Julian Assange. Julian Assange
of whom extradition is requested might refuse if the requesting country considers the offence to be punishable by the death penalty. American politicians had already called for my extradition to face charges under the espionage act. Congressman Peter T. King wrote to Hillary Clinton to say that I was at the head of a ‘terrorist organisation’ and should be treated as such – the same Peter King that used to shake his little collection tin up and down the streets of New York City raising money for the IRA, the self styled ‘Ollie North of Ireland’. It amazed me to think about how these guardians against ‘offences’ were themselves so offensive. I read the document and realised again that I was, no matter what they said of me or invented about me, merely a figure in something much larger than myself. I could only keep my head clear, absorb the flak and the caricaturing of my nature and my motives, and continue working.
Letters arrived, and I sent some, too, but always with difficulty, as the bureaucratic machine ground on. A jail is like an island, on which the inmates can seem unreachable; it is also a concrete, living idea of abusive power, and the letters helped me to feel cared for during those difficult days in Wandsworth. The letters showed another country from this England of slopping out, where people realised that they themselves must embody the arguments for their own liberty. From Hampshire: ‘Dear Julian, You will not know me. I am just one of millions of citizens around the world who know what is going on, and are not blinded to the political games of which you have become a victim.’ From Tulse Hill: ‘You must always remember that the achievement of WikiLeaks is vital for the development of our world. P.S. Sending a puzzle book to keep you thinking.’ From Basingstoke: ‘I support your stand and feel you are being victimised and harassed by powerful forces.’ From Yorkshire: ‘Can you hear the sound of falling masonry? Keep up the good work. You are welcome in North Yorkshire any time. Excellent broadband in this part of the world, too.’ From Essex: ‘I think your case has made many people sit up and think a little more deeply about power, politics and corruption.’ From Merseyside: ‘We thought about you last night and hoped you were safe in that unpleasant place. When you are released, can you come up to the North West and explain to people the importance of freedom of thought, speech and information?’
Some of the mail came in the form of Christmas cards, simply signed ‘An Old Lady’, or ‘A Friend’. Perhaps less friendly, though delivered around the same time, was a cutting from the Washington Times, ‘Assassinate Assange?’ The author of this alliterative pleasantry, one Jeffrey T. Kuhner, placed a chill on the warm cards. ‘Mr Assange is not a journalist or publisher,’ he wrote; ‘rather he is an enemy combatant – and should be treated as such.’ If there could be any doubt as to Kuhner’s meaning he dispelled it in his concluding sentence: ‘We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him.’
I suppose I should have been shocked to find myself subjected to this sort of rhetoric from a fellow journalist, but I had learned long before that too many journalists are nothing more than stenographers for the powerful. Why should I be surprised to read that Jeffrey Kuhner wanted me dead when I had already been called ‘an anti-American operative with blood on his hands’ by the TV star and governor-impersonator Sarah Palin? And if the Attorney General Eric Holder thought I was ‘an enemy of the US’, why be shocked to read that the Fox News neocon Charles Krauthammer wanted me looking over my shoulder every time I walked down the street? Former Bush advisor Jack Goldsmith may have thought he was praising the US media when he said that their ‘patriotism’ made it easy for the government to work with them, but if I ever received such a ‘compliment’ I think I would resign.
On my way from exercise yard to cell, or from library to cell, I found my fellow inmates staring at me. The authorities were paranoid about the possibility of a prisoner taking a picture on his mobile phone. They’re not supposed to have mobiles, but many do, and it seemed likely that a picture would end up in one of the newspapers. So the Governor appointed a guard who accompanied me everywhere. ‘They think everyone is out to get me,’ I said to him.
‘Who?’
‘The authorities.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘everyone has a price and these people have nothing.’
I met with a Catholic chaplain in one of the meeting rooms. There wasn’t much in the way of spiritual guidance, not that I’m the perfect candidate, but the man was from Uganda and I felt a connection and we laughed as we talked. On the way back through the hallway I spotted Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward on a bookshelf. I took it back to my cell and got lost in it, just the old wisdom about inhumanity and the solace of the gracious book. An educated, middle-class woman appears in the story; her husband is in a labour camp and she wonders what she should tell their son. ‘“The truth’s enough to sink a grown man, isn’t it?” she says. “It’s enough to break your ribs. Or should I hide the truth and bring him to terms with life? After all, the boy’s got eyes of his own, he can see.”
“Burden him with the truth!” declared Oleg.’
On the outside there were acres of press coverage. I heard as much from my supporters, and it gave me pause for thought: Cablegate now represented the biggest release of classified material in history. And I paused too over the costs and causes of the Swedish affair. By not ringing those women back, had I really left the door open for hatred? Time may unfold sequentially but experience does not always. I was thinking in prison about the shape of my life, about these opportunities, these crises, and in the end my mind was taken up with the world beyond them. Had I made an error of judgement, or was it all proportionate in terms of what I was trying to achieve? Had I kicked the Yanks in the shins too hard? The case would pass, after much tribulation for all those involved, I supposed, but it would pass, and I would learn from what had occurred that shocking year. Yes. In solitary confinement I felt I had enough anger to take me through a hundred years, but my task was to get on with our publishing work and to watch the world respond.
My bail hearing took place at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Horseferry Road on 14 December. The court was packed and so was the street outside as I approached in a police van. Someone said the roads around Victoria were treacherous, and I smiled, thinking, ‘I’ve known treachery, so let the roads be at peace with themselves.’ The Prosecution was keen to oppose bail under any circumstances and to portray me as some kind of James Bond villain, well connected and full of computer wizardry, likely to outfox the forces of surveillance. It was implied by them that I would hack into the system of tagging. I’m sure we could, but, as usual, the Prosecution, like much of the press, was falling for the lesser kind of fiction. They needed a villain with silver hair, some kind of cat-stroking nutcase bent on serial seduction and world domination. It was interesting – it was alarming – to see how much they allowed a sense of justice to be confused by the many fantastical headlines surrounding me. There was no point opposing it. An impression had been created, and I had neither the skill nor the will to outflank it. But I always knew my lawyers would have to struggle with a Prosecution, and a press, who thought they were watching a movie as opposed to trafficking in a person’s life.
The judge at one point berated the public gallery for using Twitter. That seemed symbolic enough. When it comes to the British courts, it is often contempt that breeds Contempt, and there was always what you might call a generational refusal at the heart of my case. (Eventually, a council of elders at the High Court decided, after the fact for us, that the use of Twitter was permissible in court.) There was a lot of fuss about bail money, too. Although I’m an activist and head of a not-for-profit organisation, the film-script headlines encouraged them to set my bail at an eye-watering £240,000. I was still thinking, ‘I’m not going to be a victim of this situation. I am not a criminal.’ That same feeling had been very strong as I arrived in the van that afternoon. The cameras were banging again on the glass and I looked up, holding my fingers in a ‘peace’ sign. That photograph made all the papers, but it was just an impulse, an attempt by me to say, ‘You will not turn me into a cowering criminal.’ They had tried to crush me in that little prison, but I came to the court that day sure that the narrative was coming together, not on their terms, but on those of my supporters and me.
I was still in danger, though. I was beginning to realise that danger was probably where I lived now. But I stood in the dock pitching my sense