WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was “considering” a request by Australia to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on espionage charges.
Australia’s parliament passed a motion in February with the prime minister’s support calling for an end to the legal saga surrounding Assange, who has been held in Britain since 2019 while fighting extradition to the United States.
“We’re considering it,” Biden replied at the White House when asked by a reporter if he had a response to Australiaa’s request.
Biden, who took the question while walking with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to a meeting in the Oval Office, did not elaborate.
Australian citizen Assange, 52, has been indicted by the US government over his role in the 2010 leaking of a huge trove of classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If convicted, he faces jail terms of up to 175 years.
In response to Biden’s comments, Assange’s wife Stella said on social platform X: “Do the right thing. Drop the charges.”
She has previously said Assange’s physical and mental health are in decline in jail and that her husband “will die” if sent to the United States.
Assange and his supporters say he exposed US military wrongdoing and see his case as a fight for media freedom. Washington says his leaks put lives at risk by publishing documents that included the names of intelligence sources.
Assange is currently waiting to learn if he can make a last-ditch appeal against extradition, after a British court last month delayed a decision on his case. It is now expected May 20.
In late March, the High Court in London gave the United States three weeks to provide further “assurances” on his treatment if he is sent there to face charges.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson on Wednesday called for “a political solution” to Assange’s plight, as supporters rallied in central London on the eve of the fifth anniversary of his arrest.
“This is a case that just should never have been started in the first place,” Hrafnsson told AFP at the rally.
He said Assange’s time in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London was “so excessive and so brutal.”
Hrafnsson said Canberra should link the case to its landmark AUKUS security pact with Washington and London to secure Assange’s release.
“They should be bold and say we have nothing to discuss unless you drop the charges against Julian Assange so he can walk free and come back to Australia,” he said.
Before going to prison, Assange spent seven years in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault which were later dropped.
Other protests supporting Assange are expected around the world Thursday.
Campaign groups including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have called for his release and denounced the prosecution under the 1917 US Espionage Act, which has never been used over the publishing of classified information.
Biden ‘considering’ Australian request to drop Assange case
https://arab.news/mk9yt
Biden ‘considering’ Australian request to drop Assange case
- Assange and his supporters say he exposed US military wrongdoing and see his case as a fight for media freedom
US bars five Europeans it says pressured tech firms to censor American viewpoints online
WASHINGTON: The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure US tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints.
The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “radical” activists and “weaponized” nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States.
“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” Rubio posted on X. “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”
The five Europeans were identified by Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, in a series of posts on social media. They include the leaders of organizations that address digital hate and a former European Union commissioner who clashed with tech billionaire Elon Musk over broadcasting an online interview with Donald Trump.
Rubio’s statement said they advanced foreign government censorship campaigns against Americans and US companies, which he said created “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US
The action to bar them from the US is part of a Trump administration campaign against foreign influence over online speech, using immigration law rather than platform regulations or sanctions.
The five Europeans named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organization; Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index; and former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was responsible for digital affairs.
Rogers in her post on X called Breton, a French business executive and former finance minister, the “mastermind” behind the EU’s Digital Services Act, which imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep Internet users safe online. This includes flagging harmful or illegal content like hate speech.
She referred to Breton warning Musk of a possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his livestream interview with Trump in August 2024 when he was running for president.
Breton responded Tuesday on X by noting that all 27 EU members voted for the Digital Services Act in 2022. “To our American friends: ‘Censorship isn’t where you think it is,’” he wrote.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France condemns the visa restrictions on Breton and the four others. Also posting on X, he said the DSA was adopted to ensure that “what is illegal offline is also illegal online.” He said it “has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way concerns the United States.”
Most Europeans are covered by the Visa Waiver Program, which means they don’t necessarily need visas to come into the country. They do, however, need to complete an online application prior to arrival under a system run by the Department of Homeland Security, so it is possible that at least some of these five people have been flagged to DHS, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not publicly released.
Other visa restriction policies were announced this year, along with bans targeting foreign visitors from certain African and Middle Eastern countries and the Palestinian Authority. Visitors from some countries could be required to post a financial bond when applying for a visa.
