WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will speak to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday in what will be his first public speech since being released from a British prison in June. This was announced by WikiLeaks, explaining that Assange will travel in person to Strasbourg ”to testify before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe” after the publication of an investigation report on the ” implications of his detention and its wider effects on human rights, in particular on freedom of journalism”.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will discuss this report on 2 October which ”confirms that Assange is a political prisoner” and which ”calls on the United Kingdom to carry out an independent investigation to determine whether he has suffered inhumane treatment or degrading” when he was in prison.
This will be Assange’s “first official testimony on his case” since he was arrested by British police in April 2019, after seven years spent in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden in an investigation for rape. The Australian then spent five years in high-security Belmarsh prison, east London, trying to avoid extradition to the United States, where he was charged under a 1917 espionage law. “Julian Assange is still recovering after his release from prison,” WikiLeaks said.