The WikiLeaks founder now faces days being isolated in his prison cell
Stella Assange told the PA news agency she is concerned for his health, which has deteriorated since he was sent to Belmarsh prison three years ago after being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London
Mrs Assange said: “Julian was feeling unwell last week but started feeling sick on Friday. He started coughing and had a fever. He was given some paracetamol. He tested positive for Covid on Saturday, the same day thousands of people came out onto the streets to support him.
“I am obviously worried about him and the next few days will be crucial for his general health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day.”
Mrs Assange said she was overjoyed at the number of people who formed a human chain around Parliament on Saturday, estimating there were well over 5,000 in attendance.
It was the biggest event of its kind in support of the WikiLeaks founder, who has won support from human rights organisations, journalist groups and others across the world.
Last month, US lawyers and journalists who visited Assange when he was at the Ecuadorian Embassy said they are suing the CIA, claiming it spied on their private conversations in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The Ministry of Justice has been approached for a comment.
On the 9th October 2022, Ford Fischer filmed Chris Hedges speech at the US Department of Justice
“Merrick Garland and those who work in the Department of Justice are the puppets, not the puppet masters,” said Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges Saturday outside the DOJ.
“The engine driving the lynching of Julian Assange is not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a complex we will never be allowed to surround, the Central Intelligence Agency. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count, in the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation.
“We cannot fight on behalf of Julian Assange unless we are clear who we are fighting against,” he then described as “A global billionaire class who have orchestrated a social inequality rivaled by Pharaonic Egypt.”
Merrick Garland and those who work in the Department of Justice are the puppets, not the puppet masters. They are the façade, the fiction, that the longstanding persecution of Julian Assange has something to do with justice. Like the High Court in London, they carry out an elaborate judiC.I.A.l pantomime. They debate arcane legal nuances to distract from the Dickensian farce where a man who has not committed a crime, who is not a U.S. citizen, can be extradited under the Espionage Act and sentenced to life in prison for the most courageous and consequential journalism of our generation.
The engine driving the lynching of Julian is not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a complex we will never be allowed to surround – the Central Intelligence Agency. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count in the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation. Because the machine of this modern leviathan was exposed by Julian and WikiLeaks, the machine demands revenge.
The United States has undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. It is no longer a functioning democracy. The real centers of power, in the corporate, military and national security sectors, were humiliated and embarrassed by WikiLeaks. Their war crimes, lies, conspiracies to crush the democratic aspirations of the vulnerable and the poor, and rampant corruption, here and around the globe, were laid bare in troves of leaked documents.
We cannot fight on behalf of Julian unless we are clear about whom we are fighting against. It is far worse than a corrupt judiC.I.A.ry. The global billionaire class, who have orchestrated a soC.I.A.l inequality rivaled by pharaonic Egypt, has internally seized all of the levers of power and made us the most spied upon, monitored, watched and photographed population in human history. When the government watches you 24-hours a day, you cannot use the word liberty. This is the relationship between a master and a slave. Julian was long a target, of course, but when WikiLeakspublished the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the hacking tools the C.I.A. uses to monitor our phones, televisions and even cars, he — and journalism itself — was condemned to crucifixion.
The object is to shut down any investigations into the inner workings of power that might hold the ruling class accountable for its crimes, eradicate public opinion and replace it with the cant fed to the mob.
I spent two decades as a foreign correspondent on the outer reaches of empire in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. I am acutely aware of the savagery of empire, how the brutal tools of repression are first tested on those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.” Wholesale surveillance. Torture. Coups. Black sites. Black propaganda. Militarized police. Militarized drones. Assassinations. Wars.
Once perfected on people of color overseas, these tools migrate back to the homeland. By hollowing out our country from the inside through deindustrialization, austerity, deregulation, wage stagnation, the abolition of unions, massive expenditures on war and intelligence, a refusal to address the climate emergency and a virtual tax boycott for the richest individuals and corporations, these predators intend to keep us in bondage, victims of a corporate neo-feudalism. And they have perfected their instruments of Orwellian control. The tyranny imposed on others is imposed on us.
From its inception, the C.I.A. carried out assassinations, coups, torture and illegal spying and abuse, including that of U.S. citizens, activities exposed in 1975 by the Church Committee hearings in the Senate and the Pike Committee hearings in the House. All these crimes, especially after the attacks of 9/11, have returned with a vengeance. The C.I.A. is a rogue and unaccountable paramilitary organization with its own armed units and drone program, death squads and a vast archipelago of global black sites where kidnapped victims are tortured and disappeared.
The U.S. allocates a secret black budget of about $50 billion a year to hide multiple types of clandestine projects carried out by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, usually beyond the scrutiny of Congress. The C.I.A. has a well-oiled apparatus to kidnap, torture and assassinate targets around the globe, which is why, since it had already set up a system of 24-hour video surveillance of Julian in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, it quite naturally discussed kidnapping and assassinating him. That is its business. Senator Frank Church — after examining the heavily redacted C.I.A. documents released to his committee — defined the C.I.A.’s “covert activity” as “a semantic disguise for murder, coercion, blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies and consorting with known torturers and international terrorists.”
All despotisms mask state persecution with sham court proceedings. The show trials and troikas in Stalin’s Soviet Union. The raving Nazi judges in fascist Germany. The Denunciation rallies in Mao’s China. State crime is cloaked in a faux legality, a judicial farce.
If Julian is extradited and sentenced and, given the Lubyanka-like proclivities of the Eastern District of Virginia, this is a near certainty, it means that those of us who have published classified material, as I did when I worked for The New York Times, will become criminals. It means that an iron curtain will be pulled down to mask abuses of power. It means that the state, which, through Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, anti-terrorism laws and the Espionage Act that have created our homegrown version of Stalin’s Article 58, can imprison anyone anywhere in the world who dares commit the crime of telling the truth.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to fight against powerful subterranean forces that, in demanding Julian’s extradition and life imprisonment, have declared war on journalism.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to fight for the restoration of the rule of law and democracy.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to dismantle the wholesale Stasi-like state surveillance erected across the West.
We are here to fight for Julian. But we are also here to overthrow — and let me repeat that word for the benefit of those in the F.B.I. and Homeland Security who have come here to monitor us — overthrow the corporate state and create a government of the people, by the people and for the people, that will cherish, rather than persecute, the best among us.
You can see my interview with Julian’s father, John Shipton
Supporters are encouraged to download the paper version and collect signatures Page 1 is the cover page with full petition Page 2 allows for more signatures and can be printed as required
Please mail signed pages back to our office at Assange Campaign Incorporated 40 Glencairn Avenue Camberwell VIC 3124
On Wednesday the 28th September, Assange Supporters are gathering to hear speeches and witness the State Parliament voting on a motion to Support Julian Assange
Frank Pangallo – South Australian Best MLC has an extremely important motion being voted on that could potentially be the catalyst for life-saving actions to be taken in regard to Australian award-winning publisher Julian Assange. I am proud that South Australia will likely become the first State Government in Australia to move on such an important issue. This is not only an important motion for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange but a brave stand to defend free speech, free press, our democratic right to know and to reclaim investigative journalism.
As we all know too well, Julian Assange has been in some form of arbitrary detention for over 12 years, just for speaking truth to power. It is time to end this extreme overreach of US governmental authority and move to release Julian Assange immediately. We believe wholeheartedly that it is in the best interest of our future generations and our great nation, that this motion is passed and acted on swiftly. Collectively, we will push forward with conviction and enthusiasm to bring Julian and his young family home to Australia safely. We hope that this can be realised by the end of 2022.
Speeches by: David McBride – Australian Whistleblower / former Australian Army lawyer Frank Pangallo – SA Best MLC Rex Patrick – Australian politician Stephen Kenny – Julian Assange’s Lawyer Tammy Franks – The Greens MLC
On the 22nd September 2022, Chris Hedges reports on ScheerPost and interviews John Shipton available on You Tube
The persecution of Julian Assange is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism.
A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice.
Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Julian Assange, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence.
The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.
I was in the London courtroom when Julian was being tried by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in Alice-in Wonderland demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.
The U.S. government directed the London prosecutor James Lewis. Lewis presented these directives to Baraitser. Baraitser adopted them as her legal decision. It was judicial pantomime. Lewis and the judge insisted they were not attempting to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press while they busily set up the legal framework to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press. And that is why the court worked so hard to mask the proceedings from the public, limiting access to the courtroom to a handful of observers and making it hard and at times impossible for us to access the trial online. It was a tawdry show trial, not an example of the best of English jurisprudence but the Lubyanka.
It is imperative that those of us who care about a free press and the persecution of an innocent man, for Julian has not committed a crime, make our presence felt in the streets. I will be in Washington on October 8 with, I hope, thousands of others to ring the capital to call for Julians’ release, an act that will be replicated by protesters surrounding the British parliament the same day. Joining me from Mexico, where Mexican president Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has defended Julian’s innocence and offered asylum to the WikiLeaks founder, is Julians’s father John Shipton.
A whole a week of rallies and activities culminating in a film with David McBride on Friday (7th Oct) and the formation of a Human Chain along the banks of the Yarra on Saturday (8th Oct)
Monday, 3rd October 12:00 – 2:00 pm:
BBQ and party for WikiLeaks 16th birthday at ABC offices, Southbank. Calender
Tuesday, 4th October 10:00 am – 9:00 pm:
11 hour vigil at UK Consulate. Calender
Wednesday, 5th October 11:00 am – 1:00 pm:
Picket the office Attorney General Mark Dreyfus (Mordialloc). Calender
Thursday, 6th October 6:30 pm:
David McBride film plus Q&A panel with John Shipton (Nova Cinema Carlton). Tickets
Friday, 7th October 10.30 am – 12:00 pm
Picket office of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles (Geelong).
Calender
On the 17th September, Alex Willemyns reported in Morning Consult
As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in extradition limbo, a new Morning Consult survey shows Americans, Europeans and Australians are far more likely to say the Australian national was “right” than “wrong” to shed light on U.S. government policies such as the secret surveillance of American citizens, and few want to see him extradited to face espionage charges in the United States.
Melbourne UN Peace Day rally State Library of Victoria noon 18 SeptemberIt is lies that start wars and have brought the world to the brink of climate devastation. It is truth, and acting on truth, that can save us.
Our theme for this UN Peace Day rally is Truth Not War.
The event will be a broad-based, inclusive, colourful and peaceful rally with speeches and music that celebrate Melbourne’s longstanding tradition of rallying for Peace, opposing nuclear weapons and arms buildup, respecting and protecting our environment and showing resolve in protecting peacemakers like WikiLeaks publisher and the recipient of the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize, Julian Assange.
In the words of Prime Minister Albanese: “Enough is enough!”
Join us at the State Library of Victoria. 11am – Music starts 12 noon – Speeches and more music 1pm – March down Swanston St to the British Consulate, 90 Collins St
On the 15th September 2022, Gabriel Shipton tweeted about John Shipton and he accepting the keys to Mexico City on behalf of his brother Julian Assange
Editors Note: Mexico City has a population of 9 million. More than a third of that of Australia
Mexico City governor @Claudiashein just gave the keys to the city to Julian Assange. John and I accepted on Julians behalf. The last week in Mexico has been filled with love for Julian…his work has changed so many lives here. pic.twitter.com/8QvnXY1KwE
“The Mexican President López Obrador has written multiple times to Joe Biden, calling for the prosecution against Julian to be dropped,” Gabriel Shipton told the ABC.
“He has also offered Julian asylum in Mexico.
“He met with [US] Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken a couple of days ago, and also in that meeting discussed Julian’s freedom and how to get Julian out of prison.”
His family is continuing to pressure Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to intervene in the case.
“There’s this expectation in the electorate in Australia that Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, is going to actually do something to end Julian’s persecution,” Mr Shipton said.
“I’m beginning to sense that there’s a bit of disappointment after a hundred days of government that the Albanese Government hasn’t been able to act to free Julian.”
Gabriel Shipton said he wanted to see the case resolved and his brother freed before the end of the year.
“If the Australian government can manage that, I think that would be a Christmas miracle for us,” he said “We take a lot of energy from the growing wave of support around the world for Julian’s freedom.”
Also covered in The Associated Press
This week the objective was to insert mention of Julian Assange into a meeting between Mexico’s president and the United States’ top diplomat. Next week, it will be to have Australia’s prime minister bring it up with the U.S. president at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral
“We call President López Obrador an ice-breaker,” because afterward the leaders of Chile, Colombia and Bolivia called for his release too, Gabriel Shipton said during the visit to Mexico. Among a packed scheduled of events, John Shipton received the key to the capital Wednesday on behalf of Assange, a ceremonial honor the city bestows on distinguished guests. The day before, he addressed Mexico’s Senate.
President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanding the release of Julian Assange
This is extraordinary: On Mexico's independence day President @lopezobrador_ calls on Biden to #FreeAssangeNOW. Mexico has shown Julian profound generosity, solidarity, humanity. It is the opposite of the suffering and inhumanity inflicted on him for so long. Thank you.#Assangepic.twitter.com/kOwYATDMqy
