Category: Expressions of Support

On the 25 April 2022, Louise Nimmo reported in The Italian Insider

 ROME – Italian senators, journalists and cultural leaders, as well as numerous Members of the European Parliament, have signed a letter addressed to British Home Secretary Priti Patel warning of the consequences on freedom of speech if she chooses to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, political sources said.

  In the United States, Assange faces a sentence of up to 175 years in prison for helping to spread confidential documents on war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 The 51-year-old Australian national is currently awaiting the decision of the London government, which is due to be made within 28 days.

 He faces 17 charges against him. US magistrates accuse him of conspiring to obtain information that was then disseminated on Wikileaks, which revealed, among other things, the thousands of civilians killed by the USA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as  secret units of the armed forces (Task Force 373) which intended to kill the Taliban without trial.

 “What we fear,” reads the letter, “is, on the one hand, the extension of Assange’s detention, the consequences of which could prove fatal for the accused and, on the other, a warning to the press to refrain from collecting and disclosing information even if disseminated in the public interest.”

 Among the signatories of the letter there are members of the Democratic and the Free and Equal party. The president of the Anti-Mafia commission Nicola Morra also signed, as did  the president of the Press Federation Beppe Giulietti.

 The following is the text of the letter from the exponents of politics, journalism and culture sent to the British Minister of the Interior Priti Patel:

Signatories

Gianni Marilotti, senator
Andrea Marcucci, senator
Riccardo Nencini, senator
Roberto Rampi, senator
Elvira Evangelista, senator
Luciano D’Alfonso, senator
Tatiana Rojc, senator
Sandro Ruotolo, senator
Maurizio Buccarella, senator
Luisa Angrisani, senator
Danila De Lucia, senator
Francesco Verducci, senator
Mino Taricco, senator
Monica Cirinnà, senator
Andrea Ferrazzi, senator
Nicola Morra, senator
Paola Boldrini, senator
Primo Di Nicola, senator
Silvana Giannuzzi, senator
Giuseppe Pisani, senator
Gisella Naturale, senator
Francesco Giacobbe, senator
Luigi Di Marzio, senator
Elena Botto, senator
Fabrizio Ortis, senator
Margherita Corrado, senator
Fabrizio Trentacoste, senator
Simona Nocerino, senator
Marco Croatti, senator
Nicola Morra, senator
Mattia Crucioli, senator
Emma Pavanelli, senator
Maria Laura Mantovani, senator  (33 senators)
Sabrina Pignedoli, MEP
Clare Daly, MEP
Mick Wallace, Member of the European Parliament
Francesca Donato, MEP
Martin Buschmann, MEP
Dino Giarrusso, MEP
Pierre Larrouturou, MEP
Ivan Vilibor SINČIĆ, MEP
Gunnar Günter BECK, MEP
Chiara Maria Gemma, European deputy
Carles Puigdemont, MEP
Antoni Comín, MEP
Clara Ponsatí, MEP
Rosa D’Amato, member of the European Parliament
Joachim Kuhs, MEP
Marcel de Graaff, MEP
Stelios Kouloglou, MEP
José Gusmão, MEP
Daniela Rondinelli, MEP
Ignazio Corrao, MEP
Diana RIBA I GINER, MEP
Marisa Matias, European deputy
Gunnar Beck, MEP
Laura Ferrara, member of the European Parliament
Özlem Alev Demirel, MEP
Eleonora Evi, European deputy
Vincenzo Vita, former parliamentarian and former undersecretary for telecommunications
Alberto Maritati, former senator and former undersecretary of justice
Gian Giacomo Migone, former senator and former president of the Foreign Comm. Senate
Luciana Castellina, former deputy
Aldo Tortorella, former deputy
Alfonso Gianni, former deputy
Gianni Tamino former member of parliament and former member of the European Parliament
Beppe Giulietti, president of Fnsi
Tommaso Di Francesco, co-director of Il Manifesto
Giovanni Terzi, journalist
Elisa Marincola, Article 21 spokesperson
Stefano Corradino, director of Articolo21
Valerio Cataldi, journalist
Paolo Barretta, Charter of Rome
Stefania Maurizi, journalist
Salvatore Cannavò, journalist
Pier Virgilio Dastoli, professor of EU law
Marino Bisso, journalist, NoBavaglio Network
Daniele Lorenzi, president of Arci
Danilo De Biasio, director of the Human Rights Festival
Lorenzo Frigerio, Free Information coordinator
Paola Slaviero, writer
Nicoletta Bernardi, computer science at the University of Perugia
Francesco Maggiurana. pianist
Gemma Guerrini, former city councillor and researcher, Aipd member

Read original article in The Italian Insider

On the 25th April 2022 this motion was tabled in the UK Parliament signed by 21 cross party members

That this House notes that Julian Assange faces extradition to the USA and a prison sentence of up to 175 years in a super-maximum-security prison for his journalistic work, carried out in the UK; notes that this includes the exposing of war atrocities and human rights abuses in US-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay; further notes that Amnesty International has warned that extradition of Julian Assange would have a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression; while Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists, National Union of Journalists and press freedom groups Article 19, Index and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom oppose extradition and have warned against the criminalising of journalistic activities; believes that this case once again highlights how the UK’s extradition treaty with the US is fundamentally asymmetric and unbalanced in favour of the United States; notes that the Home Secretary will soon have to decide whether to extradite Julian Assange to the USA; and calls on the Home Secretary to reject extradition.

Supporting Members:

Burgon, Richard
Lucas, Caroline
McDonnell, John
Corbyn, Jeremy
Sheppard, Tommy
MacAskill, Kenny
Webbe, Claudia
Hanvey, Neale
Osborne, Kate
Bonnar, Steven
Law, Chris
Abbott, Ms Diane
Trickett, Jon
Ribeiro-Addy, Bell
Stephens, Chris
Williams, Hywel
Lake, Ben
Saville Roberts, Liz
Day, Martyn
Begum, Apsana
Maskell, Rachael

reference UK Parliament Web Site

On the 25th March, the Support Committee for Julian Assange (Sweden) handed a letter to the Swedish Parliament demanding answers to Nils Melzer questions to the Swedish Foreign Minister

A delegation from the Support Committee for Julian Assange in Stockholm handed over a letter demanding the Swedish Parliament to investigate the legality of government official’s actions in the case of Julian Assange. They met with Peder Nielsen, the Chancellor of the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, and Marilena Cottone, the Committee Assistant, from the Swedish Riksdagen´s Parliamentary Administration.

The Letter

On the 25th February 2022 , the statement made at the Belmarsh Tribunal in New York City by Chris Hedges was posted in ScheerPost

We know what Julian did. We know the great public service he provided. We know that he and WikiLeaks, aided by courageous figures such as Chelsea Manning, gave us the most important journalist coup of our generation, ripping back the veil erected by the ruling political, military, and financial elites to expose their mendacity, their corruption, and their crimes. We know that populations around the world, from Haiti to Tunisia, were empowered by this information to hold these elites accountable. 

But today I want us to reflect on Julian himself. For Julian, endowed with precocious skills, could easily have been someone else. He could have sold his talents to Silicon Valley, to Wall Street or to intelligence and surveillance agencies, who would have paid handsomely. He could have built a lucrative career, one where he was financially secure, perhaps wealthy. He could have obtained the possessions we are told in our consumer society we should aspire to, an opulent house, luxury cars, financial security, fine clothes, and the status that comes with material acquisition and advancement within the structures of power. No worries. No controversy. No persecution.

But to follow this route, a route many have followed, would have required Julian to surrender his integrity and dignity. It would have required him to forsake justice and freedom to suppress and control the aspirations of the vast majority locked outside the golden gates of privilege and power. It would have placed him within the interlocking systems designed by the ruling elites to concentrate privilege, wealth, and power among themselves. It would have required Julian to become a cog in the megamachine, to play a part in constructing our corporate totalitarianism. 

Julian chose not to do this.  He turned away from the siren call of success, at least as it is defined by the powerful. He set out on the difficult road taken by all who fight the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. 

A life of meaning is a life of confrontation. When you resist radical evil you jeopardize your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic. When you stand with the oppressed, the crucified of the earth, then you are treated like the oppressed. You too are crucified. And that is what is happening to Julian. 

Those that care the most, are targeted and killed by those who care the least. 

Prometheus, in defiance of the divine prohibition, gave fire to humankind, making possible knowledge, art, science, technology, and civilization. For his empowerment of mortals, the gods sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment. He was bound to a rock and an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, the emblem of power, ate out his liver by day. At night his liver grew back. The next morning it would be painfully torn out again in a never-ending cycle. Julian’s story is the modern version of this ancient myth.

Julian gave us knowledge and with that knowledge he gave us power. For this act of defiance, he will never be forgiven by those he exposed. 

Albert Camus writes that “one of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it.” 

“A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object,” Camus warned. “But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.” 

Julian affirms the existence of another kind of human nature. He refuses to be classified as an object. His example calls upon us to confront radical evil, no matter the cost. To stand with Julian is to stand with yourself. To abandon Julian is to abandon yourself. And if you abandon yourself then your life becomes “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”

Read original article in SheerPost

More by Chris at ScheerPost

On the 14th December 2021, Daniel and Paul Karp reported in The Guardian

Jason Falinski says pursuing WikiLeaks founder’s return is a ‘delicate balancing act’; Bridget Archer backs his release and return

Two Liberal MP have backed calls for the Australian government to seek Julian Assange’s return to Australia “as quickly as possible” after Barnaby Joyce said the US extradition request was unfair.

Liberal backbenchers Jason Falinski and Bridget Archer called for diplomatic action to secure the WikiLeaks co-founder’s return to his home country after the deputy prime minister said it was unfair that the US wanted to extradite Assange to face prosecution over actions allegedly not committed inside the US.

But Falinski also cautioned against megaphone diplomacy over the case, saying it “requires a level of subtlety to get the best possible deal we can for one of our citizens”.

Joyce is the most prominent member of the government to speak out against the US government’s efforts to try Assange in the US in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables.

In an op-ed in the Nine newspapers on Tuesday, Joyce, the Nationals leader, argued that the UK “should try him there for any crime he is alleged to have committed on British soil or send him back to Australia, where he is a citizen”.

The high court in London ruled last week that Assange could be extradited to the US. Assange’s legal team have vowed to appeal.

It also prompted warnings from press freedom and rights groups that the prosecution of a publisher under the US Espionage Act sets “a dangerous precedent”.

Falinski told Guardian Australia on Tuesday the government had “to do what we can to get an Australian citizen back to Australia as quickly as possible”.

But he rejected claims the government had given up on Assange, suggesting diplomats were working behind the scenes to extract concessions from the US.

That included assurances about Assange’s treatment in the US prison system and that the US would allow him to be transferred to Australia to serve any prison sentence.

Falinski said Australia should pursue the matter out of public view.

“Clearly it’s a very delicate balancing act,” said Falinski, the MP for Mackellar. “I’m not sure a public spat with America … will end up with a better outcome.”

Archer told Guardian Australia: “The fact is that he is an Australian citizen who continues to suffer significant mental and physical health issues as a result of his ongoing incarceration because of the protracted legal battle.

“I believe he should be released and returned to Australia, and will continue to advocate for diplomatic action for that to occur,” the Tasmanian Liberal MP said.

The Labor MP Julian Hill, a member of the parliamentary friends of the Bring Julian Assange Home campaign, welcomed Joyce’s intervention.

Hill said, like Joyce, he had “never met Julian Assange” nor did he “agree with everything he’s said or done”.

“Frankly, he’s a ratbag – but he’s our ratbag,” Hill said. “But he’s entitled to the same protections as an Australian as you or me.”

Hill said it was “disgraceful that Australia’s foreign minister and prime minister have done effectively nothing to speak up for him”.

“I hope that Barnaby Joyce coming out will finally give Liberals the confidence to also speak up. There is no legal resolution to this case – there never can be. It is inherently political, it needs political leaders to speak up in support of our values and our citizen.”

Hill accused Liberals of “hiding” on the issue, suggesting that more support intervention on Assange’s behalf than are prepared to say so publicly.

There are 24 members of the Assange parliamentary group, including nine Greens, eight Labor, four from the independents or crossbench, and three from the Coalition: Joyce, Nationals MP George Christensen and Archer.

The office of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, was contacted for comment about the Assange case on Sunday and Tuesday.

Morrison has not responded to questions about whether he agrees with Joyce’s concerns about the treatment of Assange and whether he has ever directly raised the matter with the US president, Joe Biden, or plans to make additional representations.

So far, the Australian government appears to be staring down calls to intervene to secure Assange’s freedom.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Sunday it was monitoring the Australian citizen’s case closely, but would “continue to respect the UK legal process – including any further appeals under UK law” – and emphasised Australia was “not a party to the case”.

“The Australian government has raised the situation of Mr Assange with US and UK counterparts – including our expectations of due process, humane and fair treatment, access to proper medical and other care, and access to his legal team – and will continue to do so,” the department spokesperson said.

The US alleges that Assange conspired with the army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified US Department of Defence computer, among other allegations.

Reporters Without Borders has raised concerns that the US Espionage Act lacks a public interest defence, and the precedent “could be applied to any media outlet that published stories based on the leaked documents, or indeed any journalist, publisher or source anywhere in the world”.

The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said he failed to see “what purpose is being served by the ongoing incarceration of Julian Assange”.

“I don’t agree with a whole range of Julian Assange’s views but there needs to be a point in which you say that enough is enough,” Albanese said on Monday.

The independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie called on Morrison to “end this lunacy” and demand the US and UK release Assange, while the Greens said Australia should press the Biden administration “to drop these absurd charges”.

The US offered a number of assurances that were crucial to the successful appeal, including that Assange would not be held at a maximum security “ADX” facility and could apply, if convicted, to be transferred to a prison in Australia.

Assange was remanded in custody and the case was remitted to the Westminster magistrates court with a direction to send the case to the British home secretary, Priti Patel.

Read original article in The Guardian

On the 14th December 2021, Barnaby Joyce, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and National Party leader writes in the Sydney Morning Herald

There is, in a decent society, a vessel of rights that we hold throughout our entire life. Rights that are not created in some legal sonic boom at one undefined point of our existence nor switched off like the power to a fridge because of a fear or a confusion as to the worth of their contents.

Rights, that though you may be unaware of them, apply equally to the person who has unlimited resources and has been blessed with the greatest luck in the random draw of life, and to those who have been less fortunate. Rights such as the right to liberty and the right to habeas corpus.

A decent society makes the investment to uphold everyone’s basic attachment to this vessel of rights. You can judge a society on whether the protections and enforcement of these rights is actively pursued by the state in a form where all are truly equal.

In a liberal democracy, care must be taken to avoid laws that stumble around how basic rights may come and go. How a state deliberates over one person’s rights is an indication of the clarity, consistency and authenticity it applies over all.

Julian Assange is a current case in point. As an individual, whether you like him or despise him, it is beyond him, given his circumstances, to protect his rights by himself. So we must hope for the British courts to do so, and we will judge its society accordingly.

I have never met him and, from observation, don’t respect him. I presume I would not like him. And I view these facts as a clarion call to be all the more vigilant that he is treated just as one of my most powerful colleagues or dearest friends would be.

It is a case of how our citizen is protected and judged. Imagine a sliding door moment, and it was not Assange but you who was in court in Britain.

The Assange issue inspires so much rhetoric, so much totemism, screams from the choir and three-minute diagnoses. To look at it clearly, you must leave your uninformed preconceptions at the door of the high-colour sideshow. You must also set aside the grave issues that surround the actions of Assange. They are a separate matter to the key issue: where was this individual when he was allegedly breaking US law for which the US is now seeking his extradition from London?

Assange did not steal any US secret files, US citizen Chelsea Manning did. Assange did publish them. In Australia, he received a Walkley Award in journalism for it. Assange was not in breach of any Australian laws at the time of his actions. Assange was not in the US when the event being deliberated in a court now in London occurred. The question is then: why is he to be extradited to the US? If he insulted the Koran, would he be extradited to Saudi Arabia?

What country was he a citizen of at that time; what does it mean to be a citizen, and what rights therefore attach to it? If we are content that this process of extraditing one Australian to the US for breaking its laws even when he was not in that country is fair,are we prepared therefore to accept it as a precedent for applying to any other laws of any other nation to any of our citizens?

I have no power in Britain or US over these matters. I have no standing in the British courts. But in that birthplace of the common law, I hope the learned come to a just conclusion. They should try him there for any crime he is alleged to have committed on British soil or send him back to Australia, where he is a citizen. I am isolated in a room in Washington with an as yet undetermined variant of COVID-19, but have been asked back in Australia if my previous position on this matter remains the same. It does, and I hope this gives my reasons why. I hope it shows I am consistent on such matters.

Read original article in the Sydney Morning Herald

On the 22nd July 2021, Jean Luc Mélenchon (Deputy of National Assembly and leader of ‘La France Insoumise’ Party) posted support for Julian Assange on twitter

Snowden and Assange did France a favour. They helped reveal and demonstrate that the US was spying on us (our president, our economy). The newspaper  Le Monde  brought out all this aspect, because once we were done with the spying on heads of state, we didn’t care about the rest; but the rest is horribly expensive.

So Assange and Snowden can have French nationality if they ask for it. I will ask Great Britain & Russia to allow them to join their new country, France. And when they get there, I will decorate them with the Legion of Honour to thank them for all the service they have done to this nation.

TY @JLMelenchon 👏👏
"In 2022, I'll offer #Assange & @Snowden French Nationality, will ask #Russia & #UK to allow them to come to live in #France , if they so wish, & will decorate them with the "Legion of Honour Medal🎖 in
recognition for the invaluable service they've rendered" pic.twitter.com/mLcE0avhwO

— Dr Lilliana Corredor (@Dr_LCorredor) July 25, 2021

Read source article in Facebook Assange, l’Ultime Combat

On the 22nd July 2021 Fabien Rives reports in The News 24

As part of a press conference which took place on July 21 at the seat of the presidency of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke about the alleged practices of targeted espionage targeting journalists, lawyers and politicians, recently brought to light by a consortium of 17 media in connection with the Pegasus case.

Underlining the effectiveness of such coordination on a global scale, the Mexican president then considered that it was just as essential to recognize the importance of the work carried out by Julian Assange through the WikiLeaks platform.

“Assange must be released because he is unfairly in prison, treated with cruelty, for providing information of an even greater magnitude [que l’affaire en cours]», Declared Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“As revelations related to the Pegasus affair tour the world, the President of Mexico calls for the release of WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange, who first exposed large-scale global surveillance operations.” , commented WikiLeaks by reposting the extract in question on social networks.

As #Pegasus revelations reverberate around the world the President of Mexico @lopezobrador_ calls for WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange, who first exposed widespread global surveillance operations to be freed #Pegasus #NSOGroup pic.twitter.com/TdNENp52C8

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 21, 2021

Despite the weak media response from which this appeal launched by the Mexican president has so far benefited, the short extract published by WikiLeaks has already accumulated several hundred thousand views in less than 24 hours.

This is not the first time that Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has shown his support for the Australian journalist, locked up since April 11, 2019 in a British high security prison. Thus, on January 4, 2021, when the British justice had just announced its refusal to grant Washington the extradition of the founder of WikiLeaks, the Mexican president had, for example, offered to offer him political asylum.

As of this writing, Julian Assange’s situation is still alarming. Locked up for 833 days in His Majesty’s prison services, the Australian national still cannot see the end of the tunnel since on July 7, according to Wikileaks, Washington obtained “limited authorization” to appeal against the refusal of extradition pronounced by the British justice. From the perspective of the UN rapporteur on torture, the charges against him collapsed one after the other without the persecution against him ceasing. The latest twist was revealed on June 26 by the Icelandic magazine The hour, according to which American justice would have incorporated, in its last indictment targeting Assange, the statements of a sulphurous witness who would now admit to having lied.

Read original article The News 24
Related articles in The Independent
and Granma (in Spanish)

On the 9th July 2021, Pressenza International Press Agency reported

President Joe Biden 

White House 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue NW 
Washington DC 20500 USA 

2nd July 2021 

Dear Mr President, 

We are addressing you as Members of Greece’s Parliament to congratulate you for your recent comments in defense of media freedom. 

As President Obama’s Vice President, you played an important role in the decision not to prosecute Julian Assange over publications relating to the Afghan and Iraq wars and conditions in Guantanamo Bay. You, like us, must have been disappointed when your predecessor launched a prosecution carrying a 175-year sentence against a globally renowned publisher and free press campaigner for his 2010 award-winning publishing work, which was carried out in the United Kingdom. 

Civil liberties groups and top newsrooms alike view the government’s prosecution against this publisher with alarm. The Washington Post’s Executive Editor writes that the indictment is “criminalizing common practices in journalism that have long served the public interest”. The New York Times Editorial Board considers it to be “aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment”, and for Amnesty International, “the charges against him should never have been brought in the first place” because it is “putting media freedom and freedom of expression on trial”. 

Earlier this year Westminster Magistrates Court, in the United Kingdom, refused the US application to extradite Julian Assange to the US. The Guardian Editorial Board noted that your incoming administration “can, and should, let Mr. Assange walk free”. We had hoped that this might be the occasion to draw a line under this prosecution. Unfortunately, the US Department of Justice is still pursuing this case, leaving Julian Assange facing a third year of incarceration in Belmarsh High-Security prison. 

Mr. Assange, an Australian member of the press who had been invited to this country by The Guardian in 2010 to work on these publications in concert with the UK’s free press traditions, is the subject of a US criminal case. The effect of your predecessor’s decision to take a criminal case against a member of the press working in our country is to restrict the scope of permissible press activities anywhere around the world, and set a precedent that others will no doubt exploit. 

The case against Mr. Assange weakens the right to publish important information that a government finds uncomfortable. Indeed, this value is central to a free and open society. The case against Mr. Assange also undermines public confidence in our legal systems. Our countries are also increasingly confronted with the contradiction of advocating for press freedom abroad while holding Mr. Assange for years in the UK’s most notorious prison at the request of the US government. 

We appeal to you to drop this prosecution, an act that would be a clarion call for freedom that would echo around the globe. 

Sincerely 

The Members of the Parliamentary Groups of MeRA25 and SYRIZA in Greece’s Parliament

Read original article in Pressenza