Londoners rally for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange ahead of US extradition hearing

A few hundred protesters marched across central London Saturday to call on Britain to reject WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition to the United States at hearings that start next week. A London court is to meet Monday to assess Washington's request to hand over the media freedoms activist so he can be tried for releasing classified files in 2010 about US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Supporters of Assange's freedom gathered outside the Australian government's representative office and then marched through central London for a rally outside parliament. Some chanted "journalism is not a crime" and held up banners mocking Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The UK government plays no formal role in the extradition case. Monday's hearing is expected to last a week and then resume for a second session starting on May 18. Any ruling is likely to be appealed by the losing side and Assange could remain locked up in a high-security London prison for many more months.

READ| WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to seek asylum in France amid extradition case

"I don't really understand why Julian is in jail here," Assange's father John Shipton told the crowd on London's Parliament Square. Others attending included Pink Floyd rock group co-founder Roger Waters and Greece's former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood wore a neon green paper halo with the word "angel" written in black marker. Assange was "the angel of democracy," she explained.

The case was injected with a dose of intrigue last week when the defense claimed US President Donald Trump had promised to pardon Assange if he denied Russia leaked emails of his 2016 election rival's campaign. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian GRU military intelligence agencies hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the runup to the November vote.

Julian Assange Case

The 48-year-old whistleblower currently imprisoned in Belmarsh is slapped with 18 charges in the United States including the Espionage Act, for conspiring to gain access into US military secrets between January and May 2010. If convicted, he will face up to 175 years in the US prison. 

Wikileaks, an anti-secrecy organisation, was founded in 2006 as a platform for whistleblowers to release classified information anonymously. By 2015, Wikileaks became a portal to publish over 10 million documents, including top-secret documents.  Ever since its launch in 2006, Wikileaks has published thousands of classified documents, disclosing the details from national security, war, politics to the film industry. In 2010, as per published files of WikiLeaks, Congress' Rahul Gandhi told the then US Ambassador at lunch that Hindu extremists groups post a greater threat to his country than the Muslim terrorists. 

WATCH: Wikileaks tweets video of Julian Assange's cat watching his owner's arrest, organisation asserts 'they will be reunited in freedom'

READ| Julian Assange, looking pale & sickly, caught on camera leaving London Court in Police van