The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange: A Coup De Grâce for Free Press

The global security state's poorly veiled contempt for international law is revealed through the persecution of the imprisoned founder of Wikileaks.

Recent developments in the legal proceedings regarding the extradition of Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange have cast a shadow of despair on journalists all over the world, as well as the victims of abuses of power relying on them to tell their stories. His prosecution acts as an inherent critique not only of the democracy we live in today, but of Western society and values as we have come to understand them over the last century. The implications of Assange's extradition to the United States, and what that would mean for international law and its legitimacy, paint a bleak picture for people championing freedom of speech and individual rights.

Following the Second World War, the securities of the United Nations effectively established a peace between the Western powers and the major legal systems and governments between these nations grew increasingly consolidated. It is in this atmosphere of consolidation that the phenomena of an Anglo-judicial system has come to the fore, both in the US and in the UK, but even more so with the passage of the Extradition Act of 2003. This act allowed for prisoners to be extradited between the US and the UK easily, and made it increasingly difficult for individuals to protect their right to a trial in either of the countries.

Article 4 of the US-UK extradition treaty explicitly prohibits extraditing prisoners on political grounds. Last week, however, Justice Jonathan Swift (UK) rejected all grounds of Assange’s appeal against the US’s extradition order. The judgment was accompanied by a document of only three pages - shockingly little to say for such an important and high-profile case. Overwhelmingly, criminal proceedings in the US are made to conform to an all-too-familiar trajectory of settlement and streamlined surveillance; justice is often granted to those who manage to navigate the bureaucracy, while those who demonstrate any dissent often face increasingly harsh punishment. I’ve yet to read any analysis of the case that denies the illegality of political extradition in the US-UK treaty.

The implications of Julian Assange’s extradition go beyond the individual - his persecution is a warning to all citizens that the global security state’s consolidation of power will be upheld by any means necessary, eradicating any semblance of justice. Under this reality, those who stand up for their rights, or for the rights of forgotten foreign victims of US aggression, risk increasingly harsh punishment for which the only available appeal process is, in reality, a cruel theater independent of the laws it is meant to uphold.

Journalists’ role in society is to tell the stories of the forgotten, speak truth to power, and defend those who’ve been silenced. Without a free press of honest journalists, society’s descent into a tyrannical state cloaked in self-righteous indignation will be etched in stone.

-The Shultz Report by M. Shultz