Why we need Julian Assange free

The case of Julian Assange (the creator of Wikileaks, who has been held for 11 years, first in an embassy and then in a British prison) today constitutes one of the greatest dangers for investigative journalism and press freedom in the world. the world.

The English court that will decide this week whether to authorize the extradition of Assange to the United States, accused of espionage for disseminating classified documents, may set a highly coercive precedent for the exercise of journalism, understood not as a space of entertainment, but as one of freedom. that allows debate in a democratic society.

His extradition will open a safer path to all those who rob citizens of information to which they have the right, covering up acts that are crimes with appeals to security.

Assange was the creator of a portal called Wikileaks through which thousands of classified documents were made public in 2010, thanks to which war crimes, torture and cases of corruption came to light.

The documents were provided to a group of media outlets from around the world (including EL PAÍS) for analysis and dissemination.

In no case did the information published pose a risk to the safety of people protected by law.

There were dozens of journalists around the world (I myself belonged to the team of this newspaper that carried out this work) who expurgated those thousands of documents and who signed that information.

And we all agreed that these were facts that society had a right to know.

The extradition of Assange and his almost certain sentence in the United States (the sentence could be 175 years) is a threat to all serious journalism carried out in the world and as such should be assumed by professional associations and by society in general. as a whole, which they want to deprive of one of their most important rights: the right to know and demand responsibilities.

Society needs people who do the work that Julian Assange did.

Journalists need access to documents like the ones Assange provided us.

Closing the path of

whistleblowers

is the best way to protect high-ranking criminals.

Right now, it is possible that to get to know what the decisions of the Israeli Government have been and are being, what its objectives and what means it orders to be used to achieve them;

For Israeli society itself to be able to debate it and for the international community to assess the extent to which they are compatible with the laws that govern the world order, it is necessary for people willing to denounce them from within or people capable of accessing this documentation through technological means.

Even more so when, in the Israeli case, there is a strict prohibition of access to Gaza for international journalists, a prohibition that has nothing to do with the protection of these special envoys.

First, because the decision corresponds to the interested journalist and the media that supports him and governments should limit themselves to offering the maximum help they can.

Second, because the vast majority of Palestinian journalists who have died in Gaza in the few months that the Israeli punishment operation has lasted (more than 60 reporters, according to the International Federation of Journalists) have not died in the middle of indiscriminate bombings or in the middle of of war confrontations, but, according to their media, in specific attacks directed against them and their families.

One day, professional organizations of journalists will have to open an in-depth investigation into these deaths, just as doctors' associations should into the assault on Gazan hospitals, and to do so they will need access to classified documents and the help of people like Julian Assange.

Throughout history, there have been many judges, especially Anglo-Saxon ones, who, when prosecuting investigative journalists, officials or

hackers

who have violated the law to access these types of documents, have considered, for above all, whether that person's conduct served the public interest.

It is a disgrace that little by little that spirit has been weakening and that now a British court can make it disappear.

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