https://www.rt.com/uk/542758-assange-extradition-appeal-granted/

The charges against Julian Assange make no sense. Assange is not an American citizen, but the charges against him assume that he is a US citizen in the pay of a foreign government. He is charged with spying on the US. Other countries spy on us, as does our own government and commercial firms, just as the US spies on other countries and commercial firms, but no one is arrested for doing so unless it is a citizen of the country spying in the pay of a foreign government. There is no evidence whatsoever that Assange was doing that.

Assange is an independent person practicing legitimate journalism. He published leaked documents, exactly as did the New York Times when the newspaper published the Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, a US citizen with top secret clearances. Unlike Ellsberg, Assange was not the leaker. Assange was the publisher like the New York Times. The US government's effort to punish Ellsberg and the NY Times failed in the courts. Ellsberg was awarded the Olof Palme Prize for "profound humanism and moral courage."

But times have changed. In Ellsberg's time, the US government still had enough standing to survive the deception revealed by the Pentagon Papers. But by the time of Assange, the crimes and misdeeds of the US government had hollowed out Washington's reputation. The decision was made to make an example of Assange in order to prevent journalists from ever again revealing Washington's war crimes and deceptions of the American people and US allies.

Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, who was able to remove Assange from Washington's reach for several years, said that Washington's aim in its illegal an unconstitutional prosecution of Assange is to "scare others" and shut down real journalism. Correa stated the facts as they are: "If Assange would have exposed the secrets of China, Russia or left-wing Latin American governments, including my government, he would have been praised by the international press, honored by US Congress and the British parliament. But because his actions were against the interests of the US, the hegemonic country, he was labeled a criminal." https://www.rt.com/news/542890-rafael-correa-assange-case/