 251,000 diplomatic cables from the United States Department of State were made public during this “Cablegate”, shedding light on several cases of corruption, diplomatic scandals and espionage operations on a global scale. .
As the New York Timeswrote at the time , the leaked documents told “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its most important decisions, those with the greatest human and financial cost to the country. Today, in 2022, this exceptional documentary source is still used by journalists and historians alike, who still find material there for the publication of unpublished revelations.
Endless lawsuits
For the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, this “Cablegate” and several other “leaks” or leaks of sensitive documents have had extremely serious consequences. On April 12, 2019, Julian Assange, under a US arrest warrant, was apprehended in London. For three and a half years now, he has been detained on British soil, in a high security prison which normally houses terrorists or members of groups linked to organized crime. He risks being extradited to the United States, where he faces a sentence of up to one hundred and seventy-five years in a very high security prison.
Our group of editors and managing editors, all of whom have had the opportunity to work with Julian Assange, found it necessary to publicly criticize his attitude in 2011 when uncensored versions of the diplomatic cables were made public, and some of us remain concerned about the allegation in the US indictment that he aided in the computer intrusion into a classified “defense-secret” database. But we stand together today to express our deep concern over the endless legal proceedings that Julian Assange is facing for collecting and publishing confidential and sensitive information.
The Obama-Biden administration, in power when WikiLeaks was published in 2010, refrained from suing Julian Assange, explaining that many journalists from several major media should also have been prosecuted. This position recognized freedom of the press as crucial, regardless of the unpleasant consequences.
But this vision of things has evolved under the mandate of Donald Trump: the Department of Justice now relies on a law dating back more than a century, the Espionage Act of 1917. Conceived during the First World War to be able to sue would-be spies, this federal law had never been used against journalists, media outlets or broadcasters. Such an indictment sets a dangerous precedent, threatens the freedom of information and risks reducing the scope of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
A dangerous precedent
In a democracy, one of the fundamental missions of an independent press is to hold governments accountable.
Collecting and disseminating sensitive information is likewise an essential part of a journalist’s day-to-day work, when such disclosure proves to be in the public interest. If this work is declared criminal, then not only the quality of public debate but also our democracies will be considerably weakened.
Twelve years after the first publications linked to “Cablegate”, the time has come for the United States government to drop its charges against Julian Assange for having published secret information.
Publishing is not a crime.
Translated from English by Lucas Faugère.
This text is signed by the editors of: The New York Times , The Guardian , Le Monde , Der Spiegel , El Pais .
Read Original Articles in
La Monde
New York Times
The Guardian
El País
Der Spiegel
and many many other news papers world wide
The articles in La Monde covering the Assange Saga
WikiLeaks: those responsible for “Cablegate” are to be sought in Washington
It is high time to act before Julian Assange pays with his life the price of our freedoms
