Eugene Jarecki Shares Insights on Interviewing Edward Snowden for His Documentary on Julian Assange
In May 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, Nils Melzer, assessed Julian Assange while he was imprisoned in the UK. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had been removed from Ecuador’s embassy in London. Melzer’s evaluation indicated that Assange displayed “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”
Melzer remarked, “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”
The alleged campaign against Assange by the U.S., UK, and other nations is critically examined in Eugene Jarecki’s documentary, The Six Billion Dollar Man, which garnered a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Jarecki approached the subject with initial skepticism regarding Assange’s situation.
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As he delved deeper, Jarecki came to view Assange as a victim of an American desire to prosecute him on espionage and conspiracy charges. “The government of Ecuador [which originally granted Assange asylum before canceling it] and the United Nations ultimately determined that Assange was a political prisoner,” he stated. “[A] working group within the United Nations [concluded] that he was a victim of arbitrary detention; that yes, indeed, the way the British and the Americans and the Swedes ultimately conspired to sort of stonewall Julian Assange into a place of asylum and hiding in England where he could not get out without being arrested—he was not being afforded the legal protections that asylees do, that that was a form of … political persecution, full stop.”
The Six Billion Dollar Man features interviews with journalists such as Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein, who provide insight into Assange’s case and WikiLeaks. Additionally, the filmmaker traveled to Moscow to interview Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who revealed the agency’s secret surveillance practices. Significantly, WikiLeaks assisted Snowden in reaching Russia to evade prosecution in the U.S.
“Interviewing Edward Snowden about Julian Assange felt kind of like interviewing Superman about Batman,” Jarecki commented. “It was fascinating. … He’s an extraordinary person, also much smeared and assaulted by U.S. authorities for sharing with the public what we deserve [to know]… Those in power profit from our stupidity. So, this is a game being played at our expense.”
Watermelon Pictures is set to release The Six Billion Dollar Man theatrically in the upcoming year. Jarecki noted that many larger distributors initially declined to take on the project, as he had anticipated.
“It became true that no one would touch this at the higher levels of the major streamers, the major outlets,” he observed. “We are thrilled that a company like Watermelon Pictures is going to be taking the film out in North America.”
Jarecki is prepared to elaborate on the film’s title and other insights in an upcoming discussion.
Check back Tuesday for the panel video.
