Julian Assange trends as Navalny death highlights another jailed journalist | indy100

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After staunch Putin critic Alexei Navalny was reported dead by Russia’s federal prison service on Friday (16 February), attention has now turned to another high-profile individual persecuted for holding the government to account: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Navalny produced a number of films alleging corruption in Russia’s political establishment before he was poisoned with the nerve agent novichok in 2020 (an act he claimed was carried out on behalf of the government) and then sentenced to a lengthy term in prison.

He died there after he “felt unwell”, and “almost immediately lost consciousness” with medical staff unable to resuscitate him. A cause of death is being established.

Assange, meanwhile, attracted heat from the US government after he published thousands of leaked, classified documents pertaining to the country’s activities in Iraq. The Guardian reported on the logs, detailing how American authorities allegedly failing to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers.

In 2012, he walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London and was granted political asylum there, as he faced sexual assault allegations made in Sweden (which he repeatedly denies, and which were later dropped by prosecutors), and feared an extradition to the Scandinavian country would result in a further extradition to the US concerning espionage charges.

After living there for seven years, he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police for failing to surrender to Westminster Magistrates’ Court all those years ago, when the embassy withdrew his asylum due to “discourteous and aggressive behaviour”.

He was arrested again in custody on behalf of the US authorities, who sought his extradition based on allegations he knowingly and intentionally accessed a computer “without authorisation and exceeding authorised access” to obtain and communicate classified information.

Assange denies any wrongdoing.

Since he was apprehended by the police in 2019, Assange has been in London’s Belmarsh prison, and next week, his High Court appeal over whether he can contest being extradited to the US will be heard by the court.

His supporters fear he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison if extradited, while his wife Stella Assange said her husband “will die” if it happens.

She also said Assange would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights for a Rule 39 order – that’s the same intervention which stopped the first Rwanda flight, by the way – if he is unsuccessful in stopping the extradition.

And against the backdrop of Navalny’s death – confirmed by his spokesperson on Saturday – Twitter/X users have questioned politicians for commenting on the Russian activist, while not mentioning Assange:

Your regime has held journalist Julian Assange in maximum security prison in London for 5 years. \n\nHis crime was exposing the war crimes of your ally.\n\nFree him. Or these words will ring hollow now\u2014and forever.
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Now do Julian Assange.
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The world is watching an assault on political freedom. \n\nFrom the death of Navalny in Russian custody, to Julian Assange's UK imprisonment, to the 1000s of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel, to Modi's harassment of opponents in India, our duty is to speak up for justice.
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@David_Cameron Pot calls the kettle black. What about Julian Assange or all the people being arrested here for their social media posts?
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@David_Cameron Ever heard of Julian Assange? #FreeAssange
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@David_Cameron Aren't y'all the ones who are holding Julian Assange as a political prisoner on behalf of the US because he revealed its war crimes??\n\nY'all aren't all that much different from Putin, champ.
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Navalny was awful. So what? We need to fight for the right of all people not to be condemned to slow death in solitary confinement by other awful people. If not, how can we fight to save the life of good people, like Julian Assange?
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As we are shocked that Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, has just died in prison in Russia, let\u2019s remember that Julian Assange might also die in prison. He is detained in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London, UK for telling the truth.
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A Change.org petition calling on James Cleverly, the home secretary, to intervene in the case to stop the US extradition has more than 95,000 signatures at the time of writing.

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