The Swedish case was nothing else but an excuse to secure the arrest of a journalist in a Western democracy -- so-called democracy. So, it was confirmed by Scotland Yard that his arrest is not connected with a bail breach; it is connected with the extradition request. And Swedish authorities had just now a press conference in Sweden, in Stockholm, and they confirmed. It was not consulted with them. It is not related to the Swedish case. It is an extradition requested by the U.S. Justice Department.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Renata, can you explain: Is it in any way legally justified or legal at all for Ecuador to rescind his asylum in this way?
RENATA Ã VILA: It is completely illegal. And on top, adding insult to injury, Julian was granted Ecuadorean nationality. So, it is not only illegal before international law, it's not constitutional before constitutional law in Ecuador. So, it is a multiple, multi-layer violation of human rights and constitutional rights of Julian.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald is joining us on the phone. Renata à vila is joining us from Belgrade right now. She is one of Julian Assange's lawyers. Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, one of the founding editors of The Intercept. Glenn, your response to the arrest of Julian Assange, his being dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy by British police today?
GLENN GREENWALD: I think the most important fact is that the arrest warrant, according to Assange's longtime lawyer Jennifer Robinson, is based on allegations that Assange conspired or collaborated with Chelsea Manning with regard to the 2010 leaks of Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and diplomatic cables -- a theory that the Obama Justice Department tried for a long time to pursue, but found no evidence for, in order to be able to justify prosecuting Assange and not face the accusation that they were endangering press freedoms by prosecuting Assange for something The New York Times and The Guardian and every other media outlet in the world routinely does, which is publish classified information.
Even if it were true that Assange collaborated with Manning -- and, again, the Justice Department of President Obama looked everywhere and found no evidence of that -- it would still be a grave threat to press freedoms, because journalists all the time work with their sources in order to obtain classified information so that they can report on it. It's the criminalization of journalism by the Trump Justice Department and the gravest threat to press freedom, by far, under the Trump presidency, infinitely worse than having Donald Trump tweet mean things about various reporters at CNN or NBC. And every journalist in the world should be raising their voice as loudly as possible to protest and denounce this.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain, Glenn, exactly what you understand, why it is that the Ecuadorean Embassy has revoked the asylum, allowing the British authorities to come inside, what's going on with President Moreno and his charges that Julian Assange was involved in releasing photos, which Assange has vehemently denied?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I interviewed former President Rafael Correa late last year. And he, of course, did something quite extraordinary, which was for six years stood up for Ecuadorean sovereignty and for international law and refused to be bullied by the U.S. and the U.K., which tried everything it could to coerce him or threaten him to withdraw the asylum protection for Assange. He was a very unusual leader of a small country, who famously said, for example, "If the U.S. wants to have military bases in Ecuador, they have to allow us to have military bases in Miami." He was against imperialism and allowing Ecuador to be a vassal state of the U.S. and the U.K.
And his successor, President Moreno, is exactly the opposite. So, the Trump administration, the CIA, the U.K. and Spain -- which is really angry about WikiLeaks's denunciations of their abuses of protesters during the Catalonian debate -- have spent the last year and a half doing everything they can, threatening Ecuador, offering rewards to Ecuador, doing everything they could to coerce Ecuador, under President Moreno, to do something that President Correa refused to do, which is violate international law, withdraw Julian Assange's asylum. And, of course, he needed to concoct an excuse to do it, so he doesn't look like what he is, which is a very weak and submissive leader, to his population, so they made up a bunch of excuses. But the reality is, they did it because the U.S. and the U.K. demanded that they do it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let's go to Ecuadorean President Lenà n Moreno when he announced Assange's arrest Thursday. And he said Britain has guaranteed he will not be extradited, Assange will not be extradited, to a country that has the death penalty.
PRESIDENT LENÃ N MORENO: [translated] Today, I announce that the discourteous and aggressive behavior of Mr. Julian Assange, the hostile and threatening declarations of its allied organization, against Ecuador, and especially, the transgression of international treaties, have led the situation to a point where the asylum of Mr. Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable. ... In line with our strong commitment to human rights and international law, I requested Great Britain to guarantee that Mr. Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face torture or the death penalty. The British government has confirmed it in writing, in accordance with its own rules.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that's Ecuadorean President Lenà n Moreno speaking just a few hours ago today. So, Renata à vila, could you respond to what Moreno said and whether you think it's likely that Assange will not be extradited, as he said?
RENATA Ã VILA: Well, this is the same -- he's repeating the same things that we have been fighting against. What is the difference between a death penalty and life in solitary confinement in a supermax prison in the U.S.? What we are discussing here is not the seriousness of the penalty of a journalist being prosecuted because of the act of publishing, but whether a journalist should be prosecuted or not because of the act of publishing. So, that's what the -- that is really terrible. And it is so sad to see a Latin American leader abdicating to a superpower and throwing even constitutional principles out of the trash can in this case.
And it will be -- I mean, I cannot alert enough journalists, not only in the U.S., but any journalists reporting about the U.S., of the seriousness of this case. If we do not rally, if we do not take this battle as a central battle for our freedom of expression, we will be in serious trouble. So, the hearing is taking place this afternoon, the first hearing for Julian, and we really hope to get as much solidarity as possible and attention and coherence with your principles and basically empathy, because he is the first journalist facing this, but he might not be the last. You might be the next one, anyone hearing this show. So, it is the free press is key for democracy, and this is what is at risk at the moment.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Glenn Greenwald, I want to ask you. The American Civil Liberties Union has just issued a statement, Ben Wizner saying that the prosecution of Assange is especially troubling because "prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest." Glenn Greenwald, can you respond to that, I mean, what U.S. journalists do and regarding this foreign secrecy laws?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I think that is one of the remarkable aspects of this, is that Julian Assange is not an American citizen. I think he visited the U.S. once for about three days. WikiLeaks is a foreign-based media organization. So, the idea that the U.S. government can just extend its reach to any news outlet anywhere in the world and criminalize publication of documents or working with sources is extremely chilling. That would mean, for example, that China or North Korea or Iran could do the same thing if a U.S. news outlet published its secrets, which sometimes they do. It would mean that Iran would have the ability, or China, to issue an international arrest warrant and demand that the reporters who work for the U.S. news outlets be extradited to those countries.
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