In First Speech Since Release, Assange Says Imprisonment Set 'Dangerous Precedent'

In his first public statement since being released from prison in June, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday urged European lawmakers to take action to protect journalists from being prosecuted for their reporting work, warning that his yearslong case is directly tied to self-censorship and the chilling of press freedom.

Assange spoke to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (PACE) at the Council of Europe, which includes members from across the continent, in Strasbourg, France, and warned that current legal protections for journalists and whistleblowers "were not effective in any remotely reasonable time," as evidenced by the 14 years he spent in prison or otherwise in confinement for his work.

"I want to be totally clear," said Assange. "I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today because after years of incarceration I pleaded guilty to journalism. I pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source."

Watch Assange's testimony below:

Assange was released from Belmarsh Prison in London in June after being incarcerated there for five years. His release was secured when he agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security materials in a deal with the U.S. government.

He had spent years fighting U.S. efforts to extradite him, threatening him with a sentence of up to 170 years in a federal prison, as punishment for state secrets WikiLeaks published.

The media organization reported on a series of leaks provided by former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning regarding the Army's killing of unarmed civilians in Iraq, as well as publishing diplomatic cables.

"I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking for receiving and publishing truthful information about that power, while I was in Europe," said Assange, who is Australian, on Tuesday. "The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs."

Assange told PACE members that he had believed that Article 10 of European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the media, would protect him from prosecution.

"Similarly, looking at the U.S. First Amendment to its Constitution... No publisher had ever been prosecuted for publishing classified information from the United States," said Assange. "I expected some kind of harassment legal process. I was pre-prepared to fight for that."

He continued:

My naiveté was in believing in the law. When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency.

They are the rules made by the ruling class more broadly. And if those rules don't suit what it wants to do, it reinterprets them or hopefully changes them... In the case of the United States, we angered one of the constituent powers of the United States. The intelligence sector... It was powerful enough to push for a reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

He said he ultimately "chose freedom over unrealizable justice," as the U.S. was intent on imprisoning him for the rest of his life unless he entered the guilty plea.

Assange added that his case set a "dangerous precedent," and that since his arrest he has observed "more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship."

"It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism to the chilled climate for freedom of expression now," said Assange.

His comments echoed the findings of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which published its annual press freedom index in May. The group found that "in the Americas, the inability of journalists to cover subjects related to organized crime, corruption, or the environment for fear of reprisals poses a major problem."

The U.S. fell 10 places in the annual ranking, with citing "open antagonism from political officials" such as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, "including calls to jail journalists." RSF also cited the government's pursuit of Assange's extradition.

In Europe, said Assange on Tuesday, "the criminalization of news-gathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere."