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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Jim Waterson Media editor

‘Publishing is not a crime’: media groups urge US to drop Julian Assange charges

Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London in May 2017
Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London in May 2017. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

The US government must drop its prosecution of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange because it is undermining press freedom, according to the media organisations that first helped him publish leaked diplomatic cables.

Twelve years ago today, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País collaborated to release excerpts from 250,000 documents obtained by Assange in the “Cablegate” leak. The material, leaked to WikiLeaks by the then American soldier Chelsea Manning, exposed the inner workings of US diplomacy around the world.

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