Julian Assange waves at supporters after arriving at Canberra Airport (Image: EPA/Lukas Coch) ASSANGE’S FIRST NIGHT HOME The media is swarming around Julian Assange after his return to Australia last night, back home after 14 years in exile. Assange raised his fist to photographers as he stepped out of Canberra airport, with his wife and furious advocate Stella pleading for privacy as he adjusts to his newfound freedom, reports the SMH . “I ask you — please — to give us space, to give us privacy.
To find our place. To let our family be a family before he can speak again at a time of his choosing,” she said to reporters. The Australian is doing its best to cast Assange’s release in a negative light, labelling him a “convicted felon” and “Australia’s highest profile fugitive” who “dumped files on the internet”.
But the paper can’t deny that Assange’s return is a boon for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “quiet diplomacy”: “The diplomatic and legal systems clicked into gear. They were now acting with the clear imprimatur of the prime minister.” Internationally, The New York Times reports that “Broad support for his release seems to have grown more out of resentment of his treatment by the US justice system than concerns about press protections”, pointing out Australia is hardly a bastion of press freedoms, writing that our “own espionage laws are some of the toughest in the democratic world , with punishments stretching to 25 years .