Washington: Leading American and European media outlets that had worked with the WikiLeaks founder urged on Monday that the United States should stop prosecuting Julian Assange due to concerns about press freedom.
"This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America's First Amendment and the freedom of the press," editors and publishers of the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País said in an open letter.
In connection with the publication of private US military records and diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, Assange is sought by US authorities on 18 charges, one of which is a spying accusation. His admirers claim that he is a victimised anti-establishment hero who exposed US misconduct, notably in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reuters reported.
On Monday, it will have been twelve years since those media outlets joined together to publish snippets from more than 250,000 papers Assange had gotten as part of the infamous "Cablegate" leak.
The information, which exposed the inner workings of US diplomacy around the world, was disclosed to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, an American soldier at the time. According to the letter, the documents "exposed diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale."
A group of journalists and attorneys filed a lawsuit against the CIA and its former director Mike Pompeo in August over claims the spy agency monitored them when they visited Assange while he was staying in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Assange stayed at the embassy for seven years before being brought out and imprisoned in 2019 for violating his bail terms. While his extradition case is being resolved, he has remained imprisoned in London. He could receive a term of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison in the US if extradited there.
In a lengthy legal dispute that has lasted more than ten years, his legal team has made an application to the High Court in London to stop his extradition.
"Publishing is not a crime," the media outlets said in their letter on Monday.