Persecution of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden has already had a chilling effect on global journalism and whistleblowers' activity, retired UN expert Alfred de Zayas told Sputnik. The collective West is desperately trying to control the media and is misusing law in order to suppress dissent, he said.
Following bombshell revelations by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and ex-National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, the world has not seen any more exposures of a similar scale and scope.
"The persecution of Assange and Snowden has had a significant 'chilling effect'. Potential whistleblowers have good reason to fear that their careers, freedom, even their lives are at risk. This is a form of state terrorism – a manifestation of totalitarianism," Alfred de Zayas, professor of international law in Geneva, former UN independent expert on international order and a retired senior lawyer with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Sputnik.
Assange, who has been held in a UK high-security prison since 2019, had been hiding for almost seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after he was granted political asylum by Quito in 2012. At the time, then Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa shielded Assange from possible extradition to the US over exposure of the Afghan and Iraq "war logs" shedding light on Washington's alleged war crimes in Central Asia and the Middle East.
While residing in the embassy, Assange made several important revelations, including concerning the CIA's global hacking activities as well as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's apparent corruption. It was rumored that Assange knew exactly who was behind the DNC and Clinton campaign leaks and could end Team Clinton's speculations about the "Russia hacking" hoax. In April 2019, Correa's successor, Lenin Moreno, revoked asylum for Assange, thus allowing the British police to arrest the WikiLeaks founder. Assange will face up to 175 years in US prison if extradited.
For his part, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the NSA had direct access to the systems of Google, Apple, and some other tech giants. The NSA's secret program, codenamed Prism, allowed the US intelligence community to collect vast amounts of data on Americans, Washington's allies and foreign citizens alike. Prism was launched in 2007 in the wake of the passage of the Protect America Act under the George W. Bush administration. Snowden, who is facing US charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years, was granted political asylum in Russia.
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