Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, speaks for the first time since his release from prison

Julian Assange is back on European soil. The last time he was here he was behind bars.

On Tuesday, he opened up about his years of imprisonment in a maximum-security British prison after the United States charged him under the Espionage Act.

It is his first public appearance since his release from prison and his return to Australia.

In a sometimes sharp speech, he criticized the USA and its allies for the handling of his case.

“I am not here today because the system worked, I am free today after years of imprisonment because I pleaded guilty to journalism,” Assange told Europe’s leading human rights organization, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France, which is investigating his imprisonment and conviction.

The WikiLeaks founder’s appearance at PACE was a tightly controlled affair, international media faced extensive restrictions and Assange gave no interviews.

Assange told the ABC before the hearing he was “delighted to be here”.

“The isolation has taken its toll”

Flanked by his wife Stella and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, Mr Assange said legal protection “only existed on paper”.

“After years of being incarcerated, I finally chose freedom over impracticable justice… with no effective remedy,” he said.

“Justice for me is now out of the question because the US government has insisted that I cannot apply to the European Court of Human Rights or for freedom of information.”

Reflecting on his five years in a British prison, Assange said it was a “relentless battle for survival, physically and mentally.”

“It robs you of your self-confidence,” he said.

“The isolation has taken its toll.

The emotional speech also included some light moments: Assange thanked his wife for looking after his children while he was in prison.

The packed room erupted in laughter as he described adjusting to having a mother-in-law.

In his speech, Assange focused heavily on the issue of freedom of expression.

“Freedom of expression and everything that comes with it is at a grim crossroads,” he said.

“The criminalization of news gathering poses a threat to investigative journalism everywhere.”

“I was condemned by a foreign power for requesting, receiving and publishing truthful information about that power while in Europe.

“Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime, it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”

The handling of the Assange case is devastating

Assange is making his statement after a PACE report into his case recently concluded that he was a political prisoner.

That report called on Britain to open an investigation into whether he was subjected to “inhumane treatment.”

“While some of the WikiLeaks revelations, particularly those released in unredacted form, may pose a threat to the personal safety of whistleblowers, intelligence sources and intelligence officers, despite the significant time span, there is no evidence that anyone was harmed as a result,” stated PACE.

PACE said it believed the charges brought by the United States against Assange under the Espionage Act were “disproportionate” and “serious.”

“The British authorities, for their part, have failed to effectively protect Assange’s freedom of expression and his right to liberty, subjecting him to long detention in a high-security prison even though the most serious allegations against him were political in nature,” PACE said.

“His detention went well beyond the acceptable length of time for extradition.”

After the hearing, Assange told the ABC it had been “good but tiring”.

His wife said that although her husband was exhausted, it was “important” for him to contact the council and she hoped it would “put in place safeguards to prevent what happened to Julian.” [could] This will never happen to another journalist again.”

Ms Assange added that her husband has been enjoying time with family since his release.

“This is everything we’ve wanted for so many years, it’s wonderful,” Ms Assange told the ABC.

“We took time for ourselves and time to figure things out.”

Life as a free man after a 14-year ordeal

In June this year, District Judge Ramona Manglona in the US Pacific Territory courtroom in Saipan sentenced Assange to five years and two months, the same time he had already spent in prison in the United Kingdom fighting extradition to the United States. and explained that this was free to go.

“With this statement, it appears you can walk out of this courtroom a free man,” Judge Manglona said.

Assange’s guilty plea allowed him to return to Australia in June this year after spending 14 years outside his home country.

At that time, his wife Stella said he had to get used to normal life.

“Julian needs time to recover, to get used to freedom,” she said.

He had been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years, evading a US extradition order. Ecuador does not have an extradition treaty with the USA.

Assange’s stay at the Ecuadorian embassy was dramatically shortened in 2019 when British police entered the embassy, ​​arrested him and sent him to the country’s maximum-security Belmarsh prison. He would be held at Belmarsh for five years.

WikiLeaks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Julian Assange was convicted under the US Espionage Act and had to be extradited to the USA. His admission of guilt on one count under the Espionage Act secured his freedom.

Assange has been on the run since his organization, WikiLeaks, released classified U.S. military footage showing the killings of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists by U.S. troops.

The release of the video in April 2010, which refers to an incident in 2007, sparked condemnation of the US military’s handling of internal investigations and made headlines around the world in publications such as the New York Times and the Guardian.

A voice in the video broadcast published by WikiLeaks called on the pilots to “set everyone on fire” before the group of people, which included two journalists, were fired upon by a helicopter gunship.

The video showed a van arriving at the scene to pick up the wounded before it too came under fire from the US helicopter.

WikiLeaks then published a series of other explosive leaks that caused great embarrassment to the USA and its allies.

WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of documents leaked by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. This year, Chelsea Manning was arrested by the US military over the leaks.

The documents covered the war in Afghanistan and revealed how the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. Further documents from the Iraq War also revealed that up to 66,000 civilians were killed and prisoners of war were tortured by Iraqi forces.

This series of leaks included more than 250,000 messages from US diplomats revealing that the US wanted to collect “biographical and biometric” information, including DNA samples, iris scans and fingerprints, from key United Nations officials.

As global controversy grew over WikiLeaks’ handling of leaks of classified documents, major imprint firms that had originally published WikiLeaks material distanced themselves from the organization, citing concerns about verifying the source material and reducing harm to those who leaked it may be disclosed in the huge tranches of documents.

The controversy spread further when Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Assange in 2010 on two separate sexual assault allegations, which Assange described as “expendable.”

The charges were later dropped in 2019, but the arrest warrant set off a series of events that led to Assange seeking asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he would live for seven years.

Impact on the 2016 US election

The next significant release came in 2016 with the release by WikiLeaks of thousands of hacked emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta in the run-up to that year’s US presidential election.

In the leaked emails, Mr. Podesta called Clinton’s election rival Bernie Sanders a “fool” for criticizing the Paris climate agreement.

At the time, an angry Hillary Clinton campaign blamed Russia for the leaked DNC emails and claimed election interference was the result. Clinton ultimately lost the election to Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, PACE will debate and vote on a draft resolution based on Tuesday’s evidence.