What is WikiLeaks and why did it get Julian Assange in so much trouble?
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Journalist and hacktivist Julian Assange became a household name in 2010, when his website
00:05Wikilinks released the Iraq and Afghan war diaries.
00:09Nearly 500,000 classified documents, including incident logs from the front lines and diplomatic
00:15cables from US embassies around the world.
00:19One explosive video showed an American Army helicopter strike in 2007 that killed at least
00:2418 people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
00:28It's clear that it will shape an understanding of what the past six years of war has been
00:35like and that the course of the war needs to change.
00:41Wikileaks was praised for lifting the veil on US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
00:46but criticised in some quarters for endangering lives through its leaks.
00:51Soon after, Assange became the focus of a rape investigation, and when he faced extradition
00:56to Sweden in 2012, he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy of London, where he would
01:01remain for seven years.
01:03The investigation was later dropped, but he nevertheless faced arrest for skipping bail.
01:09And during his years in the embassy, Wikileaks did not rest.
01:12In 2016, they published the contents of internal communications from the Democratic National
01:17Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.
01:20The massive international corruption of the Clinton machine, including...
01:26These emails were stolen by hackers tied to Russian intelligence agencies, in a move many
01:32saw as intentionally damaging to the Democratic nominee.
01:35There has been a lot of misquoting of me and Wikileaks publications to do with that we
01:45intend to harm Hillary Clinton, or that I intend to harm Hillary Clinton, or I don't
01:49like Hillary Clinton, but all those are false.
01:55The goodwill with his Ecuadorian hosts eventually ran dry.
01:58It took a dim view of the 2016 Clinton emails leak, and he caused them diplomatic woes with
02:04Madrid over his comments on Catalonia.
02:07And after they handed him over to the police in 2019, the US made a formal request for
02:12his extradition, charging him with multiple counts of violating the Espionage Act.
02:18He fought his extradition from a London prison, isolated 23 hours a day, in a cell measuring
02:24six square metres.