Julian Assange open to political action as Cannes hosts documentary
CANNES: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is at the Cannes Film Festival this week for the documentary 'The Six Billion Dollar Man,' is thinking about how to become politically active again once he has fully recovered from prison, said his wife, Stella.
Assange, 53, returned to his native Australia after pleading guilty last June under an agreement with US officials to one count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security materials.
The plea ended Assange's five-year stay in a British prison, which followed seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy as he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.
Assange denied those allegations and called them a pretext to extradite him to the United States over WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history — along with swaths of diplomatic cables.
'He was in a very grave situation in the prison. He's recovering from that,' Stella Assange told Reuters in Cannes.
'But now he's coming to understand how grave the situation outside (prison) is and thinking, making plans to find the means of what to do about it,' she added.
'He's very, very concerned about the state of the world and the state that we're all in right now,' said Stella, who met Assange in London in 2011 while working as part of his legal team.
Julian and Stella Assange, wearing a brooch with a picture of British designer Vivienne Westwood holding a sign saying 'Stop Killing,' walked the red carpet on Wednesday evening.
Julian has so far not spoken at any of his appearances.
Assange's extradition fight
The documentary from Emmy-winning director Eugene Jarecki takes on the tone of a high-tech international thriller to recount Assange's fight against extradition, using WikiLeaks footage and archives, and previously unpublished evidence.
Jarecki, who began filming before Assange was released, said he never expected to see him walk around Cannes as a free man.
By inviting Assange, the festival was sending a message about the need for freedom of information and a free press, Jarecki told Reuters, as those values are in decline in many parts of the world according to an index from Reporters without Borders.
The director called Assange 'a canary in the coal mine' in foretelling the US government's current moves to exert more control over media access to US President Donald Trump.
'If we had taken that bit more seriously, we might have seen a bunch of this coming,' said the US director.
Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told Reuters that the film portrayed the WikiLeaks founder as he should be shown.
'This film is absolutely necessary in terms of telling the story of free speech and what Julian Assange, his case means for the world, not just for him, but for the world,' she said.
For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
12 hours ago
- Arab News
Trump banned citizens of 12 countries from entering the US. Here's what to know
DAKAR, Senegal: President Donald Trump has banned citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States and restricted access for those from seven others, citing national security concerns in resurrecting and expanding a hallmark policy from his first term that will mostly affect people from Africa and the Middle East. The ban announced Wednesday applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The heightened restrictions apply to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the US and don't hold a valid visa. The policy takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. and does not have an end date. Here's what to know about the new rules: How Trump justified the ban Since returning to the White House, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. The travel ban stems from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to compile a report on 'hostile attitudes' toward the US The aim is to 'protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes,' the administration said. In a video posted on social media, Trump tied the new ban to a terrorist attack Sunday in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The man charged in the attack is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump's restricted list. US officials say he overstayed a tourist visa. Who is exempt from the ban, Which countries are affected Trump said nationals of countries included in the ban pose 'terrorism-related' and 'public-safety' risks, as well as risks of overstaying their visas. He also said some of these countries had 'deficient' screening and vetting or have historically refused to take back their citizens. His findings rely extensively on an annual Homeland Security report about tourists, businesspeople and students who overstay US visas and arrive by air or sea, singling out countries with high percentages of nationals who remain after their visas expired. 'We don't want them,' Trump said. The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban makes exceptions for Afghans on special immigrant visas, who were generally the people who worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade war there. The list can be changed, the administration said in a document, if authorities in the designated countries make 'material improvements' to their own rules and procedures. New countries can be added 'as threats emerge around the world.' State Department guidance The State Department instructed US embassies and consulates on Friday not to revoke visas previously issued to people from the 12 countries listed in the ban. In a cable sent to all US diplomatic missions, the department said 'no action should be taken for issued visas which have already left the consular section' and that 'no visas issued prior to the effective date should be revoked pursuant to this proclamation.' However, visa applicants from affected countries whose applications have been approved but have not yet received their visas will be denied, according to the cable, which was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting on Monday. How the ban differs from 2017's Early in Trump's first term, he issued an executive order banning travel to the US by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency. Travelers from those nations were either barred from getting on flights to the US or detained at US airports after they landed. They included students and faculty, as well as businesspeople, tourists and people visiting friends and family. The order, often referred to as the 'Muslim ban' or the 'travel ban,' was retooled amid legal challenges until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. That ban affected various categories of travelers and immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya, plus North Koreans and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. Reactions to Trump's order Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro's government condemned the travel ban, characterizing it in a statement as a 'stigmatization and criminalization campaign' against Venezuelans. Chad President Mahamat Deby Itno said his country would suspend visas for US citizens in response to the ban. Aid and refugee resettlement groups also denounced it. 'This policy is not about national security — it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America. But reactions to the ban ran the gamut from anger to guarded relief and support. In Haiti, radio stations received a flurry of calls Thursday from angry listeners, including many who said they were Haitians living in the US and who accused Trump of being racist, noting that the people of many of the targeted countries are Black. Haitian-American Elvanize Louis-Juste, who was at the airport Sunday in Newark, New Jersey, awaiting a flight to her home state of Florida, said many Haitians wanting to come to the US are simply seeking to escape violence and unrest in their country. 'I have family in Haiti, so it's pretty upsetting to see and hear,' Louis-Juste, 23, said of the travel ban. 'I don't think it's a good thing. I think it's very upsetting.' William Lopez, a 75-year-old property investor who arrived from Cuba in 1967, supports the travel ban. 'These are people that come but don't want to work, they support the Cuban government, they support communism,' Lopez said at a restaurant near Little Havana in Miami. 'What the Trump administration is doing is perfectly good.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
20 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Chinese Hackers, User Lapses Turn Smartphones into a 'Mobile Security Crisis'
Cybersecurity investigators noticed a highly unusual software crash — it was affecting a small number of smartphones belonging to people who worked in government, politics, tech and journalism. The crashes, which began late last year and carried into 2025, were the tipoff to a sophisticated cyberattack that may have allowed hackers to infiltrate a phone without a single click from the user, The AP news reported. The attackers left no clues about their identities, but investigators at the cybersecurity firm iVerify noticed that the victims all had something in common: They worked in fields of interest to China's government and had been targeted by Chinese hackers in the past. Foreign hackers have increasingly identified smartphones, other mobile devices and the apps they use as a weak link in US cyberdefenses. Groups linked to China's military and intelligence service have targeted the smartphones of prominent Americans and burrowed deep into telecommunication networks, according to national security and tech experts. It shows how vulnerable mobile devices and apps are and the risk that security failures could expose sensitive information or leave American interests open to cyberattack, those experts say. 'The world is in a mobile security crisis right now,' said Rocky Cole, a former cybersecurity expert at the National Security Agency and Google and now chief operations officer at iVerify. 'No one is watching the phones.' US zeroes in on China as a threat, and Beijing levels its own accusations US authorities warned in December of a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign designed to gain access to the texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans. 'They were able to listen in on phone calls in real time and able to read text messages,' said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the senior Democrat on the Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, created to study the geopolitical threat from China. Chinese hackers also sought access to phones used by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance during the 2024 campaign. The Chinese government has denied allegations of cyberespionage, and accused the US of mounting its own cyberoperations. It says America cites national security as an excuse to issue sanctions against Chinese organizations and keep Chinese technology companies from the global market. 'The US has long been using all kinds of despicable methods to steal other countries' secrets,' Lin Jian, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said at a recent press conference in response to questions about a CIA push to recruit Chinese informants. US intelligence officials have said China poses a significant, persistent threat to US economic and political interests, and it has harnessed the tools of digital conflict: online propaganda and disinformation, artificial intelligence and cyber surveillance and espionage designed to deliver a significant advantage in any military conflict. Mobile networks are a top concern. The US and many of its closest allies have banned Chinese telecom companies from their networks. Other countries, including Germany, are phasing out Chinese involvement because of security concerns. But Chinese tech firms remain a big part of the systems in many nations, giving state-controlled companies a global footprint they could exploit for cyberattacks, experts say. Chinese telecom firms still maintain some routing and cloud storage systems in the US — a growing concern to lawmakers. 'The American people deserve to know if Beijing is quietly using state-owned firms to infiltrate our critical infrastructure,' US Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich. and chairman of the China committee, which in April issued subpoenas to Chinese telecom companies seeking information about their US operations. Mobile devices have become an intel treasure trove Mobile devices can buy stocks, launch drones and run power plants. Their proliferation has often outpaced their security. The phones of top government officials are especially valuable, containing sensitive government information, passwords and an insider's glimpse into policy discussions and decision-making. The White House said last week that someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, reached out to governors, senators and business leaders with texts and phone calls. It's unclear how the person obtained Wiles' connections, but they apparently gained access to the contacts in her personal cellphone, The Wall Street Journal reported. The messages and calls were not coming from Wiles' number, the newspaper reported. While most smartphones and tablets come with robust security, apps and connected devices often lack these protections or the regular software updates needed to stay ahead of new threats. That makes every fitness tracker, baby monitor or smart appliance another potential foothold for hackers looking to penetrate networks, retrieve information or infect systems with malware. Federal officials launched a program this year creating a 'cyber trust mark' for connected devices that meet federal security standards. But consumers and officials shouldn't lower their guard, said Snehal Antani, former chief technology officer for the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. 'They're finding backdoors in Barbie dolls,' said Antani, now CEO of a cybersecurity firm, referring to concerns from researchers who successfully hacked the microphone of a digitally connected version of the toy. Risks emerge when smartphone users don't take precautions It doesn't matter how secure a mobile device is if the user doesn't follow basic security precautions, especially if their device contains classified or sensitive information, experts say. Mike Waltz, who departed as Trump's national security adviser, inadvertently added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to a Signal chat used to discuss military plans with other top officials. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols set up in his office so he could use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, the AP has reported. Hegseth has rejected assertions that he shared classified information on Signal, a popular encrypted messaging app not approved for the use of communicating classified information. China and other nations will try to take advantage of such lapses, and national security officials must take steps to prevent them from recurring, said Michael Williams, a national security expert at Syracuse University. 'They all have access to a variety of secure communications platforms,' Williams said. "We just can't share things willy-nilly.'
Arab News
3 days ago
- Arab News
Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong faces second charge under national security law
HONG KONG: Hong Kong authorities once again arrested prominent activist Joshua Wong on Friday and charged him with conspiracy to collude with a foreign country under a Beijing-imposed national security law. Wong, 28, was originally set to be released in January 2027 from a 56-month jail sentence he is serving under the same law for conspiracy to commit subversion after he participated in an unofficial primary election. Taken to the West Kowloon magistrates' courts, Wong faced a new charge of conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security. The former student pro-democracy activist, who wore a blue shirt and appeared noticeably thinner than before, replied, 'Understand,' when the clerk read out the charge and details of the offense. Wong did not apply for bail, and the case was adjourned to August 8. Before returning to custody, he waved, shrugged, and shook his head in the direction of the public gallery. In a statement, Hong Kong's national security police said they had arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of the offense, as well as for 'dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offense.' A charge sheet seen by Reuters accuses Wong of having conspired with exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, institutions, organizations, or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades. Such actions against Hong Kong or China, along with other hostile activities targeting them, took place in 2020, between July 1 and November 23, it added. The National Security Law, which punishes offenses such as acts of subversion, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorism, with terms of up to life in jail, was imposed by Beijing on the former British colony in 2020. The Chinese and Hong Kong governments say the law is necessary to restore stability following anti-government protests in 2019. But some Western governments have criticized it as being used to suppress free speech and dissent.
