Wikileaks founder Julian Assange pictured in 2009.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange pictured in 2009.
A Northland man who founded a New Zealanders For Julian Assange group is calling on Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to lodge a diplomatic protest with the United States, demanding charges against the Wikileaks founder be dropped.
However, a security and intelligence analyst believed support for Assange from, what he called, a pro-American Peters was unlikely at this time.
Assange has been resisting extradition from the United Kingdom for more than a decade following the publication of classified documents belonging to the US. He sheltered in the Ecuadorian Embassy from 2012 to 2019 while facing extradition to Sweden on a sex-crime warrant - dropped in 2019 - and then in Belmarsh Prison while opposing extradition to the US.
Northlander Alan William Preston said he and 455 members of the lobby group New Zealanders for Julian Assange want the US to drop charges against the Australian.
Founder of New Zealanders for Julian Assange, Alan William Preston. Photo / Rose Dixon
He said that should happen before the final high court ruling on extradition to the US which is expected next month.
Peters has not responded to the group, nor to the Advocate when contacted for comment last Friday.
Preston said journalists needed immunity from prosecution and reprisals to hold power to account and the prosecution of Assange had already created a “chilling effect” dissuading media from doing its job.
Security intelligence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan said the decision this week that New Zealand would send military support to the Middle East was an obvious show of support for New Zealand’s Five Eyes security intelligence partner, the US.
“In the middle of all this, I don’t think you are going to see New Zealand supporting the release of Julian Assange anytime soon.”
Buchanan said that would be up to Australia given Assange is an Australian citizen.
“You know what, in a very strange way, this is a form of torture, you know just holding him in detention indefinitely, until he loses his mind.”
Buchanan said Peters was pro-American and would not want to jeopardise a warm relationship between the US and New Zealand.
Security intelligence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan. Photo / 36th Parallel Assessments
Preston said the case of Assange was an opportunity for Peters to assert to the international community that New Zealand was a strong proponent of the international rules-based system. He said that included seeing the human rights of detainees protected.
If Assange were to be extradited and subsequently jailed, he said no journalist or publisher would be safe scrutinising or holding powers to account.
Preston said protesting over the case would enhance New Zealand’s reputation that it was committed to upholding human rights, adhering to the rule of law and respecting international agreements and treaties.
