For Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty, Assange’s extradition risks putting him “in great danger and would send a terrifying message to journalists around the world.”
Stella Assange, a lawyer and Assange’s wife, had asked the British government not to sign the extradition decree to the United States.
“Any country that cares about freedom of expression should be ashamed to see that the Home Secretary has approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the country that plotted to assassinate him,” he said in a statement on Friday.
At a press conference, and visibly moved, he also assured: “If he is extradited to the United States, the conditions in which he will be found will be oppressive (…) This will drive him to suicide.”
“Julian has not done anything wrong. He has not committed any crime, he is not a criminal. He is a journalist, an editor and he is punished for having done his job,” said the lawyer, who married Assange in March, with whom she has two children, conceived during the Wikileaks founder’s stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Stella Assange guaranteed that it is not the end of the battle, but “the beginning of a new judicial battle.”
The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zajarova, ironized: “It is the apotheosis of humanism, the apogee of freedom of expression. I remember that Assange can be sentenced to 175 years in prison. For journalistic activity.”