WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was being given a hero’s welcome even before he was due to return to his native Australia on Wednesday after pleading guilty to felony charges under US espionage laws.
Australian politicians rushed to issue statements in support of the plea deal that won him his freedom, including former prime minister and now Australian ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, who appeared with him in a U.S. courtroom on the Pacific island of Saipan.
It seemed fitting that Assange’s case ended in a far-flung outpost: the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth linked to the United States through post-World War II imperialism.
He ended his standoff with the US government far from Washington, 14 years after publishing classified military and diplomatic documents that revealed secret details of US spying and the killing of civilians during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
He was a polarizing figure in his day, seen by some as a brave journalist and by others as a reckless anarchist endangering the American people, and became even more polarizing during the 2016 presidential election when WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee that had been stolen by Russian hackers.
But after spending five years in a British prison, marrying and fathering two children, Mr Assange has become a more appealing character to Australians. Suddenly he has become the underdog forced to endure the wrath of a superpower, and the rebellious man who deserves to serve his sentence in a land where prisoners are settled and return home.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the court proceedings that led to Assange’s release were a “welcome development”.
“This is something that has been considered, patiently and carefully resolved and that is Australia’s international behaviour,” he said on Wednesday.
“Whatever one’s view of Mr Assange’s activities, his case is dragging on,” he added.
Critics see the response as lacking reflection, ignoring Australia’s espionage laws – some of the toughest in the democratic world, with penalties of up to 25 years in prison – and weak protections for journalism. It also highlights the Albanese government’s continued resistance to greater transparency in public records and the Strengthening whistleblower protection lawsin spite of Frustration About some secret incidents.
Johan Rydberg, an associate professor of journalism at Monash University in Melbourne who has worked with the United Nations on global press freedom, said he was surprised by the broad political support for Assange. In an instant, he managed to unite Green and Labor MPs and the Conservative Party leader. But how?
Rydberg said sympathy for Assange in Australia began to grow after he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy at the request of President Trump in 2016 and jailed in Belmarsh prison in southeast London.
“His case has evolved from hacking, journalism, publishing and advocacy to a humanitarian issue,” he said. “The Australian myth of ‘fair treatment’ may have played a role. He was not treated fairly and was seen as having been wronged.”
The desire to protect accountable journalism, which many Americans feared would send an intimidating message to reporters and sources, was not a major concern in Australia, where there is no constitutional guarantee of free speech.
James Curran, a professor of history at the University of Sydney and international affairs columnist, said Australians did not necessarily share the same kind of reverence that Americans had for “the whole culture of secrets and classified documents”.
When a cross-party group of Australian politicians travelled to Washington in October to lobby for Assange, they did not stress the need to protect the fourth estate.
“They highlighted how China and Russia were using the Assange case as evidence of the blatant hypocrisy of Western countries when it comes to treating political prisoners,” Curran said. “This has sent shock waves in Washington.”
American law and order had already lost some respect: many Australians now murmur in discontent with what they see as an American criminal justice system that is too performative and too punitive, with the death penalty in some states and long prison sentences in most.
“The high incarceration rates, the abuse of the plea bargaining process, and even the conduct of the US police,” said Hugh White, a former Australian defence official and now a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University. “I don’t think even fairly conservative people thought Assange would get a ‘fair deal’ at the hands of the Department of Justice.”
Asked about Mr. Assange’s case when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited Australia last year for high-level defense talks in Brisbane, he bristled at the idea that Mr. Assange was the victim of American whims.
Standing at an outdoor podium surrounded by military veterans, Blinken said he understood the “concerns and views of the Australian people” but it was vital that “our friends here” understand that Assange “has allegedly been involved in one of the largest leaks of classified information in our country’s history”.
To many Australians, his comments sounded defensive and condescending — Australia and the United States have fought together in past wars, remain side-by-side allies and are now building a collective defense framework to deter potential Chinese aggression — but Blinken’s tone helped paint Assange as a mouthpiece for deep-seated ambivalence about another element of Australia-US relations: the notion of American exceptionalism.
“This may simply reflect the ambivalence that great powers always generate among their smaller satellites, but it’s not the only thing that matters,” White said.
He added that some conservative, Anglocentric Australians also resent America’s replacement with the British Empire after World War II. Some also feel the US has often overlooked the concerns of friendly countries and that continuing to prosecute Assange “has made the US appear unduly vindictive”, he said.
Australian politicians seem pleased that the US is backing down and being a little more humble to listen. Not only Mr Albanese, but local Conservatives and Green Liberals all praised Mr Assange’s release. Mr Rudd smiled so much during his court appearance that he could be mistaken for a lawyer.
But their triumphant mood may yet fade. Will the next set of leaks reveal secrets about Australia? What if Assange and WikiLeaks choose a side in the US election or the Ukraine war that most Australians don’t support?
“You could argue that WikiLeaks helped Trump and Putin more than anyone else and put lives at risk,” Curran said. “This point doesn’t seem to have really permeated the Australian debate.”
