Wikileaks Creator, In Geneva, Denounces US Abuse Of Human Rights

In a police-secured, airless room full of Geneva journalists, Julian Assange, creator and director of Wikileaks, today gave details of what he described as United States abuse of human rights in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as an alleged muzzling of US press on those subjects. The United States will undergo its first Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council tomorrow.

Wikileaks, a non-profit media organisation that became globally known for releasing highly confidential documents, was invited to speak at the initiative of the International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights, a Geneva-based non-profit organisation. Wikileaks, which released on 22 October some 400,000 confidential documents revealing human rights abuses covered by the US army during the Iraq war, is under high pressure, according to Assange. “We have never faced such difficulty as in the past three months,” he said.

Three months ago, Wikileaks had published over 70,000 documents on the Afghan war. But the release of those documents has not led the US conducting a full investigation, Assange said, contrary to other countries such as the United Kingdom and Norway. Instead, the US is “doing a rather aggressive investigation into this (Wikileaks) organisation,” made public threats, and demanded the destruction of the material, he said.

“That type of behaviour is not acceptable to the world community,” he said, nor is it “in the interest of the US to conduct its affairs in this way.” The country “must conduct investigation,” he said. At the moment, laws in the US are not being upheld by elements of the US governments, he said, adding in answer to a question, that the Obama administration also bore responsibility in the lack of action following the disclosure of the documents and human rights abuse, like torture.

On the difficulties faced by the organisation, Assange said that “security considerations affect anyone in investigative journalism,” adding that a significant portion of the organisation’s resources were directed to security issues and fighting off attacks, notably recently against Wikileaks’ online payment system for donation, which was abruptly cut after, allegedly, the organisation appeared on a US watchlist and on an Australian blacklist. The service is now restored, said Assange.

Tomorrow, Assange, an Australian, will present at the US review as an expert witness on discoveries in Iraq and Afghanistan. He described this as an awkward position to be both witness to human rights abuses committed by the US government and “a victim of some of those abuses myself,” he said.