Pro-Assange Rally Continuing Outside High Court in London for 2nd Day in Row

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A rally in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is going on for the second consecutive day outside the High Court of Justice in London, according to a live broadcast by Sky News.

Earlier this week, the UK government published a list of cases for the two-day hearing, which started on Tuesday. The court will decide whether Assange will have further opportunities to fight extradition to the United States before UK courts.

The demonstrators are holding up posters calling for Assange's release and his non-extradition to the US.

On Tuesday, several hundred people also held a rally in support of the jailed journalist in Paris, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

Assange, an Australian citizen, was transferred to London's high-security Belmarsh prison in April 2019 on bail breach charges. In the US, he faces prosecution under the Espionage Act for obtaining classified information and disclosing it in the public domain. If convicted, the WikiLeaks founder could face 175 years in prison.

One of the last means of preventing his transfer to the US may be an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Assange lost his previous appeal at the UK High Court last June.

If Assange is extradited to the US no journalist in the world would be safe – ex-UN expert.

"Essentially it would mean that any journalist who publishes information that the US government does not like would be subject to persecution and prosecution," Alfred de Zayas, professor… pic.twitter.com/OAmeXKGhFb

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) February 21, 2024

WikiLeaks was founded by Assange in 2006 but rose to prominence in 2010 when it began publishing large-scale leaks of classified government information, including from the US.