When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange engaged the Federal Council
Published: Tuesday, Jun 25th 2024, 11:20
Updated At: Tuesday, Jun 25th 2024, 11:51
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A few years ago, the Federal Council also had to deal with the controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was released in London on Monday. Jean-Luc Addor, a member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) in the canton of Valais, had tabled a motion calling for a declaration from the Swiss government regarding Switzerland's protection of human rights defenders.
Addor regarded Assange as such a committed defender of human rights. His declared intention to use the Wikileaks platform to create an opportunity for information to circulate freely and thus make democracy more transparent makes him such a defender. Assange's own fundamental rights, however, were being disregarded.
In its response of February 23, 2017, the Federal Council replied that it did not regard Assange as a defender of human rights. Rather, Assange is regarded as an information expert, investigative journalist and political activist, he stated in his reply. Assange's intention was the public dissemination of confidential information.
The Federal Council admitted that he had also helped to uncover cases of human rights violations. However, Assange's intention was not to promote and protect human rights through the violations he uncovered. "Consequently, Julian Assange can neither be recognized as a human rights defender nor receive the protection provided for in the Swiss guidelines".
Three years later, the then United Nations Special Representative on Torture, Nils Melzer, criticized the conduct of the national government in the Assange case. The background to this was an offer from the city of Geneva to grant the Wikileaks founder asylum in the form of a humanitarian visa. Assange was imprisoned in London at the time. Assange had previously been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy there for seven years.
"Switzerland's silence here is certainly not in its best long-term interests," Melzer said at the time. In this case, it was about protecting whistleblowers, the free press and the rule of law.
©Keystone/SDA
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