The story was explosive. Twelve years ago, five of the world’s most prominent media outlets began publishing revelations from a cache of 251,000 confidential U.S. State Department cables provided by WikiLeaks and its founder and publisher, Julian Assange. The revelations were shocking, exposing what the New York Times called “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions ... that cost the country most heavily in lives and money.” Publication of stories derived from the documents continues to this day.

Today, along with having served seven years of arbitrary detention — a human rights violation —  and three and a half years in a maximum security prison in Britain, Assange faces extradition to the U.S. under charges of espionage, with a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison.

Recently, publishers of the newspapers that broke the story — The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El Pais — released a letter advocating dropping an indictment avoided by the Obama administration, ordered by the Trump administration, and continued by the Biden administration, against Assange.

The publishers clearly state: “The U.S. government should end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets......Publishing is not a crime.” They recognize the case demonstrates the active war against press freedom being waged by the American government, a dire concern for all who believe in the power of the First Amendment.

USC Annenberg has the opportunity to continue the conversation surrounding Julian Assange and the future of press freedom with the North American premiere screening of Ithaka, a documentary detailing Assange’s father’s fight to free his son.

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and Academy Award Winning director Oliver Stone will participate in the event, featuring a panel with Assange’s father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton, and others.

Screening will take place in Professor Robert Scheer’s COMM 310 class.

RSVP