00:00These proceedings will be recorded and broadcast.
00:21The transition from years of confinement in a maximum security prison to being here before
00:26the representatives of 46 nations and 700 million people is a profound and surreal shift.
00:35The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey.
00:42It strips away one's sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence.
00:48I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured, the relentless struggle
00:58to stay alive, both physically and mentally, nor can I speak yet about the deaths by hanging,
01:05murder and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners.
01:12I apologize in advance if my words falter or if my presentation lacks the polish you
01:18might expect from such a distinguished forum.
01:22Isolation has taken its toll, which I am trying to unwind, and expressing myself in this setting
01:30is a challenge.
01:31I eventually chose freedom over unrealizable justice after being detained for years and
01:38facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy.
01:45This for me is now precluded as the U.S. government insisted in writing into its plea
01:52agreement that I cannot file a case at the European Court of Human Rights or even a Freedom
01:58of Information Act request over what it did to me as a result of its expedition request.
02:05I want to be totally clear.
02:09I am not free today because the system worked.
02:12I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism.
02:20I pled guilty to seeking information from a source.
02:24I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source.
02:29And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was.
02:36I did not plead guilty to anything else.
02:40I hope my testimony today can serve to highlight the weaknesses of the existing safeguards
02:48and to help those whose cases are less visible but who are equally vulnerable.
02:55My readaptation to the world, of course, includes some positive but still tricky things, becoming
03:07a father again to children who have grown up without me, becoming a husband again, even
03:17dealing with a mother-in-law.
03:19These are trying family issues.
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