When whistleblowers have been tried under the Espionage Act, the US government has successfully barred them telling the jury about what it is they are on trial for exposing. It’s clear the US government is afraid of juries hearing about the realities of drone strikes, mass surveillance, torture, and other abuses of power. 

When war crimes are exposed, the government puts the truth teller in jail. The Belmarsh Tribunal, named for the notorious British prison where Julian Assange is being held, puts the real criminals on the docket. 

On February 25, 2022,  the latest session of the Belmarsh Tribunal was held in New York City and featured Primary Sources host & DRAD policy director, Chip Gibbons, as well as Margaret Kunstler, Srecko Horvat, Jeffrey Sterling, Deborah Hrbek, Nancy Hollander & Mohamed Ould Slahi as speakers, among others. The event was sponsored by Defending Rights & Dissent, Progressive International, the Courage Foundation, The Intercept, and other organizations.

In this bonus episode of the Primary Sources Podcast, hear the powerful voices of the Belmarsh Tribunal. To learn more about the Belmarsh Tribunal, visit https://progressive.international

"A prosecution is when you use court proceedings to prosecute a crime. When you misuse judicial institutions to persecute, to silence a dissident who has committed no crime  and you're using the judicial machinery to silence him and to punish him, that's persecution."

This is how UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer describes to host Chip Gibbons the legal proceedings against Assange. Melzer was initially skeptical and reluctant to become involved in the Assange case. Yet, after he led a medical team to visit Assange in Belmarsh Prison he concluded Assange was a victim of psychological torture. As he continued to investigate the actions of multiple governments against Assange, his own initially negative views of the WikiLeaks publisher were dramatically altered.

As Melzer warns in his book The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution, "We must not allow Assange's persecutors to dictate his story, for those who suppress their own crimes and misconduct are unlikely to tell us the truth about a man who lifted the veil and exposed their corruption."

This is the story of one of the largest leaks of classified information in US history, leaks which exposed US war crimes and other abuses of power. From 2010 to 2011, WikiLeaks worked with media the world over, to publish the Collateral Murder Video, Iraq and Afghan War Logs, State Department Cables, and Guantanamo Bay Detainee Assessments.

 It is also the story of the US national security state's ruthless relation against those involved, including the source, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, and the publisher, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Journalist Kevin Gosztola, who covered both the Chelsea Manning court martial and Julian Assange extradition trial joins host Chip Gibbons to recount the legal and extra legal war on WikiLeaks.