In Europe, sharp criticism of US reaction to WikiLeaks

The Obama administration has done nothing in the courts to block the publication of any of the leaked documents, or even, as of yet, tried to indict the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, for any crime.

American officials and politicians, however, have been widely condemned in the European news media for calling the leaks everything from “terrorism’’ (Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York) to “an attack against the international community’’ (Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton).

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates called the arrest of Assange in a separate rape case “good news,’’ while Sarah Palin called for him to be hunted as an “anti-American operative with blood on his hands.’’

For Seumas Milne of The Guardian in London, which like The New York Times has published the latest WikiLeaks trove, the official US reaction “is tipping over toward derangement.’’ Most of the leaks are of low-level diplomatic cables, he noted, while concluding: “Not much truck with freedom of information, then, in the land of the free.’’

John Naughton, writing in the same British paper, deplored the attack on the openness of the Internet and the pressure on companies such as Amazon and eBay to evict the WikiLeaks site. “The response has been vicious, coordinated and potentially comprehensive,’’ he said, and presents a “delicious irony’’ that “it is now the so-called liberal democracies that are clamoring to shut WikiLeaks down.’’

A year ago, he noted, Clinton made a major speech about Internet freedom, interpreted as a rebuke to China’s cyberattack on Google. “Even in authoritarian countries,’’ she said, “information networks are helping people to discover new facts and making governments more accountable.’’ To Naughton now, “that Clinton speech reads like a satirical masterpiece.’’

The Russians seemed to take a special delight in tweaking Washington over its reaction to the leaks, suggesting the Americans are being hypocritical. “If it is a full-fledged democracy, then why have they put Assange away in jail? You call that democracy?’’ Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said during a news briefing with the French prime minister, Francois Fillon. Assange is in jail in Britain while Sweden seeks his extradition to face rape charges.

German newspapers were similarly harsh. Even The Financial Times Deutschland (independent of the English-language Financial Times), said that “the already damaged reputation of the United States will only be further tattered with Assange’s new martyr status.’’ It added that “the openly embraced hope of the US government that along with Assange, WikiLeaks will disappear from the scene, is questionable.’’

Assange is being hounded, the paper said, “even though no one can explain what crimes Assange allegedly committed with the publication of the secret documents, or why publication by WikiLeaks was an offense, and in The New York Times, it was not.’’

But Renaud Girard, a respected reporter for the center-right Le Figaro, said he was impressed by the generally high quality of the American diplomatic corps. “What is most fascinating is that we see no cynicism in US diplomacy,’’ he said. “They really believe in human rights in Africa and China and Russia and Asia. They really believe in democracy and human rights. People accuse the Americans of double standards all the time. But it’s not true here. If anything, the diplomats are almost naive.’’