The draft resolution that contained a call on the French government to provide political asylum for Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website, was rejected on Friday by the French National Assembly with 17 votes ‘yes’ and 31 ‘against’.
Ended late in the evening, the debate over the resolution went on throughout Friday.
The initiative was introduced for consideration by the lower house of the French Parliament by a number of deputies, including Jennifer de Temmerman, Cedric Villani, Francois Ruffin, Jean Lassalle, who were pushing for Assange to be offered asylum in France amid his ongoing fight against extradition to the US.
French MPs explained their call to grant the Australian journalist asylum in France by the fact that he has been subjected to judicial and political persecution by the United States for more than 10 years, and France is a country that protects freedom of the press and the individual.
Overturning an earlier decision that Assange cannot be extradited to the US due to health issues and the inhumane conditions he might face in the US prison system, the London High Court ruled on 10 December 2021, in favor of the US appeal to extradite him.
Assange has been on remand at the southeast London’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison since October 2020, after serving an 11-month sentence for breaking bail conditions in 2012, when he sought shelter in the Ecuadorian embassy in London instead of appearing in court as his bail conditions demanded.
Concerned that he might otherwise end up extradited to the US, where he may be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison if put on trial and convicted, WikiLeaks founder remained in the Ecuadorian embassy until 2019.
The United States want Assange on espionage charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents exposing the atrocities American troops committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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