 Two days after the High Court of England and Wales allowed the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, came news that the imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher had suffered a stroke on October 27th, the first day of the U.S. appeal hearing. Not only is his freedom at stake, but his very life. Doctors for Assange issued this statement on Sunday. Julian Assange's fiance Stella Morris announced recently that Mr. Assange had had a mini stroke on October 27th, the first day of the latest extradition hearing, according to the Daily Mail. He was reportedly left with a drooping right eyelid, memory problems and signs of neurological damage. This dangerous deterioration of Mr. Assange's health underscores urgent concerns raised by Doctors for Assange over the past two years. Therefore, once again, Doctors for Assange calls for Mr. Assange to be released from prison so he can access consistent, high quality, independent medical care, something which is impossible for him to obtain in Belmarsh prison. We reiterate that Mr. Assange is in no condition to undergo an extradition trial. Further, extraditing him to the harsh conditions of the inhumane US prison system should be out of the question. He should therefore be immediately and permanently released from prison. This latest medical emergency adds to the already dire state of Mr. Assange's health owing to his prolonged psychological torture. This includes 11 years of arbitrary detention, medical neglect, solitary confinement, obstruction of access to his lawyers and an Orwellian legal prosecution that has violated the rule of law and due process, including that key accusations in the US indictment against Mr. Assange are marred by outright lies and a paucity of fact that he and his legal team have been surveilled by the CIA and that Mr. Assange has been targeted by that agency in a plan to kidnap and assassinate him. Throughout Mr. Assange has been subjected to concerted character assassination through propaganda campaigns in mainstream media across the globe. Assurances that Mr. Assange will not be subjected to harsh prison conditions by the very agency that has been plotting to kidnap and assassinate him are farcical. For the High Court to accept such a ludicrous proposition describing the assurances as solemn undertakings offered by one government to another calls into serious question the independence, impartiality and integrity of the UK judiciary. The health of Mr. Assange and the health of our democracy which depends on a free press and judicial integrity are both in serious jeopardy. This shameful and deeply damaging case should be dropped now and Julian Assange granted his long overdue freedom. Jill Stein, of course, is a medical doctor and former US presidential candidate with the Green Party. Thanks for joining us Jill. Give us your reaction to all of this in particular the medical situation. As doctors, the reason we formed doctors for Assange was to assert the ethical professional responsibility of physicians to call out torture and to condemn it. And what we have seen with Julian Assange having this stroke, these neurological symptoms on top of chronic conditions from the first days of his incarceration at Belmarsh, you know, he had and it might have even proceeded it. He was reported to have a profound weight loss to have this up and down mental status and difficulty talking at some time. We were extremely alarmed to be hearing about his medical condition from the very start here. And on top of the violations of due process, the violation of his basic rights of innocent until proven guilty, on every count it's been just horrifying to witness the legal and health outrages that are taking place here. And that's why we formed doctors for Assange to call us out and condemn it. And with the recent developments which appear to be a stroke, although we don't have the details. And I have to say looking at the couple of details that we see, it's a complex picture. Some of the details that are described having to do with one drooping eyelid and an unresponsive pupil, those also suggest that he may have what's called a third nerve palsy going on here. You don't usually see that in stroke, but you see that in other very serious neurologic conditions, including a mass in the brain or an aneurysm. There are a variety of conditions that, underlying conditions that could cause what's going on here. And we don't know what that is, but you put them all together, it's extremely serious. And the fact that this is all happening in the context of a profound weight loss and a mental status that has been really under great duress, this is consistent with things that develop under torture and the impact of torture on people's health. All kinds of things begin to go wrong. And it's very hard to ensure that we have a complete and accurate diagnosis and assessment that's going on in the basement of a high security prism. I find it very hard to have confidence in his medical diagnosis, let alone his treatment. And I'll just say basically an answer to your question, what's the prognosis here? It doesn't look good, whatever it is, it doesn't look good. In the same way that this doesn't look good for our democracy. And as doctors for Assange, we're looking at the health dimensions of broader society as well. And the assault here on basic institutions of democracy, the way that this case is an assault on judicial integrity and on freedom of the press and on human rights, the right to medical care. This is an absolute outrage. And I'll just close, recognizing that in many ways this just keeps occurring to us within doctors for Assange and the conversations we've had as well, that this is like watching the execution of Jamal Ghashoggi in slow motion. This is a slow motion execution. This is slow motion torture. It is horrific. It should be condemned in the strongest terms possible. And where there is torture, there is a torturer. And it's really important that we call out the torturers here as well. And that would be in particular, the US Department of Justice and the President of the United States under whose watch and with whose permission, not only permission, but whose active approval is required for this to go forward and has been for quite some time. So I think part of mobilizing, or I should say part of recognizing this absolute moral and social and health outrage is to mobilize against it. And whether that is by making phone calls, writing letters, attending protests, it's just really incumbent on us, including healthcare providers, but everybody out there because this is our future. This is our democracy, which is under assault. And it's absolutely intolerable, should be condemned in the highest terms and the torturers should be held accountable here.