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Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder in last-ditch bid to avoid US extradition (www.bbc.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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[–] 68 points 2 years ago (67 children)

Assange is a bit of a scumbag, but unrelatedly, his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others.

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  • [+] 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (53 children)
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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago

    Not a single non US citizen should be extradited to the US. The US has the worst prison system and punishments outside of some really cruel regimes. They also refuse to work with international criminal courts.

    Besides I'm pretty sure the guy only committed a crime in Sweden and not the US.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (38 children)

    Does he deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life?

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  • [+] 17 points 2 years ago (37 children)
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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (35 children)

    And what does that have to do with the fact that he faces over 100 years in prison?

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  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago* (34 children)
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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (32 children)

    His moral righteousness is irrelevant to the fact that he is being persecuted for journalism.

    It’s not like the core thing he did to even be noticed is relevant.

    The fuck does this mean? The core thing he did to be noticed is also the thing that's getting him persecuted.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (13 children)

    I feel like you’re not allowing two statements to be true.

    1. Assange is being doggedly pursued by the US for leaking state secrets. No I do not think he deserves to be punished for information he released like with Afghanistan. I think we are better for it and clearly this is the US making an example of him. Obviously we all knew he would be pursued, but again, I think that was the morally right thing to do, and I believe in protecting whistleblowers

    2. I also take umbrage with any attempts to make him out to be a good person or in any way virtuous, which is what the comment I responded to did. He isn’t. He had my support when he was standing for transparency, and he lost it when it became clear he saw leaks as a tool for his political preferences and friends.

    We can hold these two ideas at the same time.

    As for the sexual assault allegations against him, I have no clue what to think the waters are too muddy there. So I just don’t engage that generally.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    someone painting him as a morally righteous

    The first thing @seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM said was: "Assange is a bit of a scumbag" ...

    The closest thing to "righteousness" said was: "his efforts for freedom of information should not land him in US torture prisons like many others."

    Which, being true, it's absolutely not challenged or contradicted by anything you said in response.

    Note that "freedom of information" is totally compatible with "picking and choosing" the manner in which you exercise that freedom. In fact, I'd argue that the freedom of "picking and choosing" what's published without external pressure is fundamentally what the freedom of press is about.

    Assagne (like any other journalist) should have the freedom of "picking and choosing" what facts he wants to expose, as long as they are not fabrications. If they are shown to be intentionally fabricated then that's when things would be different... but if he's just informing, a mouthpiece, even if the information is filtered based on an editorial, then that's just journalism. That's a freedom that should be protected, instead of attacking him because he's publishing (or not publishing) this or that.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Can you really blame the man for picking sides after all the US has done to him personally over the years?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (6 children)

    Yes. Wikileaks is supposed to be a tool of transparency. Not a tool for his political revenge.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'm not saying I condone what he did, but I can understand it from his perspective. I'd probably do the same thing if there were a country responsible for ruining my life and health and I had the information to inflict some damage.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (3 children)

    I am not saying I condone what he did

    I’m not sure what we are debating/discussing. If you’re going to claim you are a bastion of transparency and information for the general public, then no, you can’t weaponize your site and omit politically damaging information about political groups you agree with/are aligned with.

    That’s not just revenge against the US. That’s failing to provide the transparency you claim to stand for. He chose to obscure information based on his own whims. How is that not an issue?

    Wikileaks had their own leak and it was a very interesting read.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    What does this have do with the fact he's been jailed for years and is waiting extradition to usa? It literally looks like you are trying to spread dirt on him for no reason other than choosing what story to cover, something most publisher do on daily basis and on a much worst scale.

    "Trump totally didn’t offer him a pardon to say Russia had nothing to do with it."

    You may have missed the part where he's still in jail and the trump government had a plot to have him assasinated

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Later_years_in_the_embassy

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    @BolexForSoup just to be clear are you saying that journalists with a political or ideological slant should not be afforded the same protections as other journalists?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    No, I believe it's pretty clear they're saying journalists who claim total transparency should have total transparency, not obscure some things because they want to. If you claim to want to protect children and then do a bunch of things to hurt children, you lose your standing as a protector of children. The same here. If you claim total transparency and then hide certain things you lose the claim of total transparency.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    @Cethin

    If you claim total transparency and then hide certain things you lose the claim of total transparency.

    Sure. I agree. I just don't see the relevance to whether or not you should be extradited to a foreign country that uses inhumane conditions.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Especially since he isn't a citizen and shouldn't be subject to US laws.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately the whole “isn’t a citizen” thing might work against him. IIRC courts have ruled the Bill of Rights applies to citizens, including freedom of the press.

    The whole situation is absurd though.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Oh yeah, US courts justifying their continuous rights abuses of foreign detainees is absurd and should be legitimized by no international judgements.

    One more reason to not extradite Assange. Let him sit trial for everything else he's allegedly done in countries with humane criminal justice systems, but do not subject him to either Manning's, or worse, as you say, non-citizen's torture in places like Guantanamo Bay.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'd say since the first full year of him living in an embassy ended, we can't be justified to call him a scumbag.

    Other than that - his sense of humor in the NetBSD fortune files and other traces in the Internet maybe sucks, but he's a better role model than Snowden (whose life is somehow much easier, which is suspicious really).

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