President of Assange's journalist union MEAA addresses Belmarsh Tribunal
Channel: Consortium News
Date: 09/03/2023

"Julian Assange has been a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance since 2007. We are so saddened that this case just drags on. This week I was among a group of 25 or so media leaders who met with federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for the Press Freedom Roundtable that Kerry referenced.

The first issue I raised with the AG was Julian's case. I urged the minister to talk to his Cabinet colleagues and his parliamentary colleagues about resolving the case so that Julian can be reunited with his family. MEAA sees his case as fundamentally an issue of press freedom. MEAA has advocated for many years, like so many of you have as well; petitions, letters behind-the-scenes chats, in front of scenes chats.

We have written to successive Australian governments seeking action. We are as frustrated as anybody that Australian authorities seem to have made little progress in this case. It's symptomatic of a failure to fully appreciate the erosion of press freedom more broadly in Australia and around the world. We like to think of ourselves as progressive and world leaders when it comes to democracy.

But over the years, little by little, law by law, regulation by regulation, amendment by amendment, journalists and media outlets, and more importantly, the public's right to know have been squeezed in the name of national security. Our defamation laws favor the rich and are designed to muzzle brave reporting. We made this clear as industry leaders this week in Canberra that things need to change.

We urged the Attorney-General to examine the chilling effect these laws are having on telling stories that need to be told. So far from being a far off threat to press freedom, we have it here, right now. There are hundreds of provisions in our laws that can put a journalist in jail. Most journalists don't know them or even understand them.

We don't know what we don't know because we can't know. There is little, if any, visibility. For example, when governments seek journalists’ information warrants to get access to notes, documents, information that journalists collect in their work. There's no ability to contest these requests. It's unclear whether there really is a justification for these requests. And who on earth knows if they actually achieve what the agencies are trying to achieve?

We just don't know. Receiving classified documents can land a journalist in jail. They don't have to read them, talk about them, never mind publish or broadcast them. The rights of journalists are routinely being trodden on. Our FOI processes are a joke. We get nonsense answers from governments, ministries and agencies. There are suppression orders, particularly in the state of Victoria, where I come from, that just come thick and fast."

Karen Percy, President of MEAA

The Belmarsh Tribunal was hosted by Mary Kostakidis & Mark Davis; organised by Progressive International & Wau Holland foundation; and co-sponsored by the Search Foundation, Jacobin, PEN Sydney, PEN International, Declassified Australia, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Consortium News & The Walkley Foundation.