In this file photo dated Jan 5, 2021, a mural of Australia's Julian Assange is seen in a laneway in Melbourne. (PHOTO / AFP)
Nine former Australian lawmakers have called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to end the incarceration of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying “enough is enough.”
In an open letter to Albanese, copied to Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, the former state and federal attorneys general said Canberra needs to renew its endeavors to have Assange released from the United Kingdom’s Belmarsh Prison, near London, where he has been detained for four years awaiting extradition to the United States to face charges of espionage.
Former Australian diplomat Alison Broinowski said the US has “backed itself into a corner” for 13 years over the issue.
She told China Daily that US President Joe Biden would not make any concessions in the Assange case when, as a Congressman, Biden called Assange a “high-tech terrorist”.
“The Labor government here in Australia has, on several occasions, said ‘enough is enough’ for Julian Assange. But that in itself is not enough,” said Broinowski.
They (the US) must see Australia is lacking determination and they would be right ... It’s another example of Australia's surrender of sovereignty to the US, and many in Australia are ashamed of it.
Alison Broinowski, former Australian diplomat
She also noted the effort the US puts into getting its own citizens out of trouble abroad.
“They (the US) must see Australia is lacking determination and they would be right,” Broinowski said, adding that Albanese raised the issue of Assange recently with Washington but “got nowhere.”
“It’s another example of Australia's surrender of sovereignty to the US, and many in Australia are ashamed of it,” she said.
One of those who signed the letter to Albanese was Lara Giddings, who served as premier of Tasmania from January 2011 until March 2014 and was the state’s attorney general from 2008 to 2011.
“Regardless of what views people might have of Julian Assange, this man has had his freedom taken away from him for over 11 years,” she said on Aug 18.
“His ongoing detention cannot be justified regardless of the rights or wrongs of his WikiLeaks expose. He does not deserve to be left to the mercy of the United States legal system, where, if found guilty, he may well die in jail,” Giddings said.
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Academic and commentator Binoy Kampmark shared similar sentiments in an article published on the CounterPunch website on Aug 17.
“At every stage of its proceedings against Julian Assange, the US Imperium has shown little by way of tempering its vengeful impulses,” he wrote.
“The WikiLeaks publisher, in uncovering the sordid, operational details of a global military power, would always have to pay,” wrote Kampmark.
“Given the 18 charges he faces, 17 fashioned from that most repressive of instruments, the US Espionage Act of 1917, any sentence is bound to be hefty.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference alongside US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (not pictured) during the AUKUS summit on March 13, 2023, at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California. (PHOTO / AFP)
Kampmark added that, if Assange is extradited from the UK to the US, he “will disappear into a carceral, life-ending dystopia”.
Whether the current attempt to get some action on Assange will have any impact on the government remains to be seen.
At every stage of its proceedings against Julian Assange, the US Imperium has shown little by way of tempering its vengeful impulses.
Binoy Kampmark, academic and commentator
The nine former attorneys general who signed the letter were Rob Hulls (Victoria), Lara Giddings and Judy Jackson (Tasmania), Rod Welford (Queensland), Bernard Collaery (Australian Capital Territory), Bob Debus (New South Wales), and Peter Duncan and Chris Sumner (South Australia), alongside former federal attorney general Michael Duffy.
They jointly called for an end to the “inhumane, indefinite detention” of an Australian citizen.
Bernard Collaery, who was famously hounded for allegedly conspiring to communicate secret information about Australia’s involvement in the bugging of Timor-Leste’s Cabinet office, said the pursuit of Assange has to stop.
“The zealotry with which I was wrongfully pursued is being applied to Julian Assange,” he said, as quoted by the Australian commentary website Pearls and Irritations on Aug 18.
“Powerful countries will do whatever they can to hide uncomfortable truths, and they don’t care about the collateral human damage,” said Collaery, who was the attorney general for the Australian Capital Territory from 1989 to 1991.
Federal attorney general in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1990 to 1993 Michael Duffy, said in the same article that the continuing detention of Julian Assange sets a “dangerous precedent”.
READ MORE: Australia PM says 'frustrated' over continued detention of Assange
“The United States is applying extra-territorial reach by seeking to charge a non-US citizen with crimes not committed in the US. This could potentially put at risk anyone … who publishes information that the US government deems to be classified for security reasons,” he said.
“Today, Julian Assange is locked away in a British prison and is fighting for his life,” environmental activist Mitchel Cohen told China Daily.
“The US government seeks to bring this Australian citizen to the United States for a show trial and then lock him up forever, if they don’t assassinate him en route,” Cohen warned.
He described Assange’s sacrifices as “profound”, noting his “enormous” contribution to ecological and antiwar movements.
“It is incumbent on all to demand an end to his incarceration and torment by the US and British governments,” Cohen said.
