'Threats to WikiLeaks damage Australia': Human rights lawyer
- — 06 December, 2010 10:29
Australia's political leaders are risking long-term damage to the nation's freedom of speech by accusing WikiLeaks and its founder of breaking the law by releasing US diplomatic cables on the whistleblower website, a human rights lawyer says.
Last Thursday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard condemned the leaking of 250,000 classified documents on the Wikileaks website as "illegal" and "grossly irresponsible", while Attorney-General Robert McCLelland on Saturday promised to support any law enforcement measures taken against Assange.
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights president, Stephen Keim, says accusations of criminal law breaches levelled at WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, undermine free speech principles.
"Although the Attorney-General is entitled to disagree with - even protest - the actions taken, it is a particularly objectionable misuse of political hyperbole in these circumstances to make sweeping allegations of illegality," Keim said in a statement on Sunday.
"It involves a degree of intimidation that is likely to (and appears intended to) deter others from engaging in serious political debate on the possibility that it may offend those who hold the machinery of power."
Keim criticised the Australian government's defence of Swedish prosecutors and its lack of protest over "what may well be misuse of sexual assault allegations by Swedish prosecutors for political reasons".
Instead, he said, "the government should be insisting that prosecutorial actions taken against Australian citizens should meet the highest standards of probity and objectivity".
The human rights lawyer said the government should not even consider cancelling Assange's passport.
"It seems entirely inappropriate that statutory powers of such seriousness should be contemplated because a person has placed political material of an embarrassing nature into the public sphere," Keim said.
"The government's resort to hyperbole and heavy-handed use of state power detracts from its political message," he said.
"If the government wishes to argue that it is better for the Australian public to be kept ignorant of secret war advocacy by some allies and potentially illegal espionage by others, it would be better to make that case directly."
