by Alison Ryan
Independent Member for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, joined supporters of Julian Assange to speak at the Converge on Canberra for Assange rally on the lawns of Parliament House on 28 July, 2022.
Mr Wilkie called again for common sense and media freedom to prevail, urging for the extradition of Mr Assange to the United States to be dropped and for him to be allowed to return to Australia.
“Julian Assange faces the very real prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars in a US supermax prison for revealing hard evidence of US war crimes and other misconduct. If the extradition is successful, it would be a direct attack on press freedom and set the frightening precedent for all Australians, particularly for journalists, that they are at risk of extradition to any country that they offend.”
“Journalism is not a crime and Mr Assange shouldn’t be persecuted for doing his job. He is a hero and should be held up as a symbol of media freedom.”
“This is a case of the US wanting revenge against a lone man who did nothing more than publish information which was undeniably in the public interest. It has always been a political matter and the Australian Government can’t keep kowtowing to the whims of Washington.”
“I have no doubt Mr Albanese has enough influence and good relationships to pick up the phone and end this madness. It’s beyond time for the Government to say enough is enough and to bring Julian home.”
Source: https://andrewwilkie.org/assange-rots-while-australian-government-does-who-knows-what/
Other speakers at Converge on Canberra for Assange included MC Mary Kostakidis, Peter Whish-Wilson Greens MP, Bridget Archer Liberal MP, Monique Ryan Independent MP, David Shoebridge Greens MP, Jordan Steele-John Greens MP, Julian Hill Labor MP, Christin Lambang- Foyne of Amnesty International, Julian Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton by pre-recorded message, Sue Wareham of Doctors for Assange – there are over 300 of them now internationally raising awareness of the great cost to Julian’s health and personal life – and James Ricketson.
House of Representatives, Member for Bass, Bridget Archer stated,
“This is a question of mercy and compassion for an Australian citizen who has endured inhumane conditions and has suffered significant mental and physical challenges as a result of his ongoing incarceration due to this protracted battle. He has not been convicted of a crime but has already served a lengthy sentence.”
The young Senator from Western Australia, Jordan Steele-John told the Rally,
“President Joe Biden admitted that the persecution and prosecution of Julian Assange was basically because he had embarrassed the United States. “
“Julian’s life is at stake let us make no mistake and democracy itself is at stake. The question before the Australian government now is will it prioritize finally after all this time the liberty and human rights of an Australian citizen and in so doing send a clear message that Australia is a nation which will champion the freedom of the press, which will champion human rights, which will push back on the United States of America, and call them out when they commit human rights abuses, or will they once again remain silent and hide behind diplomatic protocols. That is the decision before the new parliament and the new government today.”
Julian’s brother and film producer, Gabriel Shipton, stated by pre-recorded message to the Rally that,
“He and Julian’s father, John Shipton, toured the USA where they met with civil society groups who have been calling on the Biden administration to drop the charges against Julian because of the threat they pose to press freedom. They met with Congress people both Republican and Democrat who see the threat that Julian’s prosecution means to their first amendment and their democratic rights.”
He continued, “In Germany we met with a cross cross-party group that includes parliamentarians from every major German political party. Over 90 German parliamentarians are now calling for Julian Assange
to be released. We even met with the German foreign ministry. We met with the state minister there
who’s the second in charge after the foreign minister. So, Germany is very concerned. Even the German government are very concerned about the threat Julian Assange’s prosecution means to their journalists in the UK.”
“We have travelled all around the country with Stellar Assange, Julian’s wife, as we did a screening
with the film Ithaka, https://ithaka.movie/, that’s about John and Stella’s fight to free Julian. We screened the film and spoke to people in Norwich, in Liverpool, in Manchester, in Glasgow, in Edinburgh, in Exeter, all over the UK. We spoke to thousands of people all concerned about what’s going on and the persecution of Julian Assange.”
“There is a global wave of support for Julian that just keeps growing and growing and growing
and everyone here today is part of that wave.”
“John and I will be in Canberra and we will be asking the government to really step up their calls for Julian Assange to be released and for the Biden administration to drop the charges.”
Source: Consortium News
And that’s when the penny will drop for everyone – hopefully…! If it doesn’t then they have sold us all into slavery… !
Jen,
And a war on REAL journalism AND TRUTH is a war on the people!
Assange is just the first of the New World Order’s POWs !
There’ll be plenty more when they start filling the FEMA camps with conscientious objectors.
Assange quotes
“The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security”
“A knowledgeable public, is an empowered public, is a free public”
And Caitlin Johnstone says – “the goal of the Assange case is to establish a legal precedent for extraditing any journalist or publisher anywhere in the world who tries to get around US government secrecy. Once a precedent has been set and consent has been manufactured, the war on journalism can really get going”
I
About time the WHOLE OF AUSTRALIA got on its feet and demanded this criminal abuse process against an Australian citizen is stopped.
Why is Australia still silent? Why has it let this crime go on without a whimper? How can it let this national shame and embarrassment go on for so long?
Because we’re no longer TRUE BLUE, that’s why! Because we’re living an Aussie myth from yesteryear.
We’ve turned into lilly-livered, jellyback-like cowering “I’m all right Jacks” who stand for nothing and lie down for anything.
Just look what our treacherous politicians are doing with us! Look at our Australia today!!!! We’ve been turned into a laughing stock around the world. .
Gutless, SELF-HARMING, stupid, supine slugs! Dependent on and manipulated by corrupt, evil merchants, psychopaths and gutless, stupid, supine, corrupt mugs.
Lest we forget.
thank goodness someone is doing something to stop this persecution. Bravo
Thank you . we have to be human to feel it. it needs no more words, actions as we see now are people who are caring about Us….Assange is the person who is deliberate hold hostage so we can feel our helplessness in this time…..Thank you for posting it Cairns News
dd2: Spot on mate
Thank you Alison for posting this out there. Thank you CairnsNews for putting it up. Has always made me wonder when he first came out with ‘releases’, “why shoot the messenger”? The powers that be waffled on about ‘national security’ at the time & how he was a threat to govt secrets, yet the sh#t he was exposing was all about national security, (for us the people) & exposing corruption, pay offs & their lowlife acts under the banner of govt secrets. He’s always fought for truth. He did the right thing knowing what could happen to him, he stood for truth, he put himself out there (protecting others) being the face for their arrows. He must be privvy to so so much more, he’s still alive, must have them by the balls or he’d be long dead. Govts have committed vile atrocities against him. Time to make it right
America’s punishment for it’s persecution of Julian Assange is Joe Biden.
Pat from Vic… Very well said.
Albanese has had plenty of opportunity whilst in opposition to raise his voice regarding the criminal pursuit of Assange on blatantly trumped up charges.
He didn’t! Barely a whimper. Need one say more?
It takes a special sort of unscrupulousness and cowardice to remain silent and look the other way whilst an Australian citizen is being deprived of natural justice. Unfortunately, he is not alone.
It’s pure and visible proof that the LNP-Labour Greens Duopoly works for other than Australian interests and its citizens.
There’s no question that Julian Assange is a political prisoner destined for permanent incarceration at the pleasure of Australia’s overlords in Washington.
Julian Assange and all of his supporters worldwide have the moral and ethical high ground on this. The American, British and Australian regimes don’t have a leg to stand on.
Unfortunately, rallies and petitions and appeals to these fake governments mean nothing. We’ve all seen the truth repeatedly during the fake Corona Chan “pandemic” right here in Australia – politicians and beauracrats wipe their arses with our petitions, and then fart in our faces.
If you rally against the government, then you get knocked to the ground and sprayed with mace, shot up with rubber bullets and irradiated with military grade directed energy weapons.
Meanwhile, the paedophile politicians worship Satan and protect child molesters (and much worse). They’re all looking forward to the day when they’ll be in the priveleged “Sovereign Class” along with the likes of Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, while the rest of us will all be eating bugs and “own nothing and be happy”.
Don’t be fooled – don’t let your guard down for an instant. The only reason they’re “being nice” to us right now is like the fisherman letting the line out a bit before resuming the one-sided battle against the fish. Here in Victoria the upcoming elections are the only thing giving us a temporary reprieve from Dictator Dan going full retard and locking down the entire population to force their next series of injections. South Australia has already declared a “climate emergency” for God’s sake.
And the mercenary thugs otherwise known as Australian “police” in every state are just itching to be let loose once again to beat the general population into mince meat.
The only way we are going to help Julian Assange is to remove these Globalist-controlled CORPORATE bodies masquerading as our governments, and restore the rule of law and respect for our 1901 constitution.
If we genuinely want to help Julian Assange before they ultimately kill him, then we’ve first got to help ourselves so that the Australian people have the POWER to assist him. The people in Australia One seem to understand this.
Let’s hope this rally did some good… Perhaps Albanese will grow some kind of conscience and do the right thing and free this innocent man who was only doing his job.
How about it Mr A – are you for the Australian people or not?
Julian is being USED as a scapegoat to deter other potential whistle-blowers, particularly now when there is world-wide Government corruption. Imagine if he had been free these last 3 years to have a voice and expose their evil. So many eyes would have been opened by the ‘truth teller’. The USA don’t care any more about the crimes he exposed then…they are terrified of what he would expose now! We are living in a lawless society, run by egotistical, power & money hungry cultist puppets who are ruled by unelected psychopathic delites.
It’s a disgrace, a crime from the Australian government that does nothing to help Julian. They should be punished for not standing up for our citizens.
Australia is a disgrace.