Dear Mr. President of the United States of America,

We are journalists, and as such we have come to ask you to desist from committing an injustice against one of our own, Julian Assange.

After thirteen years of persecution, this Australian citizen is currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom under threat of extradition to the United States, at the behest of a conditioned justice which treats him as if he were a spy or a traitor. Beyond the iniquitous fate of the WikiLeaks founder, this procedure turns journalism into a crime and endangers all those who make it their profession, all over the world.

We are journalists, in other words we serve a universally proclaimed fundamental right: the right to know everything that is in the public interest, a right which, in the United States, is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Journalists, says the European Court of Human Rights, are the “watchdogs” of democracy. They can disturb, displease and upset, but they are necessary to ensure that the public knows everything that is being done in its name, so that it can make its choices freely, without being blinded by propaganda and lies.

Julian Assange has done nothing other than reveal information of public interest, and in this sense he has acted as a journalist. We can attest this especially because we have published this information, we have actively collaborated with WikiLeaks and, in some cases, we have published investigations signed by Julian Assange. While the whole world has been able to judge the democratic usefulness of his revelations, the proceedings brought against him by the United States of America can only strengthen the authoritarian powers in their repression of independent journalism and the free press.

We are journalists, diverse in our sensibilities and opinions, but all committed to the same professional ideal: to serve the truth of the facts. This is why, Mr. President, we urge you to put an end to the extradition proceedings against the founder of WikiLeaks. In order to re-establish the truth of which we are the guarantors: before history, Julian Assange has served journalism.

First signatories :

– Mediapart (Edwy Plenel, Director and Co-founder - France)
– Der Spiegel (Melanie Amann, Co-editor-in-chief - Germany)
– Il Fatto Quotidiano (Marco Travaglio, Director - Italy)
– InfoLibre (Jesús Maraña, Editorial Director, and Daniel Basteiro, Editor-in-Chief - Spain)

New signatories :

– Vilaweb (Vicent Partal, Director of the Catalan online newspaper - Spain)
– Reflets.info (Antoine Champagne, Editorial Director - France)
– Blast (Denis Robert, Fondeur - France)
– The Wire (Siddharth Varadarajan, Founder - India)
– Reporters United (Greece)
– Inside Story (Dimitris Xenakis, Publisher and Co-founder – Greece)
– La Directa (Catalan newspaper – Spain)

Media wishing to join this appeal can let us know by writing to the following email address: pourassange mediapart.fr

This appeal has already been sent to the President of the United States of America via Denise Bauer, the US Ambassador to France.