Inside Story

Julian Assange: hero or villain?

In the first part of our WikiLeaks special, we look at the founder of the whistle-blowing website.

Julian Assange and his whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks continue to make headlines – with daily revelations continuing, even though Assange is himself now behind bars.

Is he a hero or a villain? Can he be held legally accountable? Are the revelations on his site endangering lives or are they simply embarrassing for the US government? And what of freedom of expression?

Inside Story will be dealing with all these issues and more in a series of programmes over the coming week. We begin with the fundamental issue of freedom of speech and information.
 
Joining us to discuss this are: Charlie Wolf, a political commentator; Ernest Sagaga, a human rights and information officer at the International Federation of Journalists; and Khawar Qureshi, an international law specialist.

This episode of Inside Story aired on Friday, December 10, 2010.