Assange: the truth of imperialist collusion exposed

Shocking revelations have recently come to light surrounding the more than decade-long persecution of Julian Assange. A British judge, Penrose Foss, has ruled that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) must explain why it deleted a series of emails between itself and the Swedish legal authorities about the attempt to extradite Assange.

What information that has been made available by Freedom of Information (FOI) requests reveals the extent to which the CPS, then under the charge of Sir Keir Starmer, pressed the Swedish authorities to continue extradition attempts. This was all despite the complete lack of evidence and the fact that the Swedish police had effectively railroaded two women into making statements required to press rape charges against Assange.

Meanwhile, attempts to make FOI requests to Swedish, US and Australian authorities by Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi have been met with a “wall of darkness”. What this clearly shows is a political cover up of a coordinated attempt by these so-called ‘democratic’ governments to use fabricated rape accusations to persecute a political enemy.

Where it all began

Julian Assange earned the admiration of millions of workers and the poor when in 2010 Wikileaks, his organisation of whistleblowers and investigative journalists, released a stack of information detailing war crimes by the US and UK in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These exposed horrific crimes carried out by the imperialists, and how these crimes were systematically covered up by the US. One gruesome example was a video of the murder of several civilians, including two Reuters journalists, by US soldiers, which the Americans recorded as the killing of enemy combatants! The leaks revealed that the scale of civilian death was far worse than the US had reported, as well as exposing how the US was complicit with a regime of torture and arbitary detention.

From the point of view of US imperialism, Assange had committed an unforgivable sin. He had exposed the hollowness of the ‘rules-based order’, revealing the criminal and cynical policy of US imperialism for all its worth. The American establishment lost no time in fighting back, howling about Wikileaks ‘placing American servicemen and women in danger’.

To this day, despite an extensive Pentagon-led investigation, not a single death has been attributed to the Wikileaks exposé. Yet US politicians and intelligence agency figures continue to reel out this slander.

Stockholm subordination

The claim that Assange had endangered US personnel was only the beginning of a protracted character assassination. At that time, Assange lived in Sweden as a result of the constitutional guarantees the country gives to free journalism. But the hollowness of these ‘guarantees’ were soon revealed. The Swedish government feared a clash with Washington over Assange and was soon presented with an opportunity to persecute Assange on behalf of the latter.

The claim that Assange had endangered US personnel was only the beginning of a protracted character assassination / Image: Anthony Crider, Wikimedia Commons

In the summer of 2010, two women went to a police station with the intention of compelling Julian Assange to carry out a STD test after he had had unprotected sex with them. The Swedish authorities lost no time in twisting this and utilising it to descend upon Assange.

Unconventionally, the police decided to file a rape report within 11 minutes of the second woman, ‘woman S’, speaking to the police, despite it being two and a half hours before she finished making the report. Even more bizarrely, Sweden’s public prosecutor immediately issued an arrest warrant against Assange before the police summary was written, and without taking into account that ‘woman S’ did not agree to sign it.

Following several FOI requests, and despite many of the text records being destroyed, texts from the two women reveal the degree to which they were railroaded into the process. ‘Woman S’ writes that it was “the police who made up the charges” and it is clear that these women were threatened with facing charges of providing false testimony were they to back out at any point.

Back in 2010, immediately after the arrest warrant against Assange was issued, the fact was mysteriously leaked to the press, and a lynch mob atmosphere was whipped up demanding Assange’s arrest. Many so-called ‘lefts’ immediately jumped on the bandwaggon, under the watchword of ‘listening to women’ and ‘standing firm against sexual assault’. But what is now clear from these FOIs is that the Swedish state pressured these women into pressing charges in order to take Assange down.

No more loyal lapdog

Due to the complete lack of evidence, eventually the Swedish prosecutors relented and Assange was allowed to leave for London. This was not without the absurd fiasco of an Interpol Red Notice being issued, normally reserved for serious international crimes. Britain, having itself been embarrassed by Assange and keen to display its loyalty (subservience) to Washington, issued a European Arrest Warrant for Assange.

This is what compelled Assange to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. The CPS, led by Sir Keir Starmer, then set about aggressively maintaining the Swedish case for Assange’s extradition. It was clear at the time that this was a politically-motivated motivated arrest warrant, as Assange himself had offered to answer the questions of the public prosecutor in written form (a common practice), or even to hand himself over if he was given assurances that the Swedish government would not extradite him to the US. He was refused both requests, the intention clearly being to hand him over to the tender mercies of the US government.

The few emails that have survived what is clearly an attempted cover up, reveal how this hallowed institution of bourgeois justice was wielded, as all such institutions are, to serve the interests of the ruling class. One email from a CPS lawyer contains the line “don’t you dare get cold feet!” whilst another advised “please do not think that the case is being dealt with as just another extradition request”.

The British state was compelling the Swedish authorities to maintain a case that was based on the most flimsy evidence. This served a dual end. On the one hand, had they been successful it would have paved the way for Assange to be extradited to the US. On the other hand, it poisoned public opinion against Assange as a rapist. The British establishment would learn well from this example when it carried out the successful character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong anti-racist activist, as an ‘antisemite’.

An important lesson that the Left must learn

It has come to light now just how bogus the charges against Assange were. It is clear that this was a politically motivated attack to discredit someone who had dared to expose the crimes of the ruling class. Yet many on the left failed to see this, and even worse, produced shrill articles accusing anyone who pointed out the clear motivations of this fiasco as a ‘rape apologist’.

The Guardian played a particularly rotten role, with prominent journalists like Marina Hynde and Suzanne Moore publishing vile hit pieces that sneered and denigrated Assange. Worst of all however, was the contribution made by Owen Jones as he provided the left cover to this establishment offensive. As journalist Jonathan Cook makes clear, the campaign against Assange could not have been so effective without the role played by such articles.

Ultimately, such capitulations before bourgeois public opinion reflect the political weakness of reformism. It revealed firstly the naive faith of these so-called ‘lefts’ in the institutions of bourgeois democracy. For reformists like Jones, it simply couldn’t be possible that such allegations had been largely fabricated and that Assange was a clear victim of persecution. It is no accident that the same cabal of ‘left’ journalists made similar compromises and apologies when Corbyn was being smeared.

Secondly, the ruling class had clearly struck at the Achilles’ heel of these lefts by specifically fabricating rape allegations. For these lefts, who fully buy into identity politics, on these questions to be accused is to automatically be guilty, and we must first ‘listen to the women’ and ignore all political context of the accusations – despite the fact now clearly proven that it was not the women making these allegations but the public prosecutor and ‘woman S’ herself was subject to outrageous pressures!

As revolutionary communists, it is important for us to study the persecution of Julian Assange as a clear reminder of the real role of bourgeois legality and of identity politics. Our task is to mercilessly expose it, just as Assange exposed the crimes of imperialism so admirably nearly 15 years ago.