US ‘considers’ Julian Assange release request, union pressures Australia to keep lobbying

Demonstrators hold placards after Stella Assange, wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, released a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. Photo / AP

Hours after US President Joe Biden signalled he was considering an Australian request to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, a union is pressuring the government to continue its lobbying.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance has written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong urging them to publicly call upon the US government to drop its charges against the WikiLeaks founder.

Overnight in Washington, Biden was asked if he had a response to Australia’s request to end Assange’s prosecution.

“We are considering it,” he said, according to Reuters.

The US government has pursued Assange for years after he released troves of confidential classified documents on the internet.

It wants to extradite him from the United Kingdom to face criminal charges.

Albanese in February backed a motion moved by independent MP Andrew Wilkie in the lower house of the federal parliament calling for the return of Assange, 52, to Australia.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s letter to the government on Thursday comes on the fifth anniversary of Assange’s detention in the UK.

“As we draw closer to the US presidential election, the opportunity for a satisfactory resolution to this case diminishe.”overnment drop the charges against Julian Assange so he can resume life as a free man in Australia,” the alliance’s federal president Karen Percy said.

“As we draw closer to the US presidential election, the opportunity for a satisfactory resolution to this case diminishes.”

US prosecutors want to try Assange on 18 counts, mainly under the Espionage Act, over WikiLeaks’ release in 2010 of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.