 Greetings everybody and thank you for turning out for World Press Freedom Day. Today marks 30 years since the United Nations inception of World Press Freedom Day. This year's theme from the UN is re-centering freedom of expression as a driver of all other human rights. The continued torture of Julian Assange is emblematic of all that's wrong with our society. By creating WikiLeaks, Julian lived up to and enacted upon the Australian ideals of an honest and fair society globally. Today we're going to try something new. Ask me anything on the Assange case. The concept of the World Press Freedom Day is an Assange help desk manned by journalists who have had extensive knowledge of his case. As with anything to say, ask me anything assumes that people are mostly informed about the Assange case or want more detail. Rather than us just passively listening to speeches, ask me anything is interactive. We have a microphone for the public, that's the one standing there. So get ready with your questions. We're fortunate today to have Kathy Vogan share her extensive knowledge for the inaugural Ask Me Anything on the Assange case. Kathy Vogan is an MEAA and IFJ accredited journalist. The executive producer of Consortium News in Washington, D.C. Kathy has 30 years of experience in broadcasting creative media production, winning eight awards in Australia, Italy and Germany. Kathy is one of two Australian journalists allowed into the courtroom for the Assange case. We're fortunate to have her today share her extensive knowledge but the inaugural Ask Me Anything. Please make her feel welcome. I kind of got this idea for two reasons. Number one, I'm a courtroom journalist. I've been in the Assange courtroom every day for three years if you count the pre-trial meetings as well. So I've seen Assange had eyes on him the day he had his stroke. I can tell you so much about the forensics because I'm a bit technically inclined and I think I'm the only journalist. There's not that many every day in the courtroom. There wasn't maybe about 20 to 40 at the most. But I'm one who's got that technical background in order to be able to understand what the forensic examiner was saying. Patrick Eller was a chief forensic examiner from Fort Maid and he was in charge of 17 other forensic examiners. He testified in September 2020 but already in February this whole hacking narrative, it's not even hacking, it's conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The person who's doing the intruding was allegedly manning but that doesn't even make sense because manning had top secret clearance. Didn't need anybody's help. And certainly this idea that her identity could have been disguised with another login, well that was just impossible. So anyway, that fell to pieces. They went looking for Sigi and that fell to pieces as well. The other star witness to try and bring the science down recanted all of his testimony. So at the moment that that part which is the hook that permits the SBNR's charges is hanging by a thread. So that's good news. Any questions I will do my best to answer? I might have to say I don't know. I might have to say I can't say but go for it. It's all about you. What do you think of trying to declare a deadline for a science to be free to begin his rehabilitation from the tortures being under? I don't know if you can really do that. I mean at the moment where it stands is a scientist waiting for an answer to see if he can launch his appeal, his cross appeal. That's where we're going to have him fight for the future of the press. Now they've been sitting on that since September and they still haven't given a decision but there are 16 points of appeal. 12 in relation to the extradition hearing four in relation to the Home Secretary's decision. Now what I think would make it a fair fight, a quality of arms is if a science was given bail, let him go home to his family, let him have access to his lawyers and then I'm sure he'll say bring it on. But while he's in that hellhole he can't even communicate with his lawyers properly. Every call is monitored and the visits are monitored too and very few people can go there. So he should be out. He's already been refused bail twice. It says the Ministry of Justice says they really shouldn't do it more than twice. Then you've got grounds for saying well I'm not a flight risk anymore. I've got a young family and legally the ball's going to be in my court, right? So why would he run away from that? So I think he's got really good arguments to get bail. That's what I'd like to see. That's what I'd like the government to fight for and that in a way is what Penny Wong suggested when she said we're looking into whether the conditions of him being in Belmarsh prison is appropriate at all. We've got to give a citizen, a man, a journalist a fair chance. And beginning his rehab may be one ground for him receiving bail even at this late stage. Well yeah, he could wear an enclet again but the thing is he could get rehab at the same time. You're right. Next question. Adriana. Considering that the Australian government has intervened in six cases of Australians held in prisons of the seas in the past since 2007 and successfully so including governments of the liberal tendency why isn't this government doing more to obtain the release of Julian Assange? Very good question. So for the Belmarsh Tribunal we've got the statement from Kylie Moore Gilbert and she said that the Australian government was ready to move mountains to get me free and they achieved it. Now there's another person who was liberated and that's David Hicks. Now David Hicks, his process his judicial process wasn't concluded. Penny Wong said we can't intervene when the judicial process is not concluded but they did and Don Howard government did in the case of Hicks. In fact, they fixed the outcome. Poor David had to sign a guilty plea and a whole lot of other things that he was allegedly guilty of and said he was innocent but then he was given something else. I don't know how many of you would have ever heard of this because it doesn't exist in Australia an alpha plea. That exists in America so you can plead guilty and you can say well I plead guilty because I have no chance of winning because of the way the laws are structured but I am actually pleading innocent. I would wonder if that may not be the deal proposed to Julian but if I know Julian I think he wants to do his cross appeal. He wants to fight. This goes back to the hyperbole of the Russiagate thing. The time at which the Democrats actually hired a body to look into where the source might have been and after that happened it was due to have to be an insider technical reasons. I am attempting to explain this to other people who are still caught up in that thing as a technical person can you explain it to me? Yes. First of all you have the group who are former CIA intelligence agents former veterans like people like Ray McGovern William Binney who was the technical director of the NSA so they formed a group called VITS, V-I-P-S Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Now they looked into all of that data they even got the original data and what Binney saw there he's a real technical expert but it's something that I can understand is formatting for either a USB stick or a hard drive. Now you don't have, it's called FAT32 it's how you format. It's a cross platform format if you want to transfer from Mac to PC so whatever device was used for this it had that formatting on it. It also was transmitted at I think it was 8 megabits a second and that is at that point in time it was too fast for the internet and that is absolutely consistent with the speed transfer to USB stick so that is why it's looking like it is a lot of hack but it was a leak but there's more, there's more about that. Sean Henry who was head of CrowdStrike who were managing the DNC servers testified in 2017 and what did he say in reply to Adam Schiff we can't see any evidence at all that expiltration took place now that was kept secret that was kept sealed and that information, that statement his testimony was only released 3 years later and meanwhile WikiLeaks is once again being accused of being involved with Russia Hillary Clinton tried to bring a lawsuit, DNC lawsuit against the Trump campaign Russian government and WikiLeaks and they got thrown out of court and didn't get standing, thrown out of court by Judge Cottle the same judge that is dealing with this Fourth Amendment case for the lawyers being spied on right, violation of their constitutional rights so I think that you know sometimes these things go on pursuit too long and then the damage is done but there's so many people now that are concerned about this and I think a lot of people are just searching for information all the time the truth comes out eventually thank you do we have another question my question is something I wonder all the time there's so much resentment from certain people about America, what they are doing to Julian Assange literally slowly murdering him is this going to have any repercussions with the attitude towards America like in Australia and around the world well I mean somebody said recently everyone hates America now I didn't say that but somebody said it so you know people are not happy with that but there are governments now Lula from Brazil, other governments Mexico but all around the world people in high places are putting pressure and Prime Minister has said enough is enough and you know we don't know exactly what he was saying I was in Brisbane yesterday though and Alba was there and he shook John's hand I don't know if they exchanged any words but yeah of course I think that maybe I mean journalists all over the world are threatened by this I mean if you're an Australian journalist and you release some defense material well America claims that it has universal jurisdiction for this espionage act and that dates back to 1961 it wasn't in the original 1917 law but in 61 they introduced an amendment which said we're the police of the whole world we have universal jurisdiction so any journalist in any country if they're trying to do national security reporting could easily be lifted it all depends on the other countries and especially for us Australia do we accept their universal jurisdiction do we extradite our citizens America needs consent of the rest of the world but you know there was a terrible case like in the courtroom a guy called Mendoza he was Spanish and Spain wanted him they were ready to extradite but the condition was that he was sent back because Spain doesn't separate prisoners from their families the family always family life is really important they took 14 years they were supposed to send him back straight away and in fact it got to the point it went to the Supreme Court twice and Mendoza won and finally Spain was going to they were saying we're not going to process any more extraditions if you don't send this this man home and it still took a very long time but that's what it came to in the end so you know countries are not going to want to they're not going to trust America the other thing that is really dangerous is the court can say one thing but the Bureau of Prisons advised by the CIA can say something else he's going to get Sam's or he's going to be communications management unit and that's just the same it's like a a metal shoebox as Mary Kostakitas called it so no I don't think it's creating a very good impression but there's other things that are making it worse for them my question is about Anthony Albanese how committed do you actually think he is to freeing Julian Assange I mean you said he said enough is enough and I heard him say that and I was quite uplifted by it but then some months after that when we had the August meeting I would have thought the prime time for negotiation is when you're going to spend $860 billion on the six submarines why couldn't he have then said okay well buy the submarines but you released Julian and what can we do to pressure him more to release Julian well he's a bit of a mystery man really but the thing is that he's back ventures you know there's people, senators they are they bring Assange home parliamentary friends of the Assange group last year sent a letter to Biden hey there's somebody who was he was speaking at Senator Wish Wilson David Schubert so there were six members of that group that were in labour and certain statements made I mean Albo's got no control over what this guy says but I don't know I think we can keep getting out in the street I think we can keep posting on social media and drawing as big a crowd as possible this seems to be quite a success this thing and the interactivity make way for the senators for your questions I'll speak first and then my good friend and colleague which Wilson will speak next so I'm David Schubert one of the green senators thank you for coming out today on Gadigal land and talking truth on Gadigal land this always was and always will be I believe that the campaign to free Julian Assange is getting stronger and more broader and more powerful and I think what the community is doing, what the campaigners have been doing for years and years and years and sometimes feeling like you're yelling into the breeze and nobody is listening can I tell you now people are beginning to hear this more loudly on camera and around the rest of the world so keep doing what you're doing it's actually an inspiration to Peter and me thank you I see we've got David McBride here as well and I want to acknowledge David and in acknowledging David and his courage I think we should call out the lack of courage from our government when quiet diplomacy is no diplomacy when quiet diplomacy is a reason to do nothing we've got a problem with our government and that's the problem we have at the moment and I can tell you now there's an interesting collection down in the federal parliament of MPs from across the political spectrum who are looking to do something meaningful when we have Biden and the UK Prime Minister and Albanese all in the same place some time later this month because those three men and it is three men between them can free Julian Assange in a heartbeat and when our government keeps saying they can't interfere in the rule of law in the UK that is a cop out and it's rubbish and it's nonsense because the Australian government has repeatedly in other jurisdictions in Iran in a variety of other countries and they've said it at the moment actually about Russia about journalists in Russia they have said they don't accept that the rule of law can grind through and jail journalists and they think it's wrong in any court system in any country in the world to use the legal system to imprison and persecute journalists for doing their job and jail journalists and that's what's happening in the United Kingdom now and I don't care if they've got some UK law that says it's okay to extradite and jail journalists for the term of their natural life if that's how that legal system works we need to subvert it and we need our government to speak up against it and in support of Australian citizens so there will be a critical moment I think in just a few short weeks when we have the three people on the planet who between them can free Julian Assange in the one place and we should demand one outcome from those three people coming together is to free Julian Assange so thank you very much for that bring him home and I want to credit the work of my colleague Senator Peter Wish-Wilson who has been working on this for years and years and years genuinely committed to it people Thanks Dave I think Dave has pretty much covered the issue but I would also like to credit previous Senator Scott Ludlam as well for all the amazing work he did flying the flag for Julian for so many years and still is with Flick Ruby and many other good people such as yourselves the thing is you never give in you never give in and you never give in you keep pushing and I do want to just mention very quickly the last day of parliament three weeks ago here asked the question of Penny Wong of whether Anthony Aberdeasy had brought up the release of Julian Assange with Prime Minister Sunak and Joe Biden her reason she gave for actually not answering the question was that there is a legal process underway and they can't intervene which of course is total crap and might have just been a coincidence but the week following David's questioning of Penny Wong who I must tell you look like a cat on a hot tin roof when she was asked that question in the Senate I look very uncomfortable indeed the week after David asked that question Steven Smith ex-Labor Minister and I would consider a pretty heavy hitter in the Labor movement announced that he was going to be visiting Julian Assange as our new Ambassador to the UK and he has visited Julian and Julian instead John Shipton believed and John is very optimistic he believed this was the beginning of the end of the extradition process against his wonderful son Julian Assange so as David said when Biden is here in a few weeks time we've all got to come out in numbers and just keep that pressure on and make sure that this political persecution one of the great not just injustices but one of the great abuses of power of our time comes to an end thank you David McBride served two years in Afghanistan as an ADF lawyer the first in 2011 and the next in 2013 what he witnessed during his deployment made him question the foundations of Australia's entire operation in the country and he went to his superiors with these concerns but nothing came of it he raised these issues with the ADF officials David was following the legal whistleblowing process set out in the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 2013 which dictates following a failed attempt to raise a corruption matter internally a whistleblower can then go public with the information yet in its function of providing whistleblowers with protection on having leaked classified information the Public Interest Disclosure Act fails then provided by the rules of the Australian defence he lived up to the Australian ideals of choice, transparency, fair play and honesty yet David is now facing multiple national security and defence charges that can carry up to 50 years imprisonment and those that broke the rules of engagement have not been charged the land questioned or exposed please join me in giving David a warm welcome I've said before don't be afraid of being in a minority it is a fantastic thing to win a victory as a tiny minority over a majority all the really good things have been achieved by minorities abolition of slavery springs to mind and so many other good things so we can be proud of the fact that you stood up for what is right world press freedom today I can see that there is a change there's a change in the air for Julian Assange he's been reported about on Channel 9 and mainstream media and it's a very exciting time as I've said before it won't be long before everybody claims to have been part of this campaign but more of the people here who are really have been here from day one and you can be very very proud of it if nothing happens even if I die in jail as I said you can be very proud of having stood up for something that really mattered for something that was right and it's something that children and grandchildren could be so proud of it can never be right to put people in jail for telling the truth it can never be right to put people in jail for exposing the murders of government officials and what's more if you don't stand up to those things if we don't do something it will just get worse so it's not just a matter of doing things in years to come if we fail in this mission anyone who's a dissenter against the government dissenter against the corporations will be jailed murdered that must be wrong that's obviously wrong but the only way that is going to be changed is by people standing up and often I hear people say things like oh what goes on in the war should stay in the war and soldiers doing their job is not something we want to criticize some people wouldn't say that if it was their own son and daughter that was killed they would come to us they would come to people like you and me and they would say why aren't you doing something about it my son is dead my daughter is dead I need help from you we do it anyway we don't do it for accolades thank you my friend I'm the first person in the crowd and people who are doing the right thing out there friendly joities to classified Australia there's Peter Crownow there are plenty of people who are doing the right thing we will win this it may mean we're going to jail but I will eventually be let out of jail and we will win this and those of you who have been brave enough to stand up and to come out here and we see people walk past see people don't care see people look at us but you will be very proud of what you've done and it will be something that you can always look back on all through your life and say I stood up I was counted I was part of that tiny minority that 300 Spartans that's the majority for what mattered and that is something you can always always be proud of so thank you everybody for being here our next big up is Peter Crownow Peter is an investigative journalist currently a rising co-founder of Declassified Australia Peter was a successful producer for ABC TV's program Four Corners Peter reports for ABC's radio background briefing including a report in the Australia's the two secret involvement in the US drone wars in the Middle East titled Pine Gap's Rolls in the US Warfighting Peter writes for Independent Australia Michael West Media Poles and Irritations along with many other esteemed media outlets Peter has won numerous awards including the Golden Walkers on the political violence in East Timor in 2006 He's the co-editor of the current bestseller revealed by the Wikileaks Exposays Later this year he will publish the base, Australia's secret role in America's global war Please join me in walking with Peter to the microphone How ironic it is that on World Press Freedom Day Julian Assange the most notable Australian journalist is in the clink top security in London in his Majesty's head Belmarsh How ironic that today on that very day we're hearing from a whistleblower Dave McBride who has spoken out to the media on crimes that he's seen but is now facing jail We live in a world where free speech is not as valued as you believe Free speech, free media they're terms that you hear bandied about on a regular basis but they are concepts to be regularly fought for and what I mean fought for I mean people need to put their careers, their lives on the line some have done that someone like David who you just heard from spoke to the ABC in confidence, spoke to a couple of journalists from there gave them a story about the Afghan files, the Afghan killings that have occurred over there lots of allegations that are now being investigated by the police, federal police but he too has been investigated the laws in this country are not in favour of whistleblowers they're not in favour of the media speaking out when the AFP came to the ABC they wanted to hand print and finger print the two journalists who had been involved they served a search warrant they plugged in their laptop and searched the ABC entire network for keywords one of the keywords they had was ABC they had many keywords which were very general in form and we don't know exactly what else they did because their warrant said that they could take information from the ABC server and that they could put information or something on the ABC server, we don't know if they did which we have to trust them that they didn't so that's how the truth about Afghanistan gets told the whistleblower, the journalists are seen as criminals now with Julian Assange they tried to kill him the CIA they set out to kill him to murder him through poison or perhaps if he tried to flee the embassy through silenced machine guns in their vehicles waiting outside the embassy is that how you treat information tellers, truth tellers apparently it is but don't worry, our government speaking up for him he's going to be sprung at any minute he said hopefully it is world press freedom day but I've got to ask the question what's so free about it we're a lot better than many other countries but boy things are going backwards here I've seen it inside the ABC I've seen people stifled the chilling effect of the ABC raids of the AFP raids on the ABC so I think people really got to know that you can't take your freedoms for granted and if you don't stand up for the people as they get knocked off one by one then they'll come for you they'll come for all of us we won't be able to have the democracy we want so on world press freedom day we've invited along to this event and I want to say good on you to the organisers thanks for inviting me and I just hope that press freedom is a concept that does get supported and pushed and advocated for on a regular basis even with a loud hailer thanks I've got a couple of statements of support the first one is from Anthony Lowenstein Anthony Lowenstein is an Australian German independent freelance investigative journalist having written for the New York Times The Guardian The Washington Post The New York Review of Books and many others he's also a co-founder of Declassified Australia Anthony is also a filmmaker and a best-selling author there are too many books to list here but his latest release this year is the Palestine Laboratory How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World his statement reads I call on the Australian Government to demand the release of Julian Assange back to his family instead of being in prison he should be celebrated for informing us of the real actions of Washington and its allies the next statement is from Gils Grein Gils Grein has spent his life committed to bringing quality documentaries to the thinking digital audiences around the world Gils leadership as a community activist and writer on political and social issues locally and globally also informs his work as a teacher filmmaking and distribution and organiser of forums on filmmaking issues and practice Gils statement is for revealing the war crimes Julian Assange is in bombastion prison Australian journalists and publishers must speak out now Ready Julian Assange