 Hello testing. It's on you can hear me. Hello everyone. Can you hear me in the back? Can you hear me? Yes, great. Greetings everyone, welcome, and thank you all for coming out tonight for this very special occasion. I'm Patricia Dahl, and I'm from Stand with Assange, New York. We're a local group based here in Manhattan. I'm also a member of the Assange Defense Committee, which is a national organization that has chapters in seven cities across the country. Together, both groups organized tonight's event and in conjunction with the four week long 18 city marathon speaking tour called Home Run for Julian. For those of us who dedicate our lives to saving Julian's, we could not have a greater honor than to welcome Julian's father, John Shipton, and Julian's brother, Gabriel Shipton. Truth is we had only a few weeks to organize this event and initially envisioned a small gathering in someone's apartment, but we learned in lightning speed that New York's interest in the Shipton's arrival was electric and growing exponentially by the day. This is a testament, John and Gabriel, to the impact that your work has had on the international community. We'd like to thank Consortium News, WBAI, the People's Forum, and Joe Friendly, who are working to distribute the program tonight on various mediums for the people who wish to be here but couldn't because of limited seating. We also want to extend a very special thank you to the people of the People's Forum, not only because they did so many things to help us make tonight happen, but because we learned in the process that they are every bit as honored to host the Shipton's as we are. I wish to share with you the words of Manola De Los Santos, who's at the door down there. He's the executive director here and he said, with solemnity and much conviction, Julian is our brother and we are going to be with him until the end. Would you please give a round of applause for the people of the People's Forum? I know that we are going to probably hear some up-to-date news about where Julian's trial and the hearing is going, but it might be useful to just take a few minutes to review the whole saga of Julian. So those of us who vigilantly monitor Julian's case have witnessed a dozen years now of actions coordinated by a five-nation state dragnet whose sole objective is to silence by long and torturous captivity a single human being. The abuses of due process in each one of those nation states has been cascading. As Julian's lawyer, renowned human rights solicitor Gareth Pierce noted, the history of the case from start to finish is extraordinary. Each aspect of it becomes puzzling and troubling as it is scrutinized. We know that that history began around 2008 and we know that only because of WikiLeaks. When the Pentagon's cyber security counterintelligence assessment branch drafted a secret document that detailed ways to use Julian's own words to marginalize WikiLeaks and to do so fatally. This was a full two years before the material on which the espionage charges were slapped had even been published. All was preordained, yet we are to believe if we heed the U.S. prosecution that Julian's trial is not political. That dragnet produced a fruitful yield of state apparatuses. From there we saw clandestine FBI intervention in Iceland, illegal CIA spying in London via Ecuador and Spain. We saw Google execs working against WikiLeaks in the Washington nexus. We saw Twitter subpoenas, bank blockades, serial computer and file confiscations, privileged files of journalists, doctors and lawyers. Julian was judged by a magistrate whose spouse and the military security and intelligence establishments to which he was linked were named thousands of times by WikiLeaks. But she refused to recuse herself. That magistrate with others asserted that Julian was a narcissist who believed he was above the law. This was to stand for legal reasoning. But no one asked the question which was the elephant in the room. How could anyone forced after exhausting all possibilities to beg for political refugee status from a foreign country feel above the law and not thoroughly crushed under it. Finally, in the midst of a perpetual smear campaign we have the ultimate absurdity. Over the rounds of nightly news interviews the public was treated to ubiquitous calls for Julian's assassination. Yet that same public was forbidden to know of the actual plans made in real time, real life and real offices to kidnap Julian and poison him. Yet we are to believe that Julian's trial is not political. That long history extended to the layout of arguments in the extradition hearing in September when crown prosecutors for the U.S. ladled falsehoods and sophistry over the gaping chasm where a public interest defense should be. But the public's interest is not a concern for the authors of these laws. Yet we are to believe that Julian's trial is not political. It's merely legal. Julian Assange is the most important news publisher of our time and this is not opinion. It is substantiated by the facts of quantity and quality. He has published over 10 million documents. There has never been a single instance of human error in the lot and he offered to we the people a new source entirely free of editorial obfuscation. Yet after explaining the labyrinth of obstructions in the eastern district of Virginia where Julian would be tried. Attorney Thomas Durkin witness for the defense during the extradition hearing testified the likelihood of Mr. Assange being able to mount a fulsome and meaningful defense to these charges is for all intense and purposes. And yes he chose a harsh word non existent. Julian faces not only the First Amendment trial of the century but the political trial of the century. Understand that distinction is not made on the concept that Julian's life is somehow worthier than others. Data proves we live under a broken criminal justice system that lays to waste innocent lives on a daily basis. That distinction for Julian's case is made strictly on the proportionality of the hunt where a Goliath of powerful states interface to decide the fate of their single David in the surrounds of their highest offices. We must grasp that freedom of the press is perilously at risk and we must save Julian's life. The two are indivisible. One thing John and Gabriel's visit and the electrified groundswell of interest in it from all of you has made abundantly clear as we speak and gather here tonight. We are riding the crest of a moral wave. Concern for Julian's welfare and all the perils that are tied into it is growing exponentially. At this point nothing can stop it. Thank you. We're going to have three short messages and then we will continue by hearing our other speakers. Hello everyone. Undertaking the next step in the legal process and defending Assange in the High Court is expensive. Even though the members of his legal team continue to work for low remuneration and have contributed much of their time pro bono. At a recent event in Miami John Shipton announced that two million dollars is needed for his son's defense. So if you would like to help in the in his High Court fight against extradition please scan the QR code on the flyers that were left on your seats and donate as much as you can. The code takes you to the fundraising site of Stella Morris who is Assange's partner and the mother of his two young his two youngest children. Our viewers can find Julian's page at www.crowdjustice.com forward slash case forward slash Assange appeal forward slash. We are also collecting cash and ask that you please pass the baskets forward. The total amount raised will be announced before the end of tonight's program. Thank you. Hello everyone. I just want to take a minute to explain what we plan to do with the letters to AG Garland you found on your seats. There will also be letters at the events in the other 17 cities that are part of the Home Run for Julian tour the Shiptons have embarked on. Once the tour is completed the letters from all 18 cities will be sent to Garland demanding he drop the charges against Assange. So please fill in your name and address sign them and we will collect them at the door when you leave. Thank you so much. Hello good evening Marty Goodman of the stand with Assange committee. This is the shortest speech I've ever given. This I'm going to get to announce my favorite form of political action the demonstration. Before the pandemic a year ago New York free Assange conducted a weekly peaceful vigil for Assange in Grand Central Station. We want to renew that commitment to mobilize to free Assange. It will be in the grand concourse each Thursday from five to six o'clock. Five to six o'clock each Thursday. Last year our weekly vigils encountered no serious problems with police and we're even we even got to show the powerful collateral murder video on the wall inside Grand Central. The movie that was well the footage was released by WikiLeaks. It shocked the world with proof that U.S. troops murder civilians in Iraq and thousands got to see that in Grand Central because of us. Those Assange vigils got huge attention in the world's most famous terminal allowing us to engage one on one with passengers and answer their questions. Please see our vigil flyer on everyone's chair and share it with someone. Join us beginning next Thursday and every Thursday to free Julian Assange. Also see the flyer about our Saturday July 3rd action. Julian's 50th birthday at the U.K. consulate in Manhattan at 48th Street and 2nd Avenue. This important event will be part of a day of global protest for Julian and a Saturday is a great day to mobilize. Put the word out to all of your friends and please join us on July 3rd. There will be protest in a couple of dozen cities around the world. Thank you very much for being here today and I'll see you at the vigils and the protests. Free Julian Assange defend free speech drop all charges now. Thank you to welcome John and Gabriel. We are joined by several guests all remarkable and intrepid people who have used their writing speaking media investigative resources grassroots base and art to bring attention to a diverse menu of political wrongdoing. All are stalwart defenders of Julian. We were overjoyed to learn just in the last few days that Jocelyn Gay activist feminist singer songwriter and contributor to Haiti Liberty has graciously agreed to speak to us on the material impact WikiLeaks had on instigating political change in her country. Jocelyn's story illustrates the power of transparency and accountability where Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black argued the press was to serve the governed not the governors. WikiLeaks gave to Haiti Liberty a trove of cables which revealed U.S. control of the country's resources and market. To the point it sent U.S. Navy SEALs to escort the popular president Jean-Bretrand Aristide from the country. Please welcome Jocelyn Gay. Just wanted for you to pay attention to the fact that they just revealed one more time that which people are not paying taxes and our beautiful president decided he has to find out who revealed it not why they're not paying taxes. So Julian, you're in good company. Okay. My name is Jocelyn Gay as Patricia said and I'm speaking on behalf of Haiti Liberty and this is what I will say. It was exactly a decade ago in June 2011 that Haiti Liberty began publishing a series of articles on Haiti drawing about 2000 secret diplomatic cables provided to our weekly newspaper by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The documents were part of the 250,000 classified state department cables which whistleblower Chelsea Manning then a U.S. Army private provided to WikiLeaks in 2010. The leak became known as Cablegate along with Manning's revelation of almost 500,000 secret document and videos which became known as the Iraq war logs and the Afghan war diary. Cablegate was a spectacular disclosure of U.S. hypocrisy, carnivance and scheming. It laid bare the cynicism with which Washington conducts its diplomatic maneuvers and planning behind closed doors. Manning has first offered her leaks to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but like the faithful corporate scribes that they are, those media express no interest. Similarly WikiLeaks also gave the quarter million cablegate cables to large newspapers like the New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and Der Spiegel. But these newspapers did practically nothing with these documents. That's when Julian and WikiLeaks did something extraordinary. They undertook a costly concerted campaign to get the cablegate trolled to newspapers of the affected countries. They carefully researched and selected the most capable, fearless, responsible and reliable press outlet in each country to which they would entrust the secret cables relevant to their nation. In the case of Haiti, we are very proud that WikiLeaks selected us. It would require longer than the time we have tonight to explain the very elaborate security procedures that WikiLeaks employed to deliver the flash drive with the 1,918 secret diplomatic cables about Haiti to us. Suffice it to say that they sent two members team to Haiti where we met them. They gave our journalists a crash course in internet security and responsible editing and then gave us the strongly encrypted flash drive. The cables covered an almost seven year period from April 17, 2003, ten months before the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat which ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to February 28, 2010, my birthday, just after the January 12 earthquake that devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities. They revealed official U.S. strategies and maneuvering in Haiti during the coup years 2004 to 2006 and the period after the presidential election 2006 to 2010. We see Washington's obsession with keeping Aristide out of Haiti and the hemisphere. The microscope, a train on the Democratic Lavalas movement, that's the movement that Aristide was leading. The relentless focus on rebellious shanty towns like Cité Soleil and Belair and Washington's tax supervision of Haiti's police leadership and of the United Nations 10,000 soldier military occupation known as the UN mission to stabilize Haiti or minister. Stabilize what? We don't know. The cables range from secret and confidential classification or were marked for official use only or sensitive. On June 1, 2011, we published our opening article on how Washington tried to torpedo implementation of the Petro-Caribbean oil agreement between Venezuela and Haiti. A struggle which freed the U.S. relationship with President Prival. We then had articles on how the U.S. embassy helped block a minimum wage hike of $5 a day, winning $3 a day instead. Five, two, three. How they wobbly stepped and paid for an election that they knew was flawed from the start and how Washington felt no obligation to get Prival's clearance to begin deploying 22,000 U.S. troops after the January 12, 2010 earthquake. You would think that Haiti was Russia or China. 20,000 troops from my little country. With the WikiLeaks cables, we've done many exposés of corrupt Haitian politicians like Uri La Tortue, Rudier Rivo and Evans Paul, as well as 2004 co-leader Guy Philippe and former death squad leader Emmanuel Toto Constant, both of whom are now in jail. Thank heaven for that. Haiti and the world are much safer without these parasites roaming the world. We, I said that, Haiti Liberte. We, Haiti Liberte, reveal how the Haitian bourgeoisie sought to turn the Haitian police force into their own private army. How Washington fought to smear exiled president Aristide and block his return to Haiti. How the U.S. worked with the current Haitian police chief, Leon Shaw, to repress the Haitian people's resistance to the coup d'etat and foreign military occupation. In 2013, Haiti Liberte was one of 18 media partners worldwide, which WikiLeaks allowed access to the beta version of their plus D database. When it was unveiled in 2013, on it are another 3 million declassified but then often reclassified state department cables from 1973 to 1979. Now, 10 years after our first WikiLeaks based article, our journalists have written dozens of stories based on the 2000 cables which Julian and WikiLeaks provided us. And this was exactly the purpose Julian had in mind to make information available to the people of the world so that they would know what the hell is going on. To know what their governments whom they trust to work in their interest are up to. What we have discovered thanks to WikiLeaks is that our governments are almost always not working in our the people's interest, but rather to further their own wars, coups, crimes, and then they try to deceive us. What we have discovered thanks to WikiLeaks is that our governments are almost always not working for us. And I said that, oh yeah, not working in our the people's interest to rather further their own ways, coups, and so on. Our publication of the WikiLeaks based article trusts our papers in Haiti, a nation of 11 million people at this time into the international spotlight. This was the purity and power of the indisputable truth that Julian provided us. Thank you Julian Assange from your family. Thank you Chelsea Manning. Thank you WikiLeaks for your truth telling, your courage and your solidarity. Free Julian Assange. So we're going in alphabetical order. Randy Credico began his career as a comedian. No doubt his sense of humor, still wicked, carried him through many trials in his later work because Randy had a more ferocious calling. He is the former director of the William Moses Consular Fund for Racial Justice. He devoted four years of his life working in Tulia, Texas after 10% of the African American population was arrested on drug charges solely on the testimony of a single undercover officer. The street became his habitat during the seven years he protested to expose and eliminate the brutal Rockefeller drug laws. Since 2017, Randy has conducted around 120 shows for Julian on his program Assange Countdown to Freedom. When you get to know Randy's work, one thing becomes clear. The invisible, the forgotten, the least among us in the political gridlock have no greater friend and ally. You can learn more of his work on his Twitter, live on the fly and his radio show Assange Countdown to Freedom. Please welcome Randy Credico. Okay, thank you Patricia and welcome everybody. The folks at WBAI, 99.5 FM, those on live stream. And thank you for your wonderful job and it's great to be part of this great panel. I don't know where to start. First of all, you guys all showing up today. This is amazing. I mean you had your choices. You could be at home right now watching Erie Melbur or Wolf Blitzer trying to start a war in Russia or China. I mean with the comedy duo of Jim Schielto and Jim Acosta. Great journalist. Really, really. I've never seen those two guys in the same room together, have you? Jim Acosta and Jim Schielto, might be the same person. I don't know. I saw them in the Sax Fifth Avenue display window together as mannequins. Are you guys are a rough crowd? It's okay man. I've got, I mean the left is supposed to be, they're not, it really. Guys come on, we're not a dull lot, alright? Seriously. The last time I appeared in front of a crowd this big was before the Muller Grant jury. So it's, I haven't worked at a crowd this big in a while man, really. And they laughed because they liked the Bernie Sanders impression which you wanted me to do. You wanted me to do the Bernie Sanders, alright? When you guys were in Berlin tended to ask them, ask them why he hasn't come out in support of Julian Assange. It was Julian Assange, after all. Julian Assange exposed the fact that they robbed the nomination from me. Shouldn't I be supporting him publicly? Alright, I got some notes here for myself basically. Keep it short. Remember, less is more. And most importantly, it's not about you. We are live streamed, we are on WBAI. We started the show Assange Countdown to Freelomere. Four years ago and it just wasn't me. Is Margaret Ratner-Cunstler here? She actually booked the show for me. She gave me, I didn't know. I'll be honest with you. I had no idea what I was doing. So she got me all the guests and we did it 15 straight weeks at WBAI then another five weeks. Then I took a leave of absence and then we came back to KPFA and now I'm back at WBAI. In between, on our website, Assange Countdown to Freelomere, we got a lot of them. A lot of those shows. So, I think I've really got to make this short because it's getting hot in here. On live stream, let me just say this, and to WBAI, I really want to do this. One of those who has been a staple for Assange Countdown to Freelomere and one of the greatest supporters, most eloquent, articulate, consistent, passionate is Craig Murray. Has been Craig Murray. Now, Craig's about to go to jail. Craig Murray is one of the bravest, courageous guys I've ever met in my life. And he's been there for Julian for 11 years. So, what I'd like to do right now is get, because I know he's watching. Everybody, please show your love and appreciation for Craig Murray. He's not here. He's at home. But he was there. Craig is the best. He really is. And two others that have been staples are regular mainstays on that show. And I want to give them a shout out because I know they're watching. Stefani Morizzi and John Pilger. John Pilger. Aaron, you've been on the show. Aaron there. The day after the, I'll get to that in a second. I really got to keep this short. I keep saying that. But also today, all the grunts out here today, people who are there on the vigil line. Not just here, but around the world. It's really important. It's really important that people are on the street. People are demonstrating, involved in direct action. Because they reach people that we can't reach. As a broadcaster on a radio show, a podcaster as a writer, you know, John can't reach everybody. Aaron can't reach everybody. Chris doesn't reach everybody. Not everybody's a fan of my good friend over here, Roger. Not everybody knows, not everybody listens. They may like Glenn Campbell. I don't know. I got a very good Roger Water story right now. I'm only here today because of you. Okay. I'm going to tell you. This morning I drove in from Woodstock and when I got here, I was walking the dog and ran into a tree and I broke a tooth and it came out. So I was going to come. I looked like Alfred E. Newman. So I said, that's it. And I called the dentist and it worked packed. And I said, I do this thing. He says, come on in. Come on in. He brought me right in. Didn't charge me. He said, all I want is a picture of Roger signed. And so otherwise I wouldn't have been here today. My dentist is a big fan of yours. Did you bring any 8 by 10s? No, I know you didn't. All right. Let me get all of the grunts around the world. Those people in London, I want to reach out to them. M.E.B., who her and her crew have been outside the Ecuador embassy. And now Belmorsch for 10 years. Alex Hills in Melbourne. Sabine in Berlin. Deepa Driver in Scotland for organizing. And of course Chuck and Bernadette over here organized the vigil in New York City two years ago. Keep doing it because it's really important. It really is important. It's a crisis. Crisis. American crisis. That's it. You know about Tom Payne. American crisis. And that's what's happening right now is an American crisis with Julien Assange. Which means it's an American crisis is the First Amendment. It's free speech. It's freedom of expression. It's everything involved with what Tom Payne stood for. That is the persecution of Julien Assange. And if he goes, the rest of them go. People ask me all the time, Randy, why are you so obsessed with Julien Assange? You've done 120 shows. We just stopped it. There's so many political prisoners in this country. And I said, that's the reason why I'm so obsessed. Because there's so many political prisoners in this country. Without Julien Assange, without Chris Hedges, without Erumate, John Pilger, without them. How are we supposed to know what's happening to Leonard Peltier? What's happening to Mumia? What's happened to Thomas Drake? Without the free press, we would not know. That's why this case is so important. I thought I'd get applause for that, man. I'm kidding. No, at any rate. And by the way, it's not Kafkaesque. I wish people would stop saying this is Kafkaesque. It's not. Joseph K. in the trial had no clue what he was being tried for. No clue at all. Julien, on the other hand, knows exactly why he is being tried. And why he's being persecuted. It's for exposing war crimes. It's for exposing mass surveillance. It's for exposing torture and government and corporate corruption. That's the reason why he's being tried. So it's not Kafkaesque. The only thing is it sends a big chill. It's the big chill out there. So let's use another term. What else? I'll just do another 30 minutes and I'm just getting here. At any rate, I met this gentleman and you in London at the trial, the Belmores, the first three days we met there. And you were sitting next to Craig Murray. And it was a horrible sight. I looked at them. We were on the second floor, bulletproof glass. And down below was Julien in a bulletproof cage glass. And I said, where have I seen this before? And I realized 1960 in Tel Aviv when Eichmann was tried. He was in a similar glass cage. The only difference is Eichmann had access to his lawyers where Julien did not during that entire process. Eichmann is the architect of the final solution. He murdered people. Julien exposed people like Eichmann. And so I spent my one and a half hour that day as a journalist. I couldn't watch it so I put my phone here and started taking a bunch. I took like 100 pictures and five of them came out. Pictures of Julien behind that glass cage with his partner Stella Morris looking at him. It really is heartbreaking. But they didn't want us to do that. And that's like, I think it's contempt, right? Am I getting in trouble? Can I go back? But I had to do it. Got like four or five photos out of it. And it was a very difficult thing to watch. But you guys got through it very well. You and your father and Craig. And you became very good friends with Craig. He's a political, absolutely. All right. Who's going to write about that? Well, you guys have already written about that. All right. I'm just one last thing. I had to meet Julien three times in the Ecuadorian Embassy back in 19, 2017 in November. And we didn't talk about his work. We didn't talk about Vault 7. We didn't talk about the war logs. We didn't talk about any of that. We talked about food. We talked about history. We talked about dogs. How he missed his blue, are they blue healers? What are they called? Red healers. He missed his work dogs. And then we got into history a little bit. We got into the abolition movement. We talked about, and I wanted him to draw the parallel as a PR move. Talking about those who risked their lives, those who were threatened. People like Richard Hildreth and Theodore Parker and Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips and those who were murdered. People like David Walker. And most significantly was Elijah Lovejoy. He was murdered. The guy was like 35 years old and he was murdered in Illinois. And they destroyed his press four times and then they murdered him. I said, you've got to make that comparison. He said, no. That's a false analogy. He says, those guys. Those abolitionist writers, they only pissed off a certain segment of the population. The slave power and the profiteers from slavery. The shipping business and those in the banking business in Boston. I, on the other hand, pissed off everybody. Everybody. It didn't matter. Everybody is angry with me. So basically what he is saying is, if you commit war crimes, if you commit torture, if you rendition somebody, if you are involved in corruption, it doesn't matter what party you are with. It doesn't matter if you're a despot, if you're a king or some fraudulent prime minister. It doesn't matter. If you do those bad things, you will be on Julian's shit list. That's the reason why. Is there a timer there? Last thing I'm going to say is that we all have to be unified here. I had a, with the Rockefeller drug laws, we were inspired by the modernized deposit of Mayo in Argentina. Women, 1970, 1976, the U.S. back coup there. The Kissinger back coup. By the way, it's Kissinger's birthday next week. He'll be 300. So they can't find enough room and health for him. They got to build a parallel hell just to put him in. Nixon's saying, he's a great guy. Just Satan, just make some more room. So, but those women down there who came up to New York State, four women of the modernized deposit of Mayo, came up to New York State during the Rockefeller drug law movement. They joined us up there. Margaret Kuntzler sent us down there, a delegation of ex-prisoners. We talked to them. They came up. They lobbied Pataki, they lobbied Bruno, and they lobbied Sheldon Silver. Within two weeks, we got the deal. They had a committee conference. Those women, the magic of the modernized deposit of Mayo. As you know, they, along with the Falklands War or the Malvinas War, within five years, just a few of them in the beginning were standing around that rondo in front of the pink house in the Plaza de Mayo. It kept growing and growing and growing, and they stayed unified. They stayed unified. As long as we all stay unified, not break off, we must stay unified around the world and keep going together because this is about Julian. That's what this is about, so please stay united and we will get Julian out of that situation. Thank you. Well, I have my own story about Randy. Do you believe this man told me that he wanted to go first because he didn't want to follow anyone else? Would anyone want to follow this guy? For many, Chris Hedges doesn't need an introduction. Where there is political upheaval, Chris is often there. Whether he is denouncing hegemonic power, ubiquitous crimes of war, pulling the curtain on the billion dollar pornography industry, or teaching in the prisons. He engages all in a voice so uniquely moral, it seems to come from a distant time or place, filling us with a nostalgia for something we can't quite name. This is exemplified in the title of one of his books, War is a Force that gives us meaning. In a landmark case, Chris with Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky sued the Obama administration after it signed the NDAA into law, asserting that the law was unconstitutional and allowed presidential authority to order indefinite detention without habeas corpus. You can follow more of his work on his show on Contact. Please welcome Chris Hedges. A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice. And this is why we are here tonight. Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian to cry is prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family. Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him be ended. Yes, we honor him for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian's liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating not only for Julian and his family, but for us. Tierneys invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials to mask their criminality. Those such as Julian who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy, the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion, and violence. The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wholen calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy including its institutions, iconography, patriotic, symbols, and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations. I was in the London courtroom when Julian was being tried by Judge Vanessa Baritzer, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him an Australian citizen under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Niels Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture has testified, continue. The degrading abuse and torture, at hopes, will lead to his psychological, if not physical, disintegration. The U.S. government directed, as Craig so eloquently reported, the London prosecutor James Lewis. Lewis presented the directives to Baritzer. Baritzer adopted them as her legal decision. It was judicial pantomime. Lewis and the judge insisted they were not attempting to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press while they busily set up the legal framework to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press. And that is why the court worked so hard to mask the proceedings from the public, limiting access to the courtroom to a handful of observers and making it hard and at times impossible to access the trial online. It was a tawdry show trial, not an example of the best of English jurisprudence but the Lubyanka. Now I know many of us here tonight would like to think of ourselves as radicals, maybe even revolutionaries. But what we are demanding on the political spectrum is, in fact, conservative. It is the restoration of the rule of law. It is simple and basic. It should not, in a functioning democracy, be incendiary. But living in truth in a despotic system is the supreme act of defiance. This truth terrifies those in power. The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate controlled legislative judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media are illegitimate. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth as Julian Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden did by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power and you are hunted down and persecuted. Shortly after WikiLeaks released the Iraqi war logs in October 2010, which documented numerous U.S. war crimes, including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the collateral murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners that covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints. The towering civil rights attorneys, Len Weinglas and my good friend Michael Ratner, who I would later accompany to meet Julian in the Ecuadorian Embassy, met with Julian in a studio apartment in central London. Julian's personal credit cards had been blocked. Three encrypted laptops with documents detailing U.S. war crimes had disappeared from his luggage in route to London. Swedish police were fabricating a case against him in a move Ratner warned that was about extraditing Julian to the United States. WikiLeaks and you personally are facing a battle that is both legal and political, Weinglas told Assange. As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the U.S. government doesn't like the truth coming out and it doesn't like to be humiliated. No matter if it's Nixon or Bush or Obama, Republican or Democrat in the White House, the U.S. government will try to stop you from publishing its ugly secrets, and if they have to destroy you and the First Amendment and the rights of publishers with you, they are willing to do it. We believe they are going to come after WikiLeaks and you, Julian, as the publisher. Come after me for what, asked Julian. Espionage, Weinglas continued. They're going to charge Bradley Manning with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917. We don't think it applies to him because he's a whistleblower, not a spy, and we don't think it applies to you because you are a publisher, but they are going to try to force Manning into implicating you as his collaborator. Come after me for what? And that is the question. They came after Julian, not for his vices, but for his virtues. They came after Julian because he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians. Because he exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys aged between 14 and 89 at Guantanamo. Because he exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other UN representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included the eavesdropping of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Because he exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime. Because he exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that under post-Norenberg laws is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, that they authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of US citizens in Yemen, and that they secretly launched missile bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. Because he exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks of a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. And that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation reform. Because he exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party. Because he exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permits the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones, and antivirus software allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images, and private text messages even from encrypted apps. Julian exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption, and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths they came after Julian as they have come after all who have dared rip back the veil on power. Red Rosa now has vanished too. Bertol Brecht wrote about the German socialist Rosa Luxemburg who was murdered. She told the poor what life is about and so the rich have rubbed her out. We have undergone a corporate coup d'etat where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state where even habeas corpus no longer exists where we as citizens are nothing more than commodities to corporate systems of power ones to be used, fleeced and discarded to refuse to fight back to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed, to save the planet from eco-side to decry the domestic and international crimes of the ruling class to demand justice, to live in truth is to bear the mark of Cain. Those in power must feel our wrath and this means constant acts of mass civil disobedience. It means constant acts of social and political disruption for this organized power who is the only power that will save us and the only power that will free Julian. Politics is a game of fear and it is our moral and civic duty to make those in power very, very afraid. The criminal ruling class has all of us locked in its death grip. It cannot be reformed. It has abolished the rule of law. It obscures and falsifies the truth. It seeks consolidation of its obscene wealth and power. And so to quote the Queen of Hearts metaphorically of course, I say off with their heads. During the peak of what is now referred to as Russia Gate many of us knew by a vague instinct that the jigsaw pieces of narrative weren't fitting. Along came Aaron Mate who laid it out for us point by detail point. Vanity Fair noted his memorable vivisection of Luke Harding who wrote a book on Russian interference and who was also the person implicated with David Lee of the Guardian in releasing the password for the State Department files which led to making them accessible in unredacted form before WikiLeaks could publish them in their intended redacted form. In Aaron's latest work he nearly single-handedly exposed the OPCW cover-up on chemical attacks in Duma. We are fortunate to have his caliber of investigative reporting. You can follow his work on the gray zone. Please welcome Aaron Mate. Thank you. It's so great to be here. For many of us this is the first time in over a year that we've been able to gather in public with a large group of other people and I can't think of a more worthy occasion than to come together to defend Julian Assange. It's in groups like this coming together that we express and defend our common humanity. The fight right now for Julian's life his freedom is also a fight for our humanity. The U.S. government's assault on Julian Assange's humanity in fact captures the full spectrum of what our humanity is capable of. On one side of the spectrum you have the worst of our humanity. The state power that Julian has exposed and which is now trying to silence him. These state forces led by the U.S. Overlord and cause the most unjust acts that human beings can do launching illegal wars whether direct interventions or dirty wars. Murdering civilians with bombs and leaving their countries in ruins. Bullying and bribing weaker governments to submit to major corporations so that their people's material needs are subordinate to power and profit. Imposing murderous sanctions that deprive civilians of their basic rights and freedoms. Torturing in secret prisons all over the world. Spying on the entire population especially those deemed to be a remote threat to power. All of this driven by a hegemonic worldview that just like a mafia don sees the entire globe as something to be exploited and controlled. Like a mafia don state power relies on violence and coercion to ensure its control. But in a nominally democratic society our rulers must also invent malicious lies and sophisticated propaganda campaigns to manufacture the consents of the domestic populations who foot the bill. And then in Julian Assange you have the best of what humanity is capable of. Someone who has devoted his life to exposing these crimes leads them. We all know Julian's famous saying if wars can be started by lies peace can be started by truth. Julian has been a tireless warrior for peace wielding nothing but the truth as his weapon. How many people's humanity has been stirred by Julian's humanity? You can just start by remembering how you felt when you watched the WikiLeaks video Collateral Murder which captured US military helicopters gunning down civilians in Iraq. You can take your own experience multiply that by an infinite number of people and then multiply that by the countless more crimes and abuses that Julian and WikiLeaks have exposed in the decade since. Julian Assange is not just someone brave and skilled enough to expose state crimes he's also been willing to sacrifice his freedom to do so. Julian's commitment to truth and to our collective humanity is so strong that he's been willing to risk his own life to save the lives of others and expose those who treat them with reckless contempt. And because of Julian's unflinching integrity the worst forces of our humanity have sought to use all their power all their corruption all their deceit to silence him. They've exploited the so called justice system to tie Julian in legal jeopardy and keep him locked up for more than a decade. They used what is falsely called the Swedish rape case where in reality Julian was never accused of rape and never in fact charged with a single crime. All of this has been exhaustively documented by Niels Meltzer the UN Special Rapporteur and Torture who says the case was quote riddled with the most serious due process violations and even manipulation of evidence to Meltzer the case served a clear political function as he said with the rape allegations these states turned around the spotlight on to Assange no one discusses the war crimes that Assange exposed instead of crime he was never accused or charged of. When the Swedish farce ran its course the US government stepped in with what was the game plan all along using the espionage act to indict Assange for the crime of doing journalism. The US case against Assange marks the culmination of a years long campaign to investigate him in private and vilify him in public and here the humanity of Julian Assange does not just expose the inhumanity of his state persecutors but the corruption of the powerful media outlets who are supposed to hold them to account instead of rallying behind Julian major media outlets have done the bidding of his tormentors. When the US government for example claims that WikiLeaks has put people in danger with their publications US outlets parrot this claim while failing to provide any evidence and ignoring the documented cases where it was the US government that in fact ignored Julian and WikiLeaks overtures to redact information when Julian exposed the corruption of the DNC in 2016 he was subjected to a malicious smear campaign painting him as a Russian agent it got so ridiculous that no matter what the facts actually showed major media outlets relentlessly promoted the fiction that Julian engaged in a conspiracy involving the Kremlin the Trump campaign left wing radio host Randy Kredico two right wing conspiracy theorists while countless outlets aired these moronic conspiracy theories these same outlets expressed a collective yawn when the real story about Trump and Assange emerged in 2019 the Spanish newspaper El País revealed that undercover global SL a private security firm spied on Assange during his stay in Ecuador's London embassy this spying was carried out on behalf of Trumpís CIA this meant that during the period when liberal politicians and outlets were accusing Trump and Julian of a secret conspiracy Trump was actually using his CIA and a major mega donor named Sheldon Adelson who was involved in this to spy on Julian Assange this explosive revelation of course barely made a blip and that's because the assault on Julian Assange is bipartisan even progressive media the US and UK have taken part in the smear operation against Julian Assange over in London The Guardian the aforementioned Luke Harding smeared Assange with a series of articles including printing an outright fabrication that he secretly met with Paul Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy one of the most surveilled places in the world a story that two years later has still not been retracted here in the US the intercept was so useful to the campaign against Julian that none other than Mike Pompeo the former CIA chief and secretary of state cited one of its attacks on Julian the fact that our media even our progressive media has run cover for a malicious criminal persecution of the most important media figure of our time speaks to what is at stake here for our humanity in defending Julianís life we are not just defending a noble human being but someone who stirs in all of us the very best in our humanity one that prioritizes human life above profit and power and one that sees truth as an inherent value and right not something to be silenced and we are defending ourselves from those who prioritize power and profit and are threatened by Julianís humanity as a result we can see it now happening to others who commit great sacrifice to stand up for the truth and expose state lies the same forces who seek to silence Julian Assange and also silencing the OPACW whistleblowers who exposed a major pro-war deception in Syria the OPACW found no evidence of a chemical attack in Syria but their investigation was censored and kept from the public this cover-up helped justify the pretext for a U.S.-led bombing of Syria and murderous sanctions on the Syrian people that continue today we know all of this because brave whistleblowers challenged the cover-up and because WikiLeaks then showed the world the explosive leaked documents that proved it now that cover-up and effect continues in the media where all the major outlets including progressive outlets are refusing to acknowledge the whistleblowers existence Julian has said that the purpose of WikiLeaks is to try and understand humankind and then from that we can produce a better or more realistically put less worse human civilization when it comes to understanding humankind the contribution from Julian and his brave organization is incalculable as for whether or not we can make human civilization less worse a major test the key test for this moment right now is whether Julian this noble defender of the best of our humanity is freed from the clutches of its worst Stella Morris who was Julian's partner and mother of their two young children recently said quote we are in a situation now where the only two outcomes that will happen are that either Julian regains his freedom or he loses his life and if he loses his life it's not because he's suicidal it's because they are killing him for the sake of Julian for the sake of humanity's future we cannot let them prevail thank you I would like to thank Roger Rogers from his lustrous music career he is a composer a lyricist and co-founder of the British rock band Pink Floyd that band was revered within the industry for their pioneering blend of words, music and visual light effects Roger could have easily rested on those laurels but he did not he exposed crimes against Palestine and is now exposing crimes in Ecuador as Chevron dumped its oil waste in indigenous communities killing thousands these issues are coming to light in the current trial of Stephen Donziker one of Roger's most significant actions took place during a fairly recent music event when he pulled the plugs on the light show for which he became famous and the scrim went dark in a daring message to say that art and politics are not binary out of that darkness emerged a single sentence like a clarion call resist the attempted silencing of Julian Assange please welcome Roger Rogers wow how do you follow all that humbly I mean that's pretty amazing Randy was made me laugh and he also showed an extremely erudite knowledge of the fight those of us who care about human life have made down the years so thanks Randy Chris Hedges is Chris Hedges he's always been one of my great great heroes and Aaron is my absolute go-to guy any truth really about anything if I'm watching a TV screen anyway so thank you for rushing and thank you for the OPCW and thank you for all the other stuff that we get from Greyzone I had no idea we were going to be here this long and I had written a bunch of notes to which I may refer briefly soon but first of all I had to scribble down the name of Black in Albright when I was writing this on this cover here so let us not forget her famous saying about the 500,000 children who died after the sanctions before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and how in her opinion it was a price worth paying so thank you Madeline for those kind words okay and also let's not forget Craig Murray Randy and I were marching with in London now that is one of my notes so I'm going to get the notes out in a minute Craig Murray was at the march from the Australian Embassy to Parliament Square whenever that was alright I'm going to start at the beginning I promise to be brief Namir Noor Eldin who we've heard about again and again and his colleague and driver Said Shamar they are part of the collateral murder film that Chelsea Manning and Julian between them brought to us if Julian Assange is in prison for publishing that video well I should be in prison too because we showed that video on every single night of my wall tour from 2010 to 2013 alright that's a thing here we go skip seven years of vicious smearing in the MSN read all about it convicted rapist Julian Assange wipes his ass on Embassy Cat nails it to the wall sets it on fire and then cooks it for dinner female member of Spanish surveillance team throws up in a bucket in a van across the street that's just one news item that I thought I'd share with you Lenin Moreno let's not go there oh yeah on September the 2nd my friend Andy Fowler the low and I sang wish you were here all nice and pretty to pretty patelle Bojo's fascist home secretary outside the home office in marching street we were there John and Gabriel we were all there together and Randy was there as well so whatever that's enough of that patelle naughty naughty land only voices she hears are the voices of her masters this is the home secretary by the way of the country that I used to call home blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah this is what I was talking about last year before Covid on the 22nd of February we marched from the Australian Embassy to Parliament and made speeches directed at the ridiculous Bojo Boris Johnson to those of you who aren't familiar with the sobriquet for that moron the speeches were not for him the man is a Claude I have this theory that when the Tories are looking for a new Prime Minister for the future they send a search party to eat in college have a word with the house masters explain their quest I beg your pardon and with any luck they find a perfect candidate so let's say some time in the late 1970s I say we've got just the chap Boris Johnson Boris, from 4C hovering just this side of educationally subnormal 14 years old just learning to tie his own shoelaces but he's very biddable perfect put him down for PM sometime in the late teens that's Boris sorry I'm trying to be funny like Randy was whatever Hello? It's Washington, Prime Minister. Gosh, what do they want? They want to lock up this Assange chap. Why, what's he done? They say, and I'm quoting Washington now, sir, they say, tell that little prick Johnson that it's not that it's any of his business that Assange keeps publishing inconvenient truths about U.S. war crimes. Good God, we can't have that. Lock him up and throw away the key. And I'm sorry to joke about this, but this is the level at which they're operating because it's a fucking joke as we all know. That's what it is. So anyway, I'll get past all of this because it could take some time. Shouldn't we have a child, Prime Minister? What? Dear God, all right, very well. But no jury. I never liked all that Magna Carta nonsense. Give it to that Barrett's a woman. Not very bright, but good family. Married to what's his name? Yes, give it to her. She's very biddable, which she is. As the people who have been there, who were, as Chris knows, he was in the courtroom with them. As Craig Murray, our friend who is now languishing in a prison in Scotland, knows about, he was, he reported on every day of those proceedings as well. So he knows all about Vanessa Barrett, sir. Sorry, where was I? Oh look, finishing the subject, I'd like to thank the Shipton men for having me here. Thanks men. I know really, really, I'm, and I'd like to thank all of you who are here tonight as well because we are a small band of brothers and sisters, but we are an important band of brothers and sisters. And I feel very honored to be part of this small band. Right, hang up. James Lewis. Okay, just at the, just, just, I'm gonna skip here. Well, I made a speech in Parliament Square that day. And there's some sweet and earnest young lady came up and started tugging at my sleeve when I was just getting to the good bits. And I thought, fuck me. Dear God in heaven. Are you, anyway, I didn't, I didn't remonstrate with her because she was perfectly nice, I'm sure. Okay. No, that's about Daniel here. Oh, look, this is perfect. There are other speakers here. So I will make way. I could stand here all day railing against the dying of the light. Should we not stand bulldog-like with arms link ranks closed in front of our brothers and comrade Julian Assange. And when the lack is of the American Empire come to take him to destroy him and hang him in the hedge as a warning to frightened future journalists, we will look them in the eye and steadfast with one voice we will entone over my dead fucking body. Thank you. Well, yeah, I mean, everyone here amazing, amazing speeches from everybody that was really good. And it's just, you know, it's really wonderful to see all the support everyone here who came out. You know, we've, since we've arrived here in the US, it's just the amount of support from the people is, you know, just really kept us going, really lifted our spirits and we're sort of walking on air since we, you know, since we landed here. We arrived in Miami last week and we did a, you know, a couple of events there. And now we were in Boston yesterday and today in New York. And after this, we've got 14 more stops across June, you know, East Coast and Midwest and then West Coast. And I'll just give you a little update of, you know, where we are, you know, Julian's case, obviously he won, he won his extradition case at the beginning of January or the, you know, Vanessa Baraitza, you know, she upheld all the points of law that rejected the extradition on health grounds saying that if Julian was extradited, it would be, you know, a death sentence for him. So she rejected the extradition and the US appealed instantly, signaled their appeal. And a few days later, Julian went for bail and he was refused bail. And so six months has now passed since the refusal of bail and we still don't know when there will be an appeal. So what we're seeing is just a, it's just another instance of this abuse of process that Julian has been suffering under for, you know, going on 12 years now. But why it's so important that, you know, we've come over here now to do this to her and to sort of prepare the ground is that, you know, there is an opportunity now for the Biden administration and Merrick Garland just to discontinue and drop this case. And this is the perfect point for them just to say to the UK, okay, enough's enough, you know, reject the appeal and let's all sort of forget about this and move on to some sort of, you know, ghastly, you know, so many things about the Trump administration. But this one could be easily fixed and forgotten about. So we're really here to raise, you know, to prepare the ground for Biden and Merrick Garland to drop the charges. So, you know, everyone has to sort of, you know, pressure Merrick Garland, pressure your representatives to really drop, you know, pressure the DOJ to drop this prosecution against Julian. Cool. I'll hand over to John. Good evening, everybody. And thank you very much. Such a warm welcome and impressive speakers. You know, all the stuff I put in my head to speak about, it's all sort of gone now because Chris, Roger, Randy covered the lot. I mean, they really got into it. There's a couple of things that might be in one is the irony of Gabriel and I being wandering advocates in the United States for the First Amendment that, here we are, this is our job to wander, to wander the United States saying, you know, look, everybody in the Western world envies your constitution. In particular, the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Each election in Australia, the politicians are stimulated by the constituencies to run around saying, oh, we've got to have a Bill of Rights or we've got to have a First Amendment. And it's the same in every Western country. The next is that just in the positive, leaks can stop wars, have stopped wars. In 2006, a group of American soldiers in the heat of her anger and murder murdered an entire family in Baghdad, in Iraq, 2006. Every single one of them, the children, mum and dad and grandfather and aunties, uncles, sisters, brothers, the lot. Contemplating this crime, this heinous crime, they called in an airstrike, the airstrike obliterated evidence of those people from the earth. And this was noted in the cables. When the cables were released, the Iraqi Parliament read them and their courage came to them and they refused to renew the status of forces agreement. As a consequence, the United States had to remove its troops from Iraq along with its allies Australia. So one, leaks can stop wars. Two, leaks can bring justice. The Guantanamo Bay files exposed the circumstances including 22 children being taken to Guantanamo Bay. An American lawyer named Clive Stafford Smith started an NGO called Reprieve and made it his vocation to use the Guantanamo Bay files to get people that have been taken to Guantanamo to get them to freedom. Exposing, of course, things like the torture of one British subject had his penis sliced as some way of incentivizing him to say some more. Of course, it's just sadism. So that's two. It brought justice to some of those people in Guantanamo Bay. Three, there's a company, Figuera, who was charged with waste disposal. They disposed of e-waste off the coast of Africa. This was revealed in the WikiLeaks files and the people inhabiting the village, 144 died, and people inhabiting the village were able to take their matter and bring justice to those who were affected and bring justice to those who committed this crime before. The Chagos Islanders were all removed. The Chagos Islanders were under a mandate from, I'm sorry, the Chagos Islanders were possessed by the United Kingdom, the group of islands in the Indian Ocean. The United States wanted an air force base called Diego Garcia, so it removed the entirety of the population and dumped them in Mauritius. The files enabled the Chagos Islanders to take a case to the International Court of Justice, which they won the United Kingdom appeal and the appeal failed. So that's four instances in the positive of what leaks and what the work of WikiLeaks and others and others, including the others, can bring. Very important, very important. So I thank you all and just to keep firmly in mind that these matters can suffer correction. There are many people like Clyde Stafford Smith, there are many people like Chris Hedges, Aaron Mathek, Roger Waters, who put their shoulders behind it and moved things. The entirety, oh, one more that may interest you. It's very important. Antigone was the most beautiful woman who came down to us from heaven because she wanted the funeral rites for her dead brother. The naming of the dead is very important to us. When the collateral murder video was decrypted and watched, they saw the murder of those 11 people. Julian and Kristen Hansen, the editor, the current editor, decided that Kristen would go to Seder City in Baghdad. This is at the time when Seder City was a turmoil of revolutionary fervor against the occupation. So he went there, Kristen went and he took the film to the nephew of Nadine and showed it to them and was able to give a name to those two photographers who died and continued his exploration and attempting to find the names of the other 11 they failed. They had disappeared. So there's a quality in Julian and WikiLeaks and Kristen Hansen that's very special. They had the leaks, but they continued at risk to themselves to attempt to give a name to the dead. Very important. So there are five things that are positive results of the efforts of people who make leaks and the efforts of those like our panel here who bring them to the public attention and consequently forming a cloud that demands justice be done and justice be served. Thank you very much. Okay, so I think we're going to open up the floor for some Q&A and I just wanted to remind people that Julian's legal costs are going to be pretty high going forward and we passed a bucket around a tray and if you could please give what you can and we also have the information here. So I think we're going to start here to line up or if anyone has a question here right okay yeah if anyone has questions you want to get in and just kind of line up here. That pushes things out and suppresses and memory holds things to local state board of WBAI a crestial radio station which is in a crestial form not subject to that sense right. How do we get the narrative out in this world where we've got the internet sort of there as a big fog and paper of things? How do we get around the internet? We can use it at the same time, but how do we avoid censoring property? Anybody? Anybody? This is the WBAI. 99.5 FM. So you raise a good point because all of us have been hit with algorithms I have I'm sure you have these were put in place in 2017 after the publication of an anonymous document called Prop or Not on the front page of the Washington Post Propaganda or Not all of the sites that I write for that run my stuff that's all true for you Aaron Wright and Randy were subject black agenda report counterpunch were targeted they they and you have you saw I think Glenn Greenwald and Matt Tyvey have done good work on this how Silicon Valley is essentially bonded with a Democratic Party establishment it's one of the reasons why I opposed removing Trump from Twitter as obnoxious and venal as he is once you allow unaccountable unelected bodies like Google, YouTube, Twitter to start carrying out that kind of wholesale censorship and remember we know nothing about them internally they know everything about us then you walk forward towards a very frightening kind of dystopia and John was holding cipherpunks when we came in which you shall read by the way when was it written John but it was old but 2012 or something but it's quite prescient I mean if you look Julian's quite dark about where we're headed because he understands the power of the internet to carry out wholesale censorship and I do think that you know it already is a current reality you know because the internet is not a public utility because the Democratic Party will not break up these large monopolies you know a lot of our work is going to have to go back to the old-fashioned kind of work like this and and there's something very salutary about that because it allows us to not only share information but also to build community this was I think part of the why I found Zuccotti and the Occupy movement so moving is that you know it bring we you know where do they want us they want us you can't do activism on a computer screen you're still alone in your room in front of a computer screen and that's exactly where they want you where they don't want you is here and and that's why I think getting out in the street and although we did have the pandemic never forget that black lives matter at the height of the pandemic was out there after the George Floyd murder and that that's really those are the mechanisms not only by which we will begin to put pressure on the centers of power but frankly also the mechanism by which we will begin to transmit information as electronic forms of information become more and more draconian I'd just like to say something very brief this this is something that I actually put in my folder when I came out here today you have no idea what it is nobody does because it arrived on the internet to me this morning it's a request for the rights to use my song another brick in the wall too in the making of a film to promote Instagram so it's a miss if it's a miss if from Mark Zuckerberg to me right arrived this morning with an offer of a huge huge amount of money and the answer is fuck you no fucking way and I I only mentioned that because this is an insidious it's the insidious movement of them to take over absolutely everything you know so those of us who do have any power and I do have a little bit in terms of the control of the publishing of my songs I do anyway so I will not be a party to this bullshit Zuckerberg we're keeping that engineer at WBI very busy there's seven words we can't see what are they what are the seven words I know that one I know that one too anyway sorry I didn't mean to interrupt proceedings that's okay you should look you want to hear what these pricks have got to say I mean that one's okay I'm gonna tell you what he had to say because it's amazing a portrait of people they always get wrong news clips reading lazy's generation followed immediately by will they save the word blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then the very lovely pictures of young designers who I can just see it up there with the song thundering away in the background in fact they have some of the you know each each leave those kids alone we want to thank you for considering this project we feel that the core sentiment of this song is still so prevalent and necessary today which speaks to how timeless the work is true and yet they want to they want to join it they want to use it to make Facebook and Instagram even bigger and more powerful than it already is so that it can continue to censor all of us in this room and prevent this story about Julian Assange getting out to the general public so the general public could go what what no no more not a mass anyway you know that's a really good question probably I mean Zuckerberg features in my new rock and roll show I've got him sit and now I shouldn't tell you but but he does but you think how did this little prick who started off by saying she's pretty we'll give her a four out of five she's ugly we'll give her a one how the did he get any power in anything and yet here he is one of the most powerful idiots in the world and he's dictated I've never met the man but I'll take your word for it anyway let's not go so kaboching is that kaboching I'm sorry okay our next question um my name is Irving Lee I'm a activist in New York City I want to address the tactical approaches that we need to take to get this movie forward I I noticed that there's a common denominator the common force that is actively carrying out the process of war and repression and the focal point of course is the national security state or what's commonly known as the deep state to some people and that there are the ones that are driving the policies that are being enacted now especially the war policies of course attack the Julian Assange and that our approach should be focusing on that focusing on those forces primarily the PNAC project for the American Century the New Conservatives over the dominant faction right now that's driving this policy and they're the common denominator that's driving the war not against Assange but the current hybrid war against China right now and of course the current war in the Middle East so I think that's one of the things that we should focus on is those forces that are driving the policies that are dictating the Democrats and Republican parties right now and so that's that's the focus that's the I think that's a tactical action the tactics the tactics that's a tactical question we have to get the as grandpa Al Lewis said grandpa Munster said we have to get the asses of the masses on the street that's the most I mean it's you know mass civil disobedience works I covered the revolutions in Eastern Europe I was in East Germany Czechoslovakia Romania and once you put 500,000 people on the street in Venselau Square Alexander plots day after day and you have as we have a discredited elite eventually what happens is the foot soldiers of the elite in the case of East Germany it was an elite paratroop division they sent to Leipzig which ended up not being deployed Hanukkah after 19 years was out it works and you don't actually need in terms of percentages a huge number of people but you do need people willing to carry out acts of self-sacrifice I think Julian is the exemplar of that but really that is the mechanism and and these elites know even better than anyone in this room what a criminal enterprise they are and they're terrified of being found out I would look at Vaslav Havel's great essay The Power of the Powerless where he writes about living in truth I was in the Magic Lantern Theater in Prague every night with Havel and Dinsbury and Klaus and all the people who would inherit the government Havel was not a very charismatic figure he was not even a good public speaker but he had that moral authority since 1977 with Charter 77 he'd been a non-person and you know I would just add that also when you carry out those acts of defiance oftentimes the moment the act is carried out it doesn't appear to have any effect but in fact it triggers the conscience of a wide number of people so that for instance in Prague I was in Vensela Square when Marta Kubasheva she'd been the most famous Czech singer in 1968 and when the Soviets invaded they overthrew Dubček but she had sung the prayer for Marta which was the anthem of defiance so in the intervening years they had not only banned her from the airwaves but destroyed her recording stock and she had worked on an assembly line in a toy factory and she walked out on that balcony on that December night and began to sing a prayer for Marta and every Czech in the crowd knew every word that is the power of moral resistance and it has it has there is a kind of contagion to it this is why I figure like Julian I think is so incredibly important not only for the act of actually telling the truth but for actually empowering those who hear the truth but it really does come from from rising up physically and and defying those elites and and also demanding which I think Occupy did and they targeted Wall Street on purpose because that's where the center of power in America lies demanding something the power elites can never give which is their own destruction that has to be the first call and it begins as a kind of utopian call but and have I covered you know the street demonstrations that brought down Milosovic I covered the two into Fadas it and Randy had talked about the mothers of a plaza de Mayo where I also covered Argentina it has a kind of power but somebody has to step out in many ways I look at Julian as a figure like that he stepped out and of course they went after him but is now our job to step out after him it's our moral responsibility to step out and put our bodies on the line because that is the only power we have and it is a power that does frighten those who govern I want to add to that the the smear campaign against Julian has been really effective especially that targeted at liberals and Russia gate was a weapon for that really really effective and it's going to be hard to win some liberals back but we need to do that to build the support we need to convince this liberal this neoliberal administration to drop the case against Julian and the politics have shifted just to illustrate Sarah Palin the McCain vice presidential nominee when Trump was leaving office and doing a final round of pardon Sarah Palin recorded a video asking Trump to pardon Julian and spoke out about how he had exposed important corruption so Sarah Palin this right-wing figure people in this room most of them don't agree with Sarah Palin anything but Sarah Palin did a more forceful and powerful appeal for freeing Julian Estallage than any major political figure on the establishment progressive left including Bernie Sanders so that signifies what a weird time we're in what a hard task we have but in terms of convincing liberals we have a strong case this is a Trump administration policy they brought this case they waged a campaign to spy on Julian and to engineer his expulsion from the embassy it's all there the the main person behind this achy figure is Mike Pompeo so optically does the Biden administration want to be pursuing the biggest assault on press freedom in US history and one carried out by the person who he vowed to be the opposite of Donald Trump I mean no so it's an easy case and we have to make it and we have to be able to stand up when people are vilified as Julian has it has this scare tactic and it makes people you know it imposes a cost for people stand up to defend him and people have been scared and we saw again progressive outlets getting duped into going along with the russia gate thing getting duped into the swedish fake case but we can't be shy about that anymore we have to all just do what we can to speak the truth because the truth which Julian has stood up for always is what will set him free too because the facts are just without fail on his side next question hey how's it going I'm a long time Assange activist and the thing is that I'm tired of losing so let me tell you some things I'm working on right now that I wish to God that you could help me on one of the things is that I'm interviewing every single candidate that I can running for office here in Newark City because a majority of city council sits will flip in this election meaning that historically control of the city will change in a way that has historically not before if I one of the questions that I ask every single candidate that I get my hands on the first question I say is do you support Assange being freed if we can get a majority of these people who are getting elected to stay at these ports on you can say the city of New York supports Assange but guess what it's not only New York City's that that's in a prime requisite for change we look at the 2022 elections we look at the House of Representatives we said we're restricting places a new opportunity for us to place political pressure on the system with independent congress we are gathering all third party independent candidates not only and I'm also willing to work within republicans democrats by the way there's also another on my channel dgl7 we have a coalition meeting republicans democrats green party libertarian and we all agree the first thing as a tradition that we agree on two things we say the first thing we say is number one can we support Assange number two the second thing we say is if our leaders will not help us get the things we need we as a base will get together and get the things that we want because honestly it's stupid that the 99% of being bossed on by the 1% so on these projects such as the once again the Assange right and locally right I'm China handling in New York as much as I can but in other localities we could have other a lot of elections are coming up if those local elections could start to people could also start to ask their people running Assange is a real issue we are going to talk about we will coordinate and I'm you're all inspiration thank you so much yeah can you guys help me and for the 22 elections can you guys get involved with that independent congress and I do I swear to you look at my material Assange has always been a high the first priority thanks for the work you do thank you okay our next question oh sorry sure I know it's interesting how the government always uses excuses of national security to prosecute and silence opposition however speaking about an event we have an event here often once a year and that's not helpful really very very little help it does most people in the street they don't even know who Julian Assange is we should be having demonstrations every week not having a feel-good rally or feel-good talk you know once a year I'm so glad to see so many people here because last year Marty and Eric will tell you could barely muster 20 people in fact I'm even glad for the people who are just here just just a virtual signal because we couldn't even get that I mean unfortunately no when we try to approach different left parties they were instead of being concerned about Assange I feel in freedom they seem to be more concerned about promoting a lockdown whose only purpose was to censor silence and distract from the fact that we were in great depression too and it's meant to stop working people from organizing and creating another occupy a real one even today as I'm speaking there are children right now in this country whose voices are being silenced who are hungry you most always question when the government says something is about national security or for your for your safety yet and your question this is a speech we've listened to lots and lots of speeches if you have a question we could quick questions my question is where do we go from here I mean we should be having demos every week I'm Diane ser I am an associate of the late Lyndon LaRouche I'm sorry this is an event just about Julian Assange thank you let's keep it on Julian okay yeah our next question so I heard you mentioned Lenin Moreno when you were talking a moment ago and what I wanted to ask about is the connection between the Latin American left and the WikiLeaks case more generally but also specifically the history of Raphael Correa and Julian Assange I don't know if everyone here knows but there was a presidential election in Ecuador earlier this year where right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso took power and I think it definitely decisively moved Ecuador away from supporting press freedom and certainly from supporting WikiLeaks or Julian Assange so I'm just curious what are your thoughts both historically the role that Correa and the Latin American left play but also what role do they have to play going forward in the WikiLeaks case but also in the Assange case specifically well the Latin American left I lived in Latin America for six years it it it it rises it's the left in Latin America is far more organized and I would argue far more astute and far more militant because it understands the issues of class and imperialism in a way that the left in the United States often doesn't fully grasp and it's beaten back with huge amounts of support by the CIA look Lenin Moreno was bought off with an IMF loan to have authorized the British police Theresa May to enter the Ecuador Embassy in London which is sovereign Ecuadorian territory and stripped Julian of his citizenship he had been given citizenship by Ecuador and haul him out and and that's why Lenin Moreno was put in power and then of course they've also vilified and gone after Correa so but the there there's always a kind of you know battle there that you don't see in the United States and and that left has the potential we've seen in Mexico and other countries to come back so I think the Latin American left is extremely important you know in terms of you know pushing back against the hegemony of American imperialism it looks as if Castillo is going to win in Peru I've just been checking the figures which is a huge thing because that could have gone but it looks as if he's going to win Pedro Castillo and our next question okay I'll try to phrase this I mean I appreciate the the panel and we've gone over and pointed out the lineup of both Democrats and Republicans who have persecuted Assange and the way that the ruling class as a whole has lined up behind them when do we draw political conclusions that it's no longer worthwhile to try to pressure the Democratic Party that we have to turn to an independent social force I'm from the World Socialist website and I was out speaking to transit workers this morning and fighting to mobilize turn to the working class who has been through an extraordinary experience with the pandemic that is seething with social opposition okay so your question is yes so when do we draw these political conclusions about the Democratic Party in particular Chris answered that about half an hour ago you just get out in the streets get the World Socialist website together and get out in the streets civil disobedience we know that's it it's now it's tonight today tomorrow now okay so our next question so civil disobedience can also include uncivil disruption and I'd like to see us take on the meetings that go on in New York that will be resume again of all the press associations in New York that we go in and we demand that all the press associations fight for Julian Assange and raise it and we disrupt them as we have did in the past for Mami Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier and others and we take that all up again uh second thing is why do you think Sarah Palin made that statement I I think it's really uh if you believe she did that out of the goodness of her heart I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you Aaron you know I didn't say that she didn't have the goodness of her heart and the last thing I wanted to recognize uh a hero to many of us is Ralph Pointer who is a political prisoner here in the United States and he's out now thanks my name is Shahid comrade and I'm a secretary general Pakistan USA freedom forum I hear just let you know that we all citizens of this world arrived thank you for standing for the freedom of speech we have the right to know everything being a citizen of this earth and I want to salute that embassy who give them the shelter in London here Ecuadorian it's a very hard time for the Ecuadorian poor country so it shows us you and me we can stand for the truth and we have a right to know the truth the crime by the United States and allies of wars and your question that's what I'm trying to all right this is a situation anyway I respect the organizers we have to be clearly show the world that's the question how we can show the world that's the occupier and the occupier is the same USA is occupied Israel is occupied India is occupied so we have to keep the distinguished thing otherwise there will be no truth okay thank you thank you thank you quickly in terms of this statement to go to uh Merrick garland uh can you say I mean asking Merrick garland to you know do something around the sun seems to be a big leap I want to answer this because there's a woman in the justice department by the name of Anita Gupta she's number three we were in two-year Texas as Patricia brought up the concert fund for four years or three and a half years we organized we got a lot of press Jim Yardley Bob Herbert everybody the concert girls made wonderful documentaries late in the we got so much press and it was such a big movement we organized families down there late into the movement a woman by the name of Anita Gupta kind of parachuted in and was one of the uh lawyers in in one of the appeals of the 46 two-year defendants that were in prison they all got out but she they backdated it where she started the whole thing three or four years earlier and that's why she was nominated they brought it up and that's fine it made her career Benita Gupta she's now number three at the justice department we need to put the pressure on her she reached the benefit of this great movement in Tulia Texas and I can't imagine that she would allow Julian Assange it would undermine everything that she stood for back then because without the press they wouldn't have gotten out and she would not be well known now and be the third line as attorney general so remember that name Benita Gupta in the future we have someone in there that should be listening or should that that Merrick Garland should be listening to and I hope she speaks up because it would be a but she should resign if they go through with this it probably very good to put that in connection with this because otherwise as we know all the administrations are involved in the crimes that Julian exposed so they're all covering their ass basically uh so I want to say that and I want to end with one comment which is since I'm also associated with Mr. Varouche I think I'm sorry this we don't want to talk we really don't want to talk about the Bush did I do hey listen it's I'm going to stand up and say something now thank you all so much for coming it's been great thank you that we're done