September 25 () –
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will make his first public remarks since his release from prison in June next week, testifying before the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
Wikileaks has said that the meeting will take place from 8.30 to 10.00 at the Palais de l’Europe to mark the publication of the report on the ‘Assange case’, which focuses on the implications of his detention and its effects on human rights, in particular freedom of journalism. “The report confirms that Assange meets the requirements to be considered a political prisoner and calls on the United Kingdom to conduct an independent review to determine whether he was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment,” reads a statement.
The organisation has specified that its founder “is still recovering after his release from prison” and will attend this session in person “due to the exceptional nature of the invitation and to take advantage of the support received from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and its delegates in recent years”.
Assange agreed to plead guilty to espionage in the US courts for leaking thousands of secret documents, in exchange for US authorities considering his sentence to be fulfilled by the time he has spent in custody. He has spent the last five years in a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom, while the previous seven were spent locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
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