A Saudi journalist was arrested in Malaysia on Wednesday night after a request by Interpol on behalf of Saudi authorities. Hamza Kashgari tweeted a mock conversation between himself and the prophet Mohammed last week, and fled the kingdom after he received thousands of death threats. Kashgari was en route to New Zealand when he was arrested. Saudi Arabia is seeking his extradition in order to try him for blasphemy.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lost his UK High Court appeal against extradition to Sweden. Assange faces accusations of rape and sexual assault after a visit to Stockholm in August 2010.
The judgement was handed down to the 40-year-old Australian by two High Court judges, following a European arrest warrant. Assange’s lawyers will take 14 days to decide whether to appeal further, and if he is denied the right to appeal, British law enforcement officers will arrange for his removal to Sweden within 10 days.
Julian Assange’s lawyers are saying that a US indictment is imminent. But what crime would he actually be guilty of? The Congressional Research Service pointed out earlier this week, in a fascinating document published on Steven Aftergood’s always enlightening Secrecy News, just how difficult it would be to nail him.
Past prosecutions have been almost entirely of individuals who have access to classified information and leak it to foreign agents (not to the press for publication).
And there are no cases of publishers being prosecuted. There have been calls for Assange’s prosecution under the Espionage Act, which covers the leaking of documents relating to the US’s national defence. Yet although some of the diplomatic cables would fit that category, it is not illegal to disclose the information unless you are a government employee.
The US government would have to prove that Assange was disseminating documents with intent to harm the US’s national security — and here, once again, the act of publishing the documents is unlikely to be an offence and would be protected by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court has been wary in the past of using the Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers “who reveal information that poses more of a danger of embarrassing public officials than of endangering national security”.
Extradition would also be immensely complex, not least because it is not allowed when the offence is political.