from RT:
The WikiLeaks founder has made his first public appearance since being released from prison
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged European lawmakers to act against rising “transnational repression” of journalism by great powers during an address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday. It was his first public appearance since being released from prison in late June.
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Assange spent years locked up at a high-security prison in the UK as he fought extradition to the US, which had accused him of unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified information relating to national defense. In June, he struck a plea bargain with the US Justice Department, formally acknowledging some guilt and waiving the right to legal recourse through, for example, the European Court of Human Rights, in exchange for freedom.
”I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today, after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism,” he told members of the PACE Legal Affairs Committee in Strasbourg.
In his testimony, Assange recounted his legal predicament and what he called a “campaign of retribution” by the CIA under Director Mike Pompeo during the Donald Trump presidency. According to media reports and other materials, the agency conducted an extensive surveillance campaign against the publisher, his family, and associates. It allegedly contemplated kidnapping or killing Assange while he was being protected by political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
