Julian Assange’s supporters will urge the US to drop the prosecution of the Australian citizen on the basis the “very dangerous” precedent will be exploited by China and Russia.
Six Australian politicians are expected to focus on freedom-of-speech arguments when they fly to Washington DC later this month to warn against extraditing the WikiLeaks founder from the UK.
The MPs and senators from across the political spectrum are aiming to help build momentum for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to raise the case in bilateral talks with Joe Biden at the White House in late October. The trip is being funded by the Assange campaign.
Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London as he fights a US attempt to extradite him to face charges in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as well as diplomatic cables.
Greg Barns SC, an adviser to the Assange campaign, said on Tuesday that it was “not an ordinary run-of-the-mill extradition case”. He said freedom of speech was “an important theme in the US”.
“You’ve got China chasing journalists around the world, and you’ve got the Russians who have recently arrested journalists,” Barns told Guardian Australia.
“You’ve now got China using the Assange case as a sort of moral equivalence argument. So the message [of the Australian delegation] is going to be: this is very dangerous for journalists around the world and a race to the bottom that’s going on.”
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson has discussed the issue at the daily press conference in Beijing at least five times since early last year, including to say Assange should not “stand trial for telling people the truth”.
China has also argued the extradition bid “is a mirror” that “reflects the hypocrisy of the US and the UK on ‘press freedom’”.
The state-affiliated Global Times has regularly covered the case, including publishing an op-ed titled: “Can the Assange question tip toward a more independent foreign policy for Australia?”
Barns said: “The US likes to preach democratic standards and human rights standards around the world. And yet, because of this case, it’s allowed the Chinese to be able to say, ‘Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.’”
He said the cross-party trip to the US – whose delegates include the former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and the independent MP Monique Ryan – was “very timely” because it was a month before Albanese’s state visit to the US.
“There’s a very clear message being sent that this is not simply a matter where Australia would politely request that some action be taken – this has now gone beyond that,” Barns said.
“There is no better ally of the United States in the region and, in that context, this is not a big ask.”
Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, said the prime minister should tell Biden that “this is an issue for us back at home; we need some goodwill between friends on this”.
Shipton said he spoke often with Assange’s wife, Stella. “He’s doing OK, all things considered,” Shipton said.
“He’s got the support of his family, the visits from Stella, the phone calls – that’s his lifeline, keeping him going, his connection to the outside world. If he’s extradited, that all gets taken away.”
In Brisbane in July, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, pushed back at the Australian government’s complaints that the pursuit of Assange had dragged on too long.
Blinken said Assange was alleged to have “risked very serious harm to our national security”.
But Joyce said it set “a very dangerous precedent” for an Australian to be sent to a third country to be tried, despite not being a citizen of that country or being there at the time of the alleged actions.
Ryan said the US had “always been a leader on free speech” and Americans felt strongly about the first amendment.
“Australia is an excellent friend to the US and it’s not an unreasonable request to ask the US to cease this extradition attempt on Mr Assange,” Ryan said. “He is a journalist; he should not be prosecuted for crimes of journalism.”
Other members of the delegation include the Greens senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, the Liberal senator Alex Antic, and the Labor MP Tony Zappia.
“We’ve just come from voting different ways in the Senate and we’re coming together to unite on Julian Assange,” Shoebridge said at a joint press conference. “And I think that shows the unifying power of this campaign in Australian politics.”
The delegates are expected to meet with members of the House and the Senate, officials from the US departments of justice and state and media freedom groups.
