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By Jessie Tu, February 4, 2021 He has been called “truth-telling hero”, “evil and perverted traitor”, “heroic, trickster, mythical – reviled”. Robert Manne called him the “most consequential Australian of the present time”. The new US President has called him a “high-tech terrorist”.
The protean narratives of Julian Assange, who will be 50 in July, have been brewing since 2010, when his website published “The Afghan War Diaries”, “Iraq War Logs” and “Collateral Murder”, a video showing the US military killing two Reuters employees in Iraq.
December marked 10 years since Assange has been “arbitrarily detained” in Britain, according to Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau in their introduction to
Wikileaks, Assange and freedom of speech
President Trump did not grant him a pardon. A British judge did not uphold the substantial grounds for his appeal against extradition, but denied it on the grounds that he could not be prevented from taking his own life in a United States prison. In the high security prison where he is now held, he is not allowed access to a computer. These bare facts obscure the significance of the questions raised for the kind of society we wish to create.
A recent and stimulating book brings the focus into a broadview. Comprising a series of contributions by his supporters,