The US and UK are happy to talk about political prisoners abroad
but they've created a political prisoner of their own.
At every stage the law has been abused
in order to victimise Julian.
He has been silenced he has been disappeared
The last time Julian was allowed to attend his own court hearing
was in January 2021.
Every time he's requested to be there in person
those requests have been denied.
Julian did nothing wrong he exposed war crimes,
war crimes committed by known individuals
those who committed the war crimes or responsible
for those war crimes have not been held accountable.
Julian is in prison because Wikileaks is a publisher
that specialises in the secrets that states keep the most hidden.
Julian revealed war crimes by the U.S. government
the world's superpower in Iraq and Afghanistan
and the fact that it had normalised institutionalised torture.
And that superpower took revenge.
The position of the UK right now is that it will extradite
a publisher to the country that conspired to murder him
how can the UK government even contemplate
the extradition of the man who the U.S. was trying to assassinate.
This assassination plot was as revenge
for what Wikileaks had published.
when i read the story i was relieved in a way because this is the reality that julian has been
facing and there has been a lot of gaslighting for years when he was in the embassy the refrain
was that julian was paranoid that no one was trying to prosecute him the only one that was
keeping him in the embassy was himself and as soon as he was arrested
the true reality was there for everyone to see so it was extremely important that this came to light
the story has over 30 u.s intelligence officials including very senior and named going on record
and saying that the u.s government was actively plotting to assassinate julian inside the uk
this is incredible this is a country plotting to assassinate a journalist because of what he has
published this is precisely what the uk government criticizes in other states conspiring to murder
a journalist is wrong it's wrong if russia does it and it's wrong if the united states
does it too but there's a lot of this story that we still don't know how much did the uk government
know how far was the uk government willing to go along with the u.s government's plans
under the cia directorship of mike pompeo these are questions that remain unanswered why does the
united states destroy its reputation like that because the desire for authority is much higher
than the desire for morality the desire to be seen as a vicious authority that can terrorize people
is higher than the desire to be seen as an authority that commands respect as a result
of its integrity the united states government is the only one that has committed crimes here
julian has done nothing wrong by prosecuting julian for doing the right thing they're also
denying the existence and the validity of what he exposed because the united states is not a
member of the international criminal court the only accountability that exists is the exposure
through wikileaks of the fact that these people were killed so by prosecuting julian they're
not just prosecuting julian they're putting the memory of all those people in prison too
there's no question that the information that wikileaks published about the iraq and afghan
wars and guantanamo bay was in the public interest julian is being prosecuted under
the 1917 espionage act that act was enacted during the first world war u.s constitutional
lawyers have long worried that the broad wording of the espionage act would be repurposed in order
to go after the press the trump administration decided to prosecute julian and wikileaks because
the agenda of the trump administration was to target the press the us first amendment is the
gold standard globally on press freedom and the prosecution against julian is the single greatest
attack there has been on the first amendment and that is trump's legacy my message to joe biden
is that you are furthering the worst legacy of the trump administration don't let this also be your
legacy drop this case if you don't drop this case this case will be used by future administrations
in order to silence dissent in order to silence the press this is the most serious attack on
press freedom there has ever been the united states government is saying that any person
anywhere is bound by the u.s espionage this is a completely absurd and dangerous proposition julian
is not a us citizen he's an australian citizen who was working as a journalist in the united kingdom
he owes no allegiance to the us government he received information from a source chelsea manning
and he published it that's all he did and now the united states is threatening julian with a
life sentence 175 years it advances the absurd notion that a country can limit press freedom
beyond its borders that it can crack down on foreign journalists abroad imagine if turkey
now uses the same logic that the u.s has used to say that a british journalist in france should
be extradited to turkey because that journalist exposed some state-sponsored crime of turkeys
or saudi arabia or china every journalist should be alarmed about this because if they can do it
to someone as high profile as julian then everyone else can suffer the same fate the fact that people
have such a poor understanding about this case is down to the media it is the media's responsibility
to properly report this case and it has not been properly reported and that's why
the public is so ignorant about it my favorite allegation is that i'm a cat torturer no seriously
afp uh france press put that everywhere even into new york times i don't really know where to start
for people who aren't familiar with this kind of disgusting machine that the media is now why has
the media reported so poorly about this case part of the reason is because julian is a media critic
he's not just a publisher but he has been very critical of the way that the media has reported
for example wikileaks publications wikileaks also poses a challenge to the legacy media because the
wikileaks model is what julian calls scientific journalism to publish original source documents
alongside the analysis in order to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions to access
the same information that the journalists did in order to assess the material themselves and
that's why wikileaks is such an important resource for academics and historians not just journalists
because julian's case is a political case it's entirely up to the political circumstances what
is possible and what is not possible the case is so outrageous that it should be thrown out it is
also politically dangerous and counterproductive for the united kingdom by prosecuting julian they
lose their ability to claim the moral high ground we have seen already from vladimir putin's regime
in the use of the munitions that they have already been uh they've been dropping on as on innocent
civilians uh mr speaker in my view already fully qualifies as as a war crime and i know that the
uh that the icc prosecutor is already investigating i'm sure the whole house i will
support that the fact the uk is now calling out war crimes in relation to the ukraine it follows
that the uk should not extradite a publisher who put evidence of war crimes into the public domain
there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material example is the task force 373
high mars missile strike on a house which killed seven children well we would like to
see this material uh the revelations that this material gives be taken seriously investigated
by governments and new policies put in place as a result if not uh prosecutions
of those people who have committed abuses since the 11th of april 2019 julian has been inside
belmarsh high security prison which is the harshest prison in the uk known as britain's
guantanamo bay he's been inside belmarsh prison day after day week after week month after month
year after year in a small prison cell on his own for most of the day his interactions
are with prisoners some of which are dangerous he is suffering greatly he suffered a mini stroke
in october and obviously that's a sign that his health is in serious decline it's also a difficult
struggle for him mentally julian suffers from clinical depression he has all his adult life
and it's obviously very difficult for him spending so much time in isolation away from his children
and from his family and friends i have two children with julian they are three and four
our eldest was born when julian was still in the embassy in 2017 and he would go to the embassy to
visit julian we kept it secret so a friend would come in posing as his father until a
guard from the embassy approached me outside the embassy and said that i shouldn't bring
the baby in anymore because they had been instructed to steal a nappy in order to analyze
the baby's dna our youngest just turned three he was a few weeks old when julian was first arrested
and he's only ever seen his father inside balmarsh prison for both of them the only memories they
have of julian is inside belmarsh prison because i don't know how long our children will have with
their father if they just have a few months maybe before julian's taken to the united
states and will most likely lose his life there i try to make their experience with their father
as enjoyable and light as possible i don't talk about the fact that we're going to a prison i've
just said that there are bad people that are preventing julian from coming home but that he
wants to be at home but obviously when they go into the prison they experience the prison they
walk past the razor wire they get sniffed by the sniffer dogs they have to get searched multiple
times going into the prison inside their mouth and under their feet so they experience it themselves
but i don't want the experience to be scary or intimidating so i do my best to make it a normal
situation the only thing that matters to me is to be able to reunite my family again julian has been
deprived of being able to see his children grow up day to day all we want is to be a normal family
the fact that he's being deprived from his family for no reason at all just out of a spiteful cruel
sense of vengeance by the superpower who he exposed has to come to an end no one should
be treated this way i ask each of you to help me fight for julian go to don't extradite assange.com
there's a tab that says take action take all the actions where it says take action write to your mp
come to the protests there may be a way that you are specially placed to help me free julian please
contact me directly every person can contribute to help fight for his freedom help bring him home
help reunite julian with our young children it is incredibly important that stories that don't
get enough air time in the mainstream media are able to be covered elsewhere
i encourage each person that can afford it to support independent journalists independent
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