A Summary & Update on ‘Moral Courage - Julian Assange’
We are pleased to observe that this week marks the one-year anniversary of WikiLeaks co-founder & former editor-in-chief Julian Assange being set free [1], after he lived in various states of detention and imprisonment in the U.K. for more than a decade.
As we have detailed through our transparency reports [2][3], the Wau Holland Foundation (WHS) began collecting donations towards the legal defense of Mr. Assange upon his arrest in April 2019 [4], based on a U.S. indictment and extradition request that criminalised his work with WikiLeaks [5]. The Foundation took the view that the complex trial [6][7] against Mr. Assange should be seen as a test-case for freedom of the press and freedom of information, which are relevant to our core objectives as defined in the statutes. This multi-year fundraising campaign was highly successful and even innovative [8], despite looming threats and documented instances of surveillance [9], political pressure [10], and financial censorship [11].
Since the release of Mr. Assange to his home country of Australia last year, he has spoken before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE) and was then formally declared a political prisoner [12], ex post facto. Earlier this year, an ongoing freedom of information (FOI) case by Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi also saw a major win, with the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service finally being ordered to provide relevant documents about the unusual handling of the case against Mr. Assange [13].
And last month, Mr. and Mrs. Assange personally attended the premiere of director Eugene Jarecki’s new documentary film, “The Six Billion Dollar Man,” at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival in France [14]. The film [15], which follows Mr. Assange’s decade-long battle against extradition to the United States, won the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye) Special Jury Prize and the first-ever Golden Globe Prize for Documentary. “Being a journalist has never been as dangerous as it is today, in a world where the defense of truth is under attack from all sides” [16].
After so many years of uncertainty and doubt about whether the solid legal arguments, dedicated support network, and numerous public advocacy campaigns would be prevail, the Foundation is hopeful about Mr. Assange’s ongoing recovery in freedom, and gratified by the international recognition that his acts of moral courage continue to rightfully receive.
[1] https://wauland.de/en/news/2024/06/julian-assange-free/
[4] https://wauland.de/en/news/2019/04/zivilcourage-julian-assange/
[5] https://wauland.de/en/news/2024/08/the-publication-of-the-unredacted-manning-leaks/
[6] https://wauland.de/en/news/2020/11/julian-assange-extradition-court-process-diagram/
[8] https://wauland.de/en/news/2022/02/donation-for-defense-of-julian-assange/
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ChhAMubOPM
[11] https://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html
[12] https://wauland.de/en/news/2024/10/resolution-of-the-council-of-europe-about-the-assange/
[13] https://wauland.de/en/news/2025/04/a-win-for-freedom-of-information/
[14] https://deadline.com/2025/05/2025-cannes-film-festival-golden-eye-award-1236409438/
