Julian Assange

Obras

Su primera incursión en el mundo literario fue su colaboración como investigador y autor del epílogo del libro Underground, de Suelette Dreyfus.^{[cita requerida]}

Assange ha decidido escribir su autobiografía por la suma de 1,5 millones de dólares. El dinero que reciba por los derechos de autor será para financiar las acusaciones legales que afronta. “No quiero escribir este libro, pero tengo que hacerlo”, dijo. “Ya he gastado 300.000 dólares para los gastos legales y tengo que defenderme y mantener WikiLeaks a flote“.⁴⁴​

La vida de Julian Assange es el tema de la obra teatral Rata de acero inoxidable (Stainless Steel Rat), del dramaturgo Ron Elisha, que será llevada a la escena por Wayne Harrison y se representará en el Seymour Centre de Sídney.⁴⁵​

A partir de las entrevistas realizadas a tres activistas criptopunks en el programa de televisión El mundo del mañana, Julian Assange y sus invitados han publicado el libro Cypherpunks: La libertad y el futuro de internet.^{[cita requerida]}

Premios y condecoraciones

Assange recibió en el 2009 el Premio Amnistía Internacional Reino Unido a los Nuevos Medios,⁴⁶​ por exponer asesinatos extrajudiciales en Kenia distribuyendo y publicando la investigación de la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos de Kenia (KNCHR) Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances.⁴⁶​⁴⁷​⁴⁸​ y ha sido reconocido como periodista por el Centro de Periodismo de Investigación.⁴⁹​ Al aceptar el premio, Assange dijo: «Es reflejo del coraje y fortaleza de la sociedad civil de Kenia que esta injusticia fuera documentada».⁵⁰​

En 2010, Assange fue galardonado con el Premio Sam Adams,⁵¹​⁵²​ y fue el ganador de la elección de los lectores de la revista TIME a la Persona del Año 2010.⁵³​⁵⁴​ En abril de 2011, fue nombrado en la lista Time 100 de las personas más influyentes.⁵⁵​ Una encuesta informal a editores en Postmedia Network lo nombró el más relevante del año después de que seis de 10 encuestados han sentido que Assange ha «afectado profundamente cómo se ve y cómo se entrega la información».⁵⁶​

Le Monde, una de las cinco publicaciones que cooperaron con WikiLeaks para publicar las filtraciones de información, lo nombró Persona del Año, con 56 % de votos en su encuesta en línea.⁵⁷​⁵⁸​⁵⁹​

En febrero de 2011, se anunció que Assange ha sido premiado con el Premio Sídney de la Paz por la Fundación Sídney de la Paz de la Universidad de Sídney por su «excepcional coraje e iniciativa en la búsqueda de los derechos humanos».⁶⁰​ Las cinco personas que han recibido el premio en los 14 años de historia de la fundación han sido: Nelson Mandela; Tenzin Gyatso, el 14º dalái lama; Daisaku Ikeda y Assange.⁶⁰​

En junio de 2011, Assange fue premiado con Premio de Periodismo Martha Gellhorn. El premio se concede anualmente a periodistas «cuyo trabajo ha penetrado en la versión de eventos establecidos y ha relatado una verdad impalpable que expone la propaganda establecida o “mentiras oficiales”». El jurado dijo: «WikiLeaks ha sido retratado como un fenómeno de la era de la información, lo cual es. Pero es mucho más. Su objetivo de justicia a través de la transparencia es el más antiguo y la mejor tradición del periodismo».⁶¹​

En noviembre de 2011, recibió el Premio Walkleys en la categoría “La Más Sobresaliente Contribución al Periodismo”. Los premios anuales Walkley premian la excelencia en el periodismo desde 1994 en los medios de comunicación australianos.⁶²​⁶³​

Snorre Valen, un parlamentario noruego, lo nominó para el Premio Nobel de la Paz 2011.⁶⁴​

Founding WikiLeaks

Early publications

Assange and others established WikiLeaks in 2006. Assange became a member of the organisation’s advisory board^[64] and described himself as the editor-in-chief.^[65] From 2007 to 2010, Assange travelled continuously on WikiLeaks business, visiting Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.^{[30][36][66][67][68]}

WikiLeaks published internet censorship lists, leaks,^[69] and classified media from anonymous sources, including revelations about drone strikes in Yemen, corruption across the Arab world,^[70] extrajudicial executions by Kenyan police,^[71] 2008 Tibetan unrest in China,^[72] and the “Petrogate” oil scandal in Peru.^[73]

WikiLeaks first came to international prominence in 2008,^[74] when “most of the US fourth estate” filed an amicus curiae brief—through the organizational efforts of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP)—to defend Wikileaks against a DMCA request from the Swiss bank Julius Baer, which had initially been granted.^[75]

In September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo! account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on WikiLeaks after being hacked into by members of Anonymous.^[76] After briefly appearing on a blog, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks on 18 November 2008.^[77]

In 2009, WikiLeaks released a report disclosing a “serious nuclear accident” at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility.^[78] According to media reports, the accident may have been the direct result of a cyber-attack at Iran‘s nuclear program, carried out with the Stuxnet computer worm, a cyber-weapon built jointly by the United States and Israel.^[79]

Cypherpunks was published in November 2012.^[80] In 2012, Assange hosted a television show called the World Tomorrow on RT, a network funded by the Russian government.^[81]

Iraq and Afghan War logs and US diplomatic cables

The material WikiLeaks published between 2006 and 2009 attracted various degrees of international attention,^[82] but after it began publishing documents supplied by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks became a household name.

In April 2010, Wikileaks released the Collateral Murder video,^[4] which showed United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, including Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant Saeed Chmagh.^[5] Reuters had previously made a request to the US government for the Collateral Murder video under Freedom of Information but had been denied. Assange and others worked for a week to break the U.S. military’s encryption of the video.^[83][84]

In October 2010, Wikileaks published the Iraq War logs, a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports from the Iraq War covering the period from 2004 to 2009.^[85] Assange said that he hoped the publication would “correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued after the war”.^[86] Regarding his own role within Wikileaks he said “We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod … to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand. I get undue credit”.^[87]

Other Manning material published by Wikileaks included the Afghanistan War logs in July 2010,^[88] and the Guantánamo Bay files in April 2011.^[89]

Wikileaks published a quarter of a million U.S. diplomatic cables,^[90] known as the “Cablegate” files, in November 2010. Wikileaks initially worked with established Western media organisations, and later with smaller regional media organisations, while also publishing the cables upon which their reporting was based.^[91][92] The files showed United States espionage against United Nations and other world leaders,^[93][94][95] revealed tensions between the U.S. and its allies, and exposed corruption in countries throughout the world as documented by U.S. diplomats, helping to spark the Arab Spring.^[96][97] The Cablegate and Iraq and Afghan War releases impacted diplomacy and public opinion globally, with responses varying by region.^[92]

Assessments

Opinions of Assange at this time were divided. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described his activities as “illegal”,^[98] but the police said he had not broken Australian law.^[99] Then United States Vice-President Joe Biden and others called him a “terrorist”.^{[100][101][102][103][104]} Some called for his assassination or execution.^{[105][106][107][108][109]} Support for Assange came from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,^[110] Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa,^[111] Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,^[112][113] British Member of Parliament (and later Labour Party leader) Jeremy Corbyn,^[114] Spanish Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias,^[115] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay,^[116] and Argentina’s ambassador to the UK, Alicia Castro.^[117] He also garnered support from many leading activists and celebrities, including Tariq Ali,^[118] John Perry Barlow,^[119] Daniel Ellsberg,^[120][121] Mary Kostakidis,^[122] John Pilger,^[123][124] Ai Weiwei,^[125] Michael Moore,^[126] Noam Chomsky,^[125] Vaughan Smith,^[127][128] and Oliver Stone.^[129]

Gun camera footage of the airstrike of 12 July 2007 in Baghdad, showing the deaths of journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh by a US helicopter

In 2010 Assange received the Sam Adams Award,^[130] and a string of distinctions: the Le Monde readers’ choice award for person of the year,^[131][132] the Time readers’ choice award for person of the year,^[133][134] a deal for his autobiography worth at least US$1.3 million,^{[135][136][137]} and selection by the Italian edition of Rolling Stone as “Rockstar of the year”.^[138]

In 2011, Assange won the Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal for Peace with Justice.^[139] Two weeks later, he filed for the trademark “Julian Assange” in Europe, which was to be used for “Public speaking services; news reporter services; journalism; publication of texts other than publicity texts; education services; entertainment services”.^{[140][141][142]} Assange was made an honorary member of the Australian trade union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, in 2010.^{[143][144][145]} He was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in June 2011,^[146][147] having earlier won the Amnesty International UK Media Award (New Media) in 2009.^[148]

In 2011, the Walkley Foundation awarded WikiLeaks the Walkley Award for “Most outstanding contribution to journalism”.^[149] It commended WikiLeaks and Assange for their “brave, determined and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency that has empowered people all over the world”.

Writings and opinions

In 2010, Assange said he was a libertarian and that “WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical”.^[439]

Assange has written a few short pieces, including “State and terrorist conspiracies” (2006),^[440] “Conspiracy as governance” (2006),^[441] “The hidden curse of Thomas Paine” (2008),^[442] “What’s new about WikiLeaks?” (2011),^[443] and the foreword to Cypherpunks (2012).^[80] Cypherpunks is primarily a transcript of the World Tomorrow episode eight, two-part interview between Assange, Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn, and Jérémie Zimmermann. In the foreword, Assange said, “the Internet, our greatest tool for emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen”.^[80] He also contributed research to Suelette Dreyfus‘s Underground (1997),^[39] and received a co-writer credit for the Calle 13 song “Multi Viral” (2013).

Assange’s book, When Google Met WikiLeaks, was published by OR Books on 18 September 2014.^[444] The book recounts when Google CEO Eric Schmidt requested a meeting with Assange, while he was on bail in rural Norfolk, UK. Schmidt was accompanied by Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas; Lisa Shields, vice-president of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Scott Malcomson, the communications director for the International Crisis Group. Excerpts were published on the Newsweek website, while Assange participated in a Q&A event that was facilitated by the Reddit website and agreed to an interview with Vogue magazine.^{[445][446][447]}

In 2011, Assange criticised a Private Eye article for portraying WikiLeaks contributor Israel Shamir as antisemitic. According to editor Ian Hislop, Assange called the article “an obvious attempt to deprive [WikiLeaks] of Jewish support and donations” and went on to point out that several journalists involved were Jewish. On 1 March 2011, Assange released a statement in which he said,

Hislop has distorted, invented or misremembered almost every significant claim and phrase. In particular, ‘Jewish conspiracy’ is completely false, in spirit and word. It is serious and upsetting. We treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world.^[448][449]

In a statement accompanying release of “Yemen Files”, Assange said about the U.S. involvement in the Yemen war: “The war in Yemen has produced 3.15 million internally displaced persons. Although the United States government has provided most of the bombs and is deeply involved in the conduct of the war itself reportage on the war in English is conspicuously rare.”^[252]

Honours and awards

• 2008, The Economist New Media Award^[453]
• 2009, Amnesty International UK Media Awards^[454]
• 2010, Time Person of the Year, Reader’s Choice^[455]
• 2010, Sam Adams Award^[456]
• 2010, Le Monde Readers’ Choice Award for Person of the Year^[457]
• 2011, Free Dacia Award^[458]
• 2011, Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal^[459]
• 2011, Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism^[460]
• 2011, Voltaire Award for Free Speech^[461]
• 2012, Big Brother Award Italy 2012 “Hero of Privacy”^[462]
• 2013, Global Exchange Human Rights Award, People’s Choice^[463]
• 2013, Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts^[464]
• 2013, New York Festivals World’s Best TV & Films Silver World Medal^[465]
• 2014, Union of Journalists in Kazakhstan Top Prize^[466]
• 2019, GUE/NGL Galizia prize^[467]
• 2019, Gavin MacFadyen award^[468]
• 2019, Catalan Dignity Prize.^[320]
• 2020, Stuttgart Peace Prize.^[469]

Works

Bibliography

• Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (1997)
• Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2011. ISBN 978-0857863-84-3^[470]
• Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet. OR Books, 2012. ISBN 978-1-939293-00-8.
• When Google Met WikiLeaks. OR Books, 2014. ISBN 978-1-939293-57-2.^[444]
• The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to The US Empire. By WikiLeaks. Verso Books, 2016. ISBN 978-1-784786-21-2 (with an Introduction by Julian Assange)^[471]