MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th April, 2019) The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said it is "troubled" by the US prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was arrested in London upon Washington's request.
The arrest took place on Thursday as Assange was hustled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK capital, where he lived for the past seven years. The Ecuadorian authorities explained their decision to revoke his asylum due to the alleged violation of international laws and internal rules by Assange. The activist currently faces extradition to the United States where he is wanted for "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer."
"The Committee to Protect Journalists today said it was deeply concerned by the U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Authorities in the United Kingdom arrested Assange this morning at the Ecuadoran Embassy as part of an extradition agreement with the U.S.," the CPJ said in a statement on Thursday.
The group recalled that the US charges against Assange were related to his interactions with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks and subsequently served a prison term under the US Espionage Act. The US authorities claim that Assange had offered Manning help in breaking a password to receive the materials.
"The potential implications for press freedom of this allegation of conspiracy between publisher and source are deeply troubling. With this prosecution of Julian Assange, the U.S. government could set out broad legal arguments about journalists soliciting information or interacting with sources that could have chilling consequences for investigative reporting and the publication of information of public interest," Robert Mahoney, the CPJ deputy director, said in the statement.
The CPJ recalled that it had voiced concerns about the possibility of Assange being prosecuted under the Espionage Act for years.
Particularly, in 2010, the group wrote a letter to the US Department of Justice, urging it not to prosecute Assange under this legislation for his publishing activities.
Notably, former CIA case officer Philip Giraldi has told Sputnik the US authorities would likely charge Assange under this legislation as soon as he was transferred to the United States.
Assange and WikiLeaks leaped in the spotlight back in 2010 as the platform revealed the leaked video of the killing of two Reuters staffers by the US forces' airstrike in Iraq in 2007, which became high-profile. The group has since published hundreds of thousands of other classified materials.
In 2012, Assange received asylum in Ecuador and entered the country's embassy in London in a bid to flee prosecution by the Swedish authorities on sex offense charges that he denied and that were dropped back in 2017.
