Manufacturing Contempt for Assange: How the Media Made WikiLeaks Founder into a Scapegoat

The Watchdog

The High Court in London has upheld the U.S. government’s appeal to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a key step towards his rendition to the United States. The Australian publisher faces up to 175 years in prison once he sets foot on American soil.

Whether he ever makes it to the United States is still in question. His legal team has indicated they will challenge the ruling, which will inevitably draw out court proceedings and prolong his stay inside Belmarsh Prison. Also of note is the 50-year-old’s health. This weekend, it was revealed that he had suffered a stroke in October as a result of the stress of the trial.

Two individuals who have been closely monitoring the Assange trial are Pablo Navarette and John McEvoy. Pablo is a British-Chilean filmmaker and the founder of Alborada magazine, an outlet concentrating on Latin American politics. John is an investigative journalist whose work documents the impact of the British national security state on public life. In November, the pair published an article entitled ‘“A Lot of Mistakes”: The Guardian and Julian Assange,’ which can be read on MintPress News. Today, they discussed the role that The Guardian, and the mainstream press more generally, have played in persecuting him.

It is now known that UC Global – the private security firm hired to protect the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange was confined – was secretly spying on their charge, sending the information they gleaned back to the U.S. government. This included security cameras and audio bugs.

Guardian journalist Stephanie Kirchgaessner was aware of the spying long before it was made public. Yet rather than blowing the whistle, she instead chose to write highly dubious articles insinuating that he was an agent of Russian malfeasance.

The Guardian was one of WikiLeaks's partner organizations, being fed bombshell after bombshell, revelations that helped build its brand and its audience. Yet, far from standing up for free speech, it was in the lead in attacking WikiLeaks and its founder. Of particular note is Luke Harding, who published the passcode to a trove of WikiLeaks documents, an act that the U.S. government claims endangered its representatives around the world.

In 2018, Harding also published a viral story that claimed that Assange had secretly met with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and unnamed “Russians” whil

Support the show

The MintPress podcast, “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.
Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.