NY Times, Euro Outlets Call for U.S. to Drop Julian Assange Charges in Scathing Letter: ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime’

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The New York Times joined a handful of European news outlets on Monday to call for the U.S. government to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Along with the Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País condemned Assange being charged under the Espionage Act.

In a joint letter, the Times noted its own history with Assange, recalling a series of revelations that “made headlines around the world.”

The joint letter reads:

“Cable gate”, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US State Department disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale.

In the words of The New York Times, the documents told “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money”. Even now in 2022, journalists and historians continue to publish new revelations, using the unique trove of documents.

The letter also notes that some of the editors and journalists from these outlets are critical of Assange’s conduct, but still feel the charges against him are unwarranted.

It reads:

This group of editors and publishers, all of whom had worked with Assange, felt the need to publicly criticize his conduct in 2011 when unredacted copies of the cables were released, and some of us are concerned about the allegations in the indictment that he attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database. But we come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials.

Assange was arrested in London in 2019 and he’s been held in custody since. He is facing extradition to the U.S. and could be facing more than 170 years behind bars.

The joint letter blasts the use of the Espionage Act, which has never been used to prosecute a publisher in the past.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the letter reads.

The declaration from the outlets ends by offering a simple line: “publishing is not a crime.”