American diplomats also believed local media reporting on Julian Assange was “sensationalist,” the paper claims.
The American embassy in Australia monitored rallies in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for “anti-US sentiment,” the Guardian has reported, citing declassified documents.
The US State Department has released the relevant files on a freedom of information request to Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, who shared them with Guardian Australia, the outlet said in an article on Tuesday.
The documents detail the response of the US embassy in Canberra to events of 2010, when the WikiLeaks website published classified materials alleging American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan that Assange had received from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
According to the declassified records, the US embassy’s regional security office (RSO) had been monitoring rallies in support of Assange that were held across Australia following the revelations and reported its findings to Washington via diplomatic channels.
“The demonstrations have all been peaceful and generally number in the range of a few hundred persons. Embassy RSO notes the rallies have featured very little, if any, anti-American sentiment,” a cable dated December 17, 2010, read, as cited by the Guardian.
“Wikileaks supporters held a recent demonstration in Canberra’s central business district and made no attempt to march to the US Embassy or direct any ire at other American interests,” it stressed.
However, the same file warned that Assange, who is an Australian citizen, had been “gaining increasing sympathy” in the country, “particularly on the left.”
The embassy also wrote to Washington that the Australian media “continues to have a field day with the leaked cables.” According to the diplomats, the reporting on the issue in the country had been “sensationalist.”
Assange, who has been held at the high security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019, is now fighting his extradition to the US. In America, the journalist faces 17 charges under the US Espionage Act, which could see him slapped with a 175-year sentence.
The 52-year-old journalist has argued that he violated no laws and that his publication of top secret documents was legitimate journalism protected by the US Constitution. WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that the UK High Court of Justice in London would consider what could be Assange’s “final” appeal against being handed over to the US on February 20 and 21.
175 years is ‘Cruel & Unusual Punishment’ as per the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
IF you’re an American ex-pat, and you left the U.S. due to being a whistleblower, a targeted individual, or didn’t like how things, events and affairs were transpiring in the U.S. Government, then NEVER, EVER set foot on U.S. Embassy grounds, nor the U.S. Consulate.
To do so means that you are on ‘sovereign’ U.S. Soil, and the U.S. Government using their Embassy and Consulate Security Officers can detain, arrest, and eventually ship you back to the U.S. under Federal, State, Local via warranted arrest, or from being ‘under investigation’ even when overseas.
IF your passport is coming due, then either put in for another nation’s citizenship for travel purposes, or just stay where you are overseas if you don’t plan on traveling.
U.S. Government entities overseas (which includes the Alphabet Agencies having offices off of U.S. Soil, and legally have no jurisdiction) are NOT there to serve the U.S. Citizen- they are there to serve the ‘needs of the government’ first and foremost.
One Yank friend of ours had repeatedly tried to contact her U.S. Consulate, but they never respond either by phone or e-mail. She said calls to the U.S. Embassy went unanswered as well. Two years ago she became a Kiwi (from her father’s side of things…) and has no plans to return to the U.S.. She is trying to renounce U.S. Citizenship, but she will not set foot in the U.S. Embassy or the Consulate due to possible jeopardy from the NDAA and the Patriot Act. It’s costing her US$3400.00 to renounce (used to be free until Obama levied a fee on ex-pats..) and the U.S. Consulate will not send a U.S. State Department Consulate nor an Embassy Officer out to her home or anywhere outside of the Embassy and / or Consulate.
Eventually, we’re sure she’ll be able to do something to get free of the 5-Eyes surveillance, double-taxation, and being put on a watch list AND a no-fly list (obtained via the FOIA) as a ‘potential terrorist’ or a ‘Subject of Interest to be detained upon re-entering the United States, ‘ etc.
These ops are verified in Dinesh Sousa’s new movie titled ‘Police State’ which does indeed show that the FBI finds someone it doesn’t like, and then looks for flaws that then charges them with a ‘found’ criminal act!!!
This is what Stalin and Molotov did during the Red Terror- they would find any small scenario that they could turn on their victim, and charge / imprison them in the Gulag System.
After all, the Jewish Zionist run America, and they ran the former USSR as well, resulting in 67 million Russian and Ukrainian deaths from 1917-1991.
The same is being repeated via the Russian/Ukraine War, and the deliberate ‘privileged’ intentions of the Israelis have been laid bare for all to see in Gaza and the West Bank.
Beware; the Zionist ilk will be invading Lebanon next, the Sinai Peninsula, Syria, and Jordan.
Once they do that, then they will come for the Western Capitols via the ‘Samson Option’…