The Newspaper The Guardian was instrumental in 2010 WikiLeaks publications. It was their journalist Nick Davies who invited Julian Assange to form a co-operation with the paper in the publication of the Afghanistan War Logs that then led to their collaboration in the publication of The Iraq War Diaries. Later in the same year the co-operation soured over the publication of Cablegate, 250,000 US Diplomatic cables and as a result the newspaper progressively turned against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange to the point that over the course of the years it has become a channel of misinformation for US Intelligence’s war against WL and its publisher.

Since Julian Assange’s arrest The Guardian has not been as prolific in it’s coverage of the case. In 2019 it focused very much on the resurrection of the Swedish case but since its closure in November 2019, you will struggle to find articles on their site and if you do they are mostly syndicated from PA Media (Press Association).

I wrote to their readers’ editor on the 24th of May 2019 about their editorial with the title “The Guardian view on Julian Assange: send him to Sweden” published here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/24/the-guardian-view-on-julian-assange-send-him-to-sweden which stated:

“Then there is the rape charge that Mr Assange faced in Sweden and which led him to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in the first place.”

I explained that this was inaccurate. Julian Assange was never charged in Sweden. Appending the UK Supreme Court correction note on the subject as well as the relevant statement of the Swedish Prosecutor from their own website in English and the 13/05/19 Swedish Prosecutor statement making clear that he was not charged:

“I would like to make the following very clear: my decision to re-open the preliminary investigation is not equivalent on whether or not to file an indictment with the courts. This is the matter we’ll have to revisit,” as reported by CNN.

Finally I asked them to replace the word “charge” with “allegation” in their article.

Four days later I received a reply from Mark Smith from the Guardian’s editor’s office that “the online article to which you refer has been corrected, with the changes footnoted for transparency.”

I replied noting that the article was still inaccurate, stating that:

“The founder of WikiLeaks faces charges of espionage in the US and rape in Sweden. He should stand trial for rape”

I re-iterated that Julian Assange does not face charges in Sweden. Charges may be brought against him in the future but they may not, we simply do not know at this stage.

I added that the corrected wording:

“Then there is the rape charge process that Mr Assange faces in Sweden and which led him to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in the first place.”

again suggested that the process undertaken by the Swedish Prosecutor was a rape charge process. I explained that this was in direct contradiction of the Swedish prosecutor statement which I had brought to his attention, where she makes it clear that her decision has not yet been reached in relation to an indictment. In the end I asked how did the Guardian editorial take this position, suggesting that Mr Assange should “stand trial for rape” when the process in Sweden had not yet reached such conclusion?

I received no answer and the article remains inaccurate.

19th of January 2019 – Protest outside the Guardian Newspaper