The following article has been adapted from the
handed out at the weekly
Vigil for Julian Assange in the evening of Friday 17 March 2023 at
Melbourne's Flinders Street Station: Julian Assange, the
multiple award-winning Australian journalist, has been imprisoned
in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day in London's Belmarsh
prison since April 2019 - almost four years ago. This followed
almost seven years in which, to avoid extradition to the United
States, Assange had to remain confined to within the small spaces
of the Equadorian Embassy where he had been granted asylum.
In all, Julian Assange has been confined for almost 11 years,
when he has broken no Australian law and no British law and, as has
has been admitted by the US military, no life has ever been
endangered as a consequence of any of his Wikileaks'
publications.
Now, Assange is subject to a ruling that he be extradited to the
United States, to face trial for his supposed breech of the 1917
Espionage act when he is not even a citizen of the US nor has ever
been there. There is no way that any fairly selected jury, nor any
judge with integrity, would have made any of these rulings. Only a
thoroughly corrupt judge under direct orders from the British
government would have been capable.
In the US, Assange is to face trial, not before the Supreme
court, nor before any of the US district courts, but before a
kangaroo court, otherwise known as the Grand Jury of the eastern
district of Virginia. Due to demographics, jurors there tend to be
comprised of either employees of the CIA, the NSA and other
intelligence agencies which have their national headquarters
nearby, or their relatives.
The Grand Jury has, on nearly every occasion, found the accused
guilty. The chance of Assange not being found guilty of
"endangering US national security" by this court is nil. Once
convicted, he will be sentenced to imprisonment in solitary
confinement in conditions even worse than the worst he has been
made to endure at Belmarsh, for the rest of his life. Julian
Assange has said himself that he would consider such a fate worse
than death.
How could any capable person of good-will not be outraged and
disgusted by this? How could any good person not be resolved to use
means available to them to free Julian Assange from this?
In fact, as Australian PM Anthony Albanese surely realises, this
treatment of Assange is clearly in violation of both UK law and
international law, and the plans by the Grand Jury to convict
Assange clearly violate the First Amendment to the Unite...