Sarah Harrison is a former

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

section editor. She worked with the WikiLeaks' legal defence and has been described as Julian Assange's closest adviser. Harrison accompanied

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

Edward Snowden on a high-profile flight from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

while he was sought by the United States government.

WikiLeaks

As an intern at the UK-based

Centre for Investigative Journalism The Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) is a British independent charity providing training to journalists, researchers, producers and students in the practice and methodology of investigative journalism. It was incorporated as a Company L ...

, she was assigned to Julian Assange before the

Afghan War documents leak The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is the disclosure of a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which were published by WikiLeaks on 2010. The logs consist of over 91,000 Afghan War ...

. After

Daniel Domscheit-Berg Daniel Domscheit-Berg (; né Berg; born 1978), previously known under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, is a German technology activist. He is best known as the former spokesperson for WikiLeaks and the author of ''Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Jul ...

left WikiLeaks over a dispute with Assange, Harrison's role in the organisation increased, particularly with the US diplomatic cables leak and Assange's legal fight against Swedish

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...

. Harrison is a former WikiLeaks section editor. She worked with the WikiLeaks' legal defence led by

Baltasar Garzón Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a former Spanish judge. Garzón formerly served on Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'', and was the examining magistrate of the ''Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5'', ...

, and was Julian Assange's girlfriend, closest adviser and gatekeeper. In 2014, Harrison spoke about her support for WikiLeaks, saying "the greatest unaccountable power of today sthe United States and our Western democracies." Harrison also served as acting director of

Courage Foundation The Courage Foundation is an international organisation based in Germany, the UK and the US that supports whistleblowers and journalists by fundraising for their legal defence. Founded on August 9, 2013, as the Journalistic Source Protection De ...

, a UK trust to support whistleblowers originally cofounded by Julian Assange as the Journalistic Source Protection Defence Fund, from 2014 until April 2017, when WikiLeaks became a Courage beneficiary.

Edward Snowden

On 24 June 2013, WikiLeaks said that Harrison accompanied

leaker Edward Snowden on a high-profile flight from Hong Kong to Moscow en route to

political asylum The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum; ) is an ancient juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereign authority, like a second country or another ent ...

from US extradition. Dominic Rushe of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' observed that Harrison was a "strange choice" because of her lack of legal qualifications compared to other WikiLeaks staff, such as human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson. At the time, Harrison had been with the organisation for over two years. On 1 August 2013, she accompanied Snowden out of Moscow's

Sheremetyevo International Airport Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport ( rus, links=no, Международный аэропорт Шереметьево имени А. С. Пушкина, p=ʂɨrʲɪˈmʲetʲjɪvə ''Mezhdunarodny aeroport Sheremetyevo imen ...

after he was granted a year of temporary asylum.

Exile from UK

In 2014, Harrison said she was living in exile in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

as she had received legal advice that she would very likely be detained under the UK's Terrorism Act on entry to the UK. Under the Act she could be asked to provide information about WikiLeaks’ and Snowden's sources and refusal to answer would be a crime.

Award

Harrison received the Willy Brandt Peace Prize in 2015.

References

External links

WikiLeaks profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Sarah 1980s births British journalists WikiLeaks Living people Alumni of City, University of London Alumni of Queen Mary University of London People educated at Sevenoaks School Julian Assange