Obama joins attack on WikiLeaks

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Obama joins attack on WikiLeaks
By Joseph Kishore
13 December 2010

US president Barack Obama added his own comments to the increasingly vitriolic
campaign against WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, over the weekend.
Obama called the actions by WikiLeaks, which have helped reveal Washington’s
sordid machinations in various parts of the world, “deplorable.”

According to the White House, the president called Turkish prime minister Recep
Tayyip and “expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks.” The
White House said that the two leaders agreed the leaked cables—including
thousands from the US embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara—would “not
influence or disrupt the close co-operation between the United States and Turkey.”

Obama made similar remarks in a telephone call to Mexican president Filipe Calderon.

The statements were the first direct comments from the president, who has
allowed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder to
take the lead in attacking WikiLeaks and threatening prosecution. Holder said
last week that American authorities were actively pursuing some means of
charging Assange and WikiLeaks for the release of the cables. Assange’s lawyers
have warned that a US indictment against their client may be imminent.

While condemning WikiLeaks, Obama has said nothing about the repeated calls from
sections of the US media and political establishment for the assassination of
Assange or the designation of WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization—thus tacitly
legitimizing what amounts to an incitement to murder.

For its part, the American media has remained almost completely silent in the
face of an internationally organized political persecution and attack on basic
constitutional rights. The New York Times, one of the news organizations
provided early access to all the cables, has not published a single editorial on
the persecution of WikiLeaks and has largely ceased publishing articles on the
cables themselves.

There remains the real danger that the arrest of Assange in Britain—based on
trumped-up charges of sexual misconduct in Sweden—will by followed by an
attempted extradition to the United States. According to media reports last
week, the US and Sweden are engaged in discussions over how this could be done.
(See, “Obama administration steps up vendetta against WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange”)

In a documentary aired on Swedish public television on Sunday, with interviews
obtained prior to his arrest, Assange denied the allegations and warned that he
faced prosecution by US authorities over the WikiLeaks revelations.

“I came to Sweden as a refugee publisher involved with an extraordinary
publishing fight with the Pentagon,” he said, “There is an attempt to prosecute
me for espionage. So I am unhappy and disappointed with how the Swedish justice
system has been abused.”

Assange is currently being held in an isolation unit in London’s Wandsworth
prison. He has very limited access to the Internet, telephone, and even his own
lawyers. The decision to hold Assange in these conditions, and to deny him bail,
is all the more extraordinary given the specious character of the charges
against him.

Assange’s lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, said over the weekend that the charges against
Assange were unfounded, telling London’s Daily Mail, “It is clear that the women
[who have made allegations against Assange] are lying and that they had an
agenda when they went to the police, which had nothing to do with a crime having
taken place.”

Hurtig added, “If I am able to reveal what I know, everyone will realize this is
all a charade. If I could tell the British courts, I suspect it would make
extradition a moot point. But at the moment I’m bound by the rules of the
Swedish legal system, which say that the information can only be used as
evidence in this country [Sweden]. For me to do otherwise would lead to me being
disbarred.”

Swedish prosecutors initially dropped the case on the grounds that the charges
were unfounded, but it was later picked up—likely under pressure from Washington.

Over the weekend, demonstrations were held in Spain and other countries against
the persecution of WikiLeaks and Assange, organized by a Spanish group
supporting WikiLeaks. Several hundred people gathered in rallies in Madrid and
Barcelona. Other cities in Europe also saw demonstrations, varying in size from
dozens to several hundred.

The protests followed demonstrations of several thousand in Australia on Friday.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/wiki-d13.shtml

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