Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been given asylum in the embassy of Ecuador in London when he lost his appeal against his extradition to Sweden from England. Sweden has issued an European arrest warrant for Mr.Assange for allegations of sexual assault and rape. Assange claims that he is innocent and the whole case as well as the accusations are a simple smoke screen in order to facilitate his arrest and transfer to the US. Wikileaks have gravely exposed the US through the publication of the country's diplomatic correspondence four years ago. The scandal is widely known as the CableGate.
The founder of Wikileaks who has been confounded in the small apartment that is the Ecuadorean embassy, appealed to the UN in 2014 asking for a ruling on his detainment. At that time he had stated that should the UN decide against him then he would voluntarily surrender to the British authorities. I had the chance to meet J.Assange and I can assure you that his confinement in such a limited space, not even having the opportunity to walk in a small balcony, is inhumane and has affected him in every aspect.
The special UN panel has ruled against Great Britain. The findings will be officially published tomorrow. The panel considers J. Assange to be under arbitrary detention and asks the British state to take all necessary measures until this is ended.
Naturally, the decision has made it to the front-page of every British paper. Yet it is the Guardian which goes a step further by publishing an editorial called “The Guardian view on Julian Assange: no victim of arbitrary detention”. In it, the paper begins by claiming that Assange was the one who decided to go into the Ecuadorian embassy, that the decision of the panel would have been justified had the legal procedures not been followed and that he himself has broken his bail conditions by requesting asylum. The editors of the Guardian have not read the decision of the UN-nor have we- but we can imagine that the arguments of the panel will concern the breach of every diplomatic treaty which happens when a country denies safe passage to a person who is under political asylum. It is rather amazing that this does not even pass through the minds of the Guardian editors. These editors then take it a step further by arguing -without any evidence of argument- that Assange appealed to the UN while knowing that he would get a positive decision and that is the reason why he pledged that he would surrender should he fail to do so!
Further on, the editors claim that Assange is facing rape charges in Sweden. Firstly we should note that Assange is not being accused of rape in the way we understand it in our society (they definitely know that in the paper). What is really pending against him is an accusation of sexual molestation (a woman with which he had consensual sexual relationships is accusing him of forcing himself while she was asleep) which has yet to become a charge. The Guardian journalists state that, based on the Swedish penal code, Assange must first be interviewed before official charges are made against him. Nevertheless according to law practice, this is a simple procedure and it has been omitted on many occasions. The good reporters should have already known that, or they should have enquired accordingly.
At least, in its final paragraph, the Guardian mentions that the US Department of Justice has initiated an investigation on the Chelsea Manning case; the woman who gave the classified documents of the American embassies to Wikileaks. According to the American penal system the arrest warrants need not be made public while the procedure against Manning allows for “charges against anyone who aided in the collection or publication of the wires”. What Guardian fails to mention is that Sweeden and the United Stated have already signed treaties whereby suspects can be expedited with minimal procedure, a fact which makes Assange's lawyers particularly nervous. Moreover the Swedish attorneys have repeatedly denied to visit Assange in London in order to interview him. Latest information say that this is very likely to happen in the near future.
What the Guardian provides are half truths while it also completely forgets to mention that the paper had also had its differences with Assange (the Wikileaks head had chosen the Guardian as its prime reporting partner for the publication of CableGate). During my latest interview with Assange he noted that the Guardian journalists were very efficient in censoring large parts of the wires by claiming security concerns for the included persons. At the same time other media partners (he mentioned the Hindu newspaper) were publishing the same documents without any delay. It was also the Guardian which publishes a book entitled “Wikileaks:Inside Julian Assange's war on secrecy”, in which he is accused of being a control freak and he is presented in a particularly negative manner. When I asked him about that, he answered that in organisations like Wikileaks there must be a chief, someone who can guarantee the ideology and the orientation of the medium. Accordingly he accused Guardian by saying that corporations of that size cannot but mix and strive for power and authority (or part of it).
It is highly accepted, in the anglo-saxon media, that in crucial matters the medium will publish editorials where a clear opinion will be stated. We, in ThePressProject consider this custom to be positive, and we apply it ourselves. But we believe that this must always be done very transparently if it is to be an aid to objectivity, since this way readers can form a clear view of the publication's position in specific matters.
Today's Guardian editorial is not transparent-it allows obvious gaps in its information and arguments-nor is it sincere as it lacks the necessary disclaimer which should inform its readers that the paper itself has a disagreement (taken to courts) with Julian Assange. Without that, the article becomes biased and this is, to say the least, very unfortunate for a medium of the Guardian's caliber.