A total of 1.776 days. That's how long Julian Assange (52) will be in the British Belmarsh prison when on Tuesday (February 20) perhaps the last hearing in the struggle for his extradition to the United States of America (USA) begins.
Even before Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks was not free: he spent seven years in the asylum of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. And if it turns out the way the American prosecution wants, he will get another 175 years in prison.
The hearing before the High Court in London deals with the question of whether Assange has already exhausted legal means in the fight against extradition to the US? Or can he continue to fight for his freedom in the British courts?
If the court clears the way for extradition, Assange could be charged and sentenced in the US under the so-called Espionage Act.
The law was passed more than a hundred years ago to punish traitors and spies after the First World War. It has never been used against journalists before.
Assange is accused, along with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, of stealing and publishing classified material from US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This allegedly put the lives of American informants at risk, according to US authorities.
The unvarnished truth
The WikiLeaks disclosures were very embarrassing for the US government. Hundreds of thousands of secret documents have shown the world a different, unsophisticated, bloody side of the US military's actions.
Places where war crimes were committed - and covered up, where the number of civilian victims was significantly higher than the Pentagon's embellished figures.
However, a democracy would have to endure something like that. At least that's what all leading human rights, civil rights and journalism organizations think, from Amnesty International to the Committee to Protect Journalists to Reporters Without Borders.
Two umbrella organizations, the International Federation of Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists, warned in a joint statement this week that "the persecution of Julian Assange threatens media freedom around the world."
"Journalists and their unions recognized from the very beginning that Julian Assange was a target because he performs tasks that are part of the daily work of many journalists – finding whistleblowers and uncovering crimes," said the president of the European Federation, Croatian journalist Maja Sever.
Support for Assange around the world
There are more and more voices speaking out against the persecution of Assange by the US and advocating his release. Just a week before the trial, the Australian Parliament passed a resolution on the release of Australian citizen Assange, with the support of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The capital of Italy, Rome, declared Julian Assange an honorary citizen.
A group of over 35 American law professors warned in an open letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland that prosecuting Assange under the Espionage Act threatens the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
Christian Mir sees it the same way. The Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International Germany told Deutsche Welle (DW): "The case of Julian Assange speaks to the fundamental issues of media freedom and human rights. Julian Assange is not guilty of any crime. WikiLeaks has exposed human rights violations, which is not a crime. "
Together with Reporters Without Borders, of which Mir was president for ten years, Amnesty is planning a demonstration in front of the US embassy in Berlin on the first day of the hearing.
Critical voices in German politics
Even among German politicians there is criticism of the persecution of Julian Assange.
Green MP Max Lux spoke to DW about Julian Assange as a political prisoner. Lux calls Assange's detention in the maximum Belmars prison "torture".
"There is no rational reason for this detention of Mr. Assange. It is politically motivated," he says.
Lux is one of the initiators of an open letter to the British Parliament in which more than 80 members of the Bundestag called for the release of Assange two years ago. The letter begins with the sentence: "Journalists must not be persecuted and punished for their work. Nowhere."
The signatories said they were "deeply concerned about the chilling effect Assange's extradition and conviction could have on press freedom and investigative journalism around the world." The German MPs never received a reply to the letter.
Double cubits
Peter Heit, one of the signatories of the letter, is the spokesperson for human rights of the parliamentary group of the German Liberals. He says that when he criticizes the lack of protection of human rights abroad, he repeatedly experiences that he is countered by the treatment of the WikiLeaks founder.
All combined with the accusation that Germany and the West have double standards.
"They tell you that everywhere, you can talk to whoever you want," Hite confirms his experience in an interview with DW.
By the way, Peter Heit has been ending his speeches in the Bundestag for years with the same sentence: "By the way, I am of the opinion that Julian Assange should be released immediately."
Parliamentarians Hyte and Lux are both members of the parties of the ruling coalition. But little is heard from the Government itself about Assange.
Just weeks after the open letter in the summer of 2022, the Bundestag passed a resolution condemning the "political persecution" of journalists as an attack on press freedom. He also called on the federal government to work to free Assange and oppose extradition to the US.
The federal government "monitors" the extradition process
The government said it was "carefully" and "continuously" following the extradition process of Julian Assange and the public debate on the case. However, "in principle it does not comment" on the ongoing procedure or the content of confidential discussions with representatives of other governments, according to the German government's response to a question from the Left parliamentary group at the end of last year.
The clearest criticism of the proceedings against Assange from the German government sounds like this statement by the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "We have a different understanding of freedom of the press than it is defined in the US. What Mr. Assange did would not be punishable in our country."
The spokesman also referred to the ongoing court proceedings. And that perhaps an appeal could be filed with the European Court of Human Rights.
That would be a consolation for Assange, but a small one, as he would remain in British custody during the multi-year trial. After twelve years without freedom.
Günter Wallraff, a legend of investigative journalism in Germany, says: "You play for time. You want to die in installments."
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