Background

Ethnicity: He has an Australian Aboriginal, French, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.

Julian Paul Hawkins was born on 3 July 1971, in Townsville, Queensland, to Christine Ann Hawkins (b. 1951), a visual artist, and John Shipton, an anti-war activist and builder. The couple separated prior to his birth.

When Julian Hawkins was a year old, his mother married Richard Brett Assange, an actor, with whom she ran a small theatre company and whom Assange regards as his father (choosing Assange as his surname). The surname Assange is an Anglicisation of the Chinese name Au Sang from a Taiwanese man who married a Torres Strait Islander woman on Thursday Island. His mother had a house in Nelly Bay on Magnetic Island where they lived from time to time until it was destroyed by fire.

Christine and Brett Assange divorced about 1979. Christine Assange then became involved with Leif Meynell, also known as Leif Hamilton, a member of Australian cult The Family, with whom she had a son before the couple broke up in 1982. Assange had a nomadic childhood, and had lived in over thirty Australian towns by the time he reached his mid-teens, when he settled with his mother and half-brother in Melbourne, Victoria.

Education

Julian attended many schools, including Goolmangar Primary School in New South Wales (1979–1983) and Townsville State High School, as well as being schooled at home. He studied programming, mathematics, and physics at Central Queensland University (1994) and the University of Melbourne (2003–2006), but did not complete a degree.

Career

As a teenager, Julian demonstrated an uncanny aptitude with computers, and, using the hacking nickname “Mendax,” he infiltrated a number of secure systems, including those at NASA and the Pentagon. In 1991 Australian authorities charged him with 31 counts of cybercrime; he pleaded guilty to most of them. At sentencing, however, he received only a small fine as punishment, and the judge ruled that his actions were the result of youthful inquisitiveness. Over the next decade, Assange traveled, studied physics at the University of Melbourne (he withdrew before earning a degree), and worked as a computer security consultant.

Assange created WikiLeaks in 2006 to serve as a clearinghouse for sensitive or classified documents. Its first publication, posted to the WikiLeaks Web site in December 2006, was a message from a Somali rebel leader encouraging the use of hired gunmen to assassinate government officials. The document’s authenticity was never verified, but the story of WikiLeaks and questions regarding the ethics of its methods soon overshadowed it. WikiLeaks published a number of other scoops, including details about the U.S. military’s detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, a secret membership roster of the British National Party, internal documents from the Scientology movement, and private e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.

In 2010 WikiLeaks posted almost half a million documents—mainly relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much of the information was already in the public domain, Pres. Barack Obama’s administration criticized the leaks as a threat to U.S. national security. In November of that year, WikiLeaks began publishing an estimated 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables. Those classified documents dated mostly from 2007 to 2010, but they included some dating back as far as 1966. Among the wide-ranging topics covered were behind-the-scenes U.S. efforts to politically and economically isolate Iran, primarily in response to fears of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Reaction from governments around the world was swift, and many condemned the publication. Assange became the target of much of that ire, and some American politicians called for him to be pursued as a terrorist.

Assange also faced prosecution in Sweden, where he was wanted in connection with sexual assault charges. (It was the second arrest warrant issued for Assange for those alleged crimes; the first warrant was dismissed in August 2010 because of lack of evidence.) Assange was arrested in London in December 2010 and held without bond, pending possible extradition to Sweden. He was eventually released on bail, and in February 2011 a British judge ruled that the extradition should proceed, a decision that was appealed by Assange’s attorneys. In December 2011 the British High Court found that Assange’s extradition case was “of general public importance” and recommended that it be heard by the Supreme Court. This decision allowed Assange to petition the Supreme Court directly for a final hearing on the matter.

Assange’s memoir, Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography, was published against his wishes in September 2011. Assange had received a sizable advance payment for the book, but he withdrew his support for the project after sitting for some 50 hours of interviews, and the resulting manuscript, although at times enlightening, read very much like the early draft that it was.

While Britain’s Supreme Court continued to weigh the matter of Assange’s extradition, he remained under house arrest on the estate of a WikiLeaks supporter in rural Norfolk. From this location, Assange recorded a series of interviews that were collected as The World Tomorrow, a talk show that debuted online and on the state-funded Russian satellite news network RT in April 2012. Hosting the program from a makeshift broadcast studio, Assange began the series with an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Nasrallah’s first with a Western journalist since the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

In June 2012, after his extradition appeal was denied by the Supreme Court, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy. He applied for asylum on the grounds that extradition to Sweden could lead to eventual prosecution in the United States for actions related to WikiLeaks. Assange claimed that such a trial would be politically motivated and would potentially subject him to the death penalty. In August Assange’s request was granted, but he remained confined within the embassy as British and Ecuadoran officials attempted to resolve the issue. Assange began his second year within the walls of the embassy by launching a bid for a seat in the Australian Senate. His WikiLeaks Party, founded in July 2013, performed poorly in the September 7, 2013, Australian general election; it captured less than 1 percent of the national vote and failed to win any seats in the Senate. In August 2015 Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation of three of the allegations against Assange, as they had been unable to interview him prior to the expiration of a five-year statute of limitations. Swedish authorities continued to pursue an investigation into the outstanding allegation of rape, however, and Assange remained within the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

In 2016 Assange became an active player in the U.S. presidential race, when WikiLeaks began publishing internal communications from the Democratic Party and the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Assange made no secret of his personal hostility toward Clinton, and the leaks were clearly timed to do maximum damage to her campaign. Numerous independent cybersecurity experts and U.S. law enforcement agencies confirmed that the data had been obtained by hackers associated with Russian intelligence agencies. Despite this evidence, Assange denied that the information had come from Russia. In January 2017 a declassified U.S. intelligence report stated that Assange and WikiLeaks had been key parts of a sophisticated hybrid warfare campaign orchestrated by Russia against the United States. In May 2017, as Assange approached his fifth year under de facto house arrest in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, Swedish prosecutors announced that they had discontinued their investigation into the rape charges against him.

Although he is free to leave the Embassy, it is likely that he would then be arrested for the criminal offence of breaching his bail conditions. The London Metropolitan Police have indicated that an arrest warrant is still in force for Assange's failure to surrender himself to his bail. On 27 July 2018, Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno said that he had begun talks with British authorities to withdraw the asylum for Assange. In December, Assange turned down an offer to have him leave the embassy on the condition that the UK would not extradite him to any country with the death penalty.

Achievements

• 

  Julian Assange came to international attention as the founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and CableGate (November 2010). Following the 2010 leaks, the federal government of the United States launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and asked allied nations for assistance.
  
  In May 2011 Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation’s gold medal, an honour that had previously been bestowed on Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, for his “exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights.”
  
  In 2017, Julian Assange became one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier 1997
  • Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet 2012
  • When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange 2014
  • The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire 2015
  • Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography 2011

• movie

  • Collateral Murder 2010
  • Mediastan 2013

Politics

Assange announced that he would run for the Australian Senate in March 2012 under the new WikiLeaks Party.

Assange wrote on WikiLeaks in February 2016: "I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgment and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. ... she certainly should not become president of the United States." On 25 July, following the Republican National Convention (RNC), during an interview by Amy Goodman, Assange said that choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is like choosing between cholera or gonorrhea. "Personally, I would prefer neither." WikiLeaks editor, Sarah Harrison, has stated that the site is not choosing which damaging publications to release, rather releasing information that is available to them. In an Election Day statement, Assange criticized both Clinton and Trump, saying that "The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers."

Views

As per him, he’s not inspired by anarchy, but rather anti-Stalinism.

Quotations: "You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion."

"We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards."

"You can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism."

"Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture them."

"WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon."

"The sense of perspective that interaction with multiple cultures gives you I find to be extremely valuable, because it allows you to see the structure of a country with greater clarity, and gives you a sense of mental independence. You're not swept up in the trivialities of a nation. You can concentrate on the serious matters."

Personality

Julian Assange smokes.

Physical Characteristics: Height - 188 cm (1.88 m)

Weight - 72 kg (72 lbs)

Eye color - blue

Hair color - white

Assange was hospitalized for depression in 1992.

Quotes from others about the person

• "WikiLeaks is possibly the most exciting development in journalism in my lifetime. As an investigative journalist, I have often had to rely on the courageous, principled acts of whistle-blowers. The truth about the Vietnam War was told when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. The truth about Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia and many other flashpoints was told when WikiLeaks published the revelations of whistle-blowers." - John Pilger
  
  "When you consider that 100 percent of WikiLeaks leaks are authentic and accurate, you can understand the impact, as well as the fury generated among secretive powerful forces. Julian Assange is a political refugee in London for one reason only: WikiLeaks told the truth about the greatest crimes of the 21st century. He is not forgiven for that, and he should be supported by journalists and by people everywhere." - John Pilger

Connections

While in his teens, Assange married a woman named Teresa, and in 1989 they had a son, Daniel Assange, now a software designer. The couple separated and initially disputed custody of their child. Assange was Daniel's primary caregiver for much of his childhood. Assange has other children; in an open letter to French President François Hollande, he stated that his youngest child lives in France with his mother. He also said that his family had faced death threats and harassment because of his work, forcing them to change identities and reduce contact with him.

Father:

John Shipton

Mother:

Christine Ann Hawkins

(born 1951)

Spouse:

Teresa Assange

(married 1989–1999)

stepfather (1):

Richard Brett Assange

stepfather (2):

Leif Hamilton

Son:

Daniel Assange

(born 1989)

Partner:

Sarah Harrison

Sarah Harrison is WikiLeaks section editor. She works with the WikiLeaks Legal Defense and is Julian Assange's closest adviser.

References

• WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy
• Julian Assange – WikiLeaks: Warrior For Truth
• Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy
• This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers
• Julian Assange: Founder of Wikileaks (Hero or Villain? Claims and Counterclaims)
• Julian Assange's Secrets
• Time December 13, 2010 Julian Assange/WikiLeaks on Cover, Geno Auriemma/UConn Women's Basketball Coach, Natalie Portman/Rabbit Hole, Vertical Garden, 3-D TV