The Assange trial results in an unexpected party in D.C.
Though activists are still concerned about the safety of press freedom, the much anticipated extradition hearing came with somewhat of a victory.
In a rare moment of joy, Assange supporters gathered outside of the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. with cake and balloons on Monday, Jan. 4. Against the expectations of most people involved in the Free Assange movement, Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States.
Opening the event, Slow News Day host Steve Poikonen spoke on the surrealism of the news as activists next to him filled balloons with helium. A blue balloon had already been tossed into the sky “for Assange.”
“I was not prepared to do this,” Poikonen said. “We just wrote on the cake, it’s not like we had one ordered. ‘Congratulations on not getting extradited’ normally isn’t a cake that you order in the first place.”
This was the second in a series of events organized by Action 4 Assange, the first of which was held the previous day outside the British Embassy. Most people in attendance had been constantly advocating for Assange’s freedom since he was first arrested from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in April 2019. Despite their endurance in supporting Assange, most activists were still shocked by the news hours after it had broken.
Kendra Christian, an organizer with Denver Free Assange had been up at 7 a.m. to hear the news as soon as possible.
“I was trying to like find confirmation right away,” Christian said. “We were actually talking to a supporter in the U.K. … and it was kind of a dark morning there. They were being harassed by the police. It was just insane and the ruling was not going our way.”
It’s true that the ruling initially did not look like it would end without extradition. Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who has been overseeing the trial, started by repeating many of the debunked smears against Assange to justify her belief that extraditing him would not pose a threat to press freedom. However, she went on to rule against extradition, citing the poor conditions of the U.S. prison system and they would pose a risk of suicide.
Baraitser’s decision to not extradite Assange due to the threat it poses to his health, rather than the threat it poses to press freedom, left many at the event with concerns. Assange’s bail hearing will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 6, and if he is not allowed to leave Belmarsh prison during the likely appeals process of the trial, he will remain at great risk of death by contracting Covid-19 or succumbing to his poor mental and physical health.
Sputnik writer Morgan Artyukhina spoke about her remaining concerns for press freedom as a journalist.
“As things keep going, there is this risk that [Assange] will be extradited or he’s still at risk from being in Belmarsh prison,” Artyukhina said. “I don’t think the support for him or the case is going away. It’s been around for a long time. But I definitely wanna urge people not to look away.”
