This past weekend in Washington D.C., the independent Belmarsh Tribunal provided a thorough understanding of the case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. You can watch the video (and/or sign the petition to free Assange) here.

Assange is being prosecuted for journalism, for publishing. He is very likely to be extradited to the United States for it. At that point it will be too late to keep Assange out of U.S. prison. And it will be too late to undo the precedent  that other nations will seek to follow, prosecuting foreign journalists who offend them. And it will be too late to undo the precedent that the U.S. government -- perhaps a U.S. government run by Donald Trump -- will seek to follow. Trump is already threatening to prosecute journalists and lock them up.

Inspired by the Bertrand Russell/Jean-Paul Sartre Tribunal on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, the Belmarsh Tribunal has brought together a range of expert witnesses — from constitutional lawyers to acclaimed journalists and human rights defenders — to present evidence of the assault on press freedom and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This D.C. hearing of the Tribunal was co-chaired by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and the Intercept's Ryan Grim.

Members of the tribunal included:

• Ewen MacAskill, Journalist and intelligence correspondent (formerly Guardian)
• John Kiriakou, former intelligence officer for the CIA
• Sevim Dagdelen, Member of the German Bundestag
• Lina Attalah, co-founder and Chief Editor of Mada Masr
• Abby Martin, Journalist and host of The Empire Files
• Michael Sontheimer, Journalist and historian (formerly Der Spiegel)
• Mark Feldstein, Veteran investigative reporter and journalism historian at the University of Maryland
• Maja Sever, President of European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
• Ben Wizner, Lawyer and civil liberties advocate with the ACLU
• Marjorie Cohn, Professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild
• Trevor Timm, Journalist and co-founder of Freedom of the Press Foundation
• Ece Temelkuran, Journalist and author
• Rebecca Vincent, Director of Campaigns, Reporters Without Borders

Click here to watch and share the video, and to tell Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges.

The effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for journalism is a threat to future journalism that challenges power and violence, but a defense of the media practice of propagandizing for war.

Click here to tell Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges.

As a publisher, Assange revealed the "Collateral Murder" video and the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs that helped document U.S. war crimes.

Claims that Assange assisted a source in criminally (if morally) obtaining documents lack evidence and appear to be a smokescreen for the prosecution of basic journalistic practices. The same goes for claims that Assange’s journalism harmed people or risked harming people. Exposing war is the very opposite of harming people.

An “espionage” trial would deny Assange the right to put forward any case in his own defense that addressed his motivations. A fair trial would also be impossible in a country whose top politicians have convicted Assange in the media for years. For example, then-Vice President Joe Biden called Assange a “hi-tech terrorist.”

Click here to tell Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges.

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-- The RootsAction.org team

Background:
>> Democracy Now: "Colombian President Gustavo Petro: Charges Against Julian Assange Are 'Mockery of Freedom of Press'"
>> Talk World Radio: "Greg Barns on Efforts to Free Julian Assange"
>> Congressional Letter to the Attorney General
>> PEN: "PEN America Urges Attorney General to Drop Charges Against Assange"
>> Progressive Hub: "U.S. Once Planned To Kill Assange But Gives 'Assurances' It Won't Again"
>> Common Dreams: "CIA Whistleblower Reflects on Persecution of Julian Assange"
>> New York Times: "Major News Outlets Urge U.S. to Drop Its Charges Against Assange"

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