Rights Group Concerned By Possible US Prosecution Of Assange Over Publishing Gov't Data

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th November, 2018) The US Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed its concern over possible prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by the US authorities over publishing government documents, amid reports that the US government had filed charges against the whistleblower.

On Friday, WikiLeaks and several US media outlets published a sealed indictment in a case unrelated to Assange, which included what the group called an "apparent cut-and-paste error" as Assange's name was used twice in it. Meanwhile, on Thursday, US media reported that the US Justice Department was preparing to prosecute Assange and was confident it would be able to have him extradited to the United States.

"We are closely monitoring reports that prosecutors have prepared a sealed indictment against Julian Assange ... While the charges are not known, we would be concerned by a prosecution that construes publishing government documents as a crime. This would set a dangerous precedent that could harm all journalists, whether inside or outside the United States," Alexandra Ellerbeck, CPJ's North America program coordinator, said in a statement.

In the same statement, the non-profit organization recalled that back in 2010, it had called on the administration of US former President Barack Obama not to charge the WikiLeaks founder for the publication of classified US data.

Moreover, the CPJ warned earlier in 2018, that the lawsuit, filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) against WikiLeaks and Assange, alongside other defendants, over their alleged role in the theft and publication of the DNC computer files during the US 2016 presidential election, put press freedom at risk.

Assange and WikiLeaks leaped in the spotlight back in 2010 as they revealed the leaked video of the killing of two Reuters staffers by the US forces' airstrike in Iraq in 2007, which became high-profile. The group has since published hundreds of thousands of other classified materials.

In 2012, Assange received asylum in Ecuador and has been living in the country's embassy in London since then, fleeing prosecution by the Swedish authorities on sex offense charges that he denied. Though Sweden dropped the charges in 2017, Assange has still not left the embassy, citing fears that he might be seized and extradited to the United States.