 In South Africa, what brought about liberation was active citizenship and this campaign is a wonderful example of active citizenship. It's also a great honor for me to speak on a platform with such esteemed people in support of that most revolutionary of things, a truth teller. And particularly, I would like to say what an honor it is to share a platform with Laurie, for it is your courage, your imagination, and your humanism to conceive of a better world. That is so important at a time when as we listen to those names of people who are suffering because of their commitment to truth, because of their commitment to a better world, we have to ask ourselves, what is going on? How is it possible for these corrupt mediocrities, evil, evil people whose primary and overwhelming concern is their own material well-being, their own political and economic power? How did we get to this point? And how on earth do we get out of it? And I want to talk and forgive me for being slightly personal and slightly anecdotal in doing this. I want to talk about two aspects of why Julian has been treated as he has. Because it is, of course, a tragedy and a travesty of justice that we need to be here at all. Let us remind ourselves that what Julian has revealed in the most powerful way possible, in the words, in the writings of the powerful, how they have undertaken illegal invasions, illegal in terms of their own laws, illegal invasions that have led to numerous deaths, to torture, to war crimes. And because he dared to expose the militarism and the arms trade that underpins it, this is a trade that accounts for 40 percent of all corruption in all global trade. This is a trade that as we sit here tonight ensures that American and British bombs dropped from American and British jets piloted by Saudi Emirati and mercenary pilots is murdering innocent civilians in cold blood in Yemen in our name and using our tax pounds and dollars. And who benefits from this? Who benefits materially and politically? And it's not always as direct as the case of our former Prime Minister Theresa May, who as she continued to sell arms into the Yemen conflict, as she gave the go-ahead for bombings in Syria, her husband through the business that he runs, which is invested primarily in the very defense companies that were profiting massively from these military outrages. It's not quite as direct as Theresa May and her husband were benefiting, but it's as pernicious and egregious because it is the politicians, their political parties, who receive extraordinary sums of money from all of those involved in this deadly trade. The military and intelligence leaders who leave office to get paid in retrospective bribes with huge signing on bonuses of the very defense companies to which they have given contracts while they're supposedly serving in public office. It is the corporate executives who might at one point want to run a good company, but as soon as they realize that when they pay a bribe, they receive part of that bribe in what we call the feedback principle. Just as Sir Richard Evans, Executive Chair of BAE Systems at the time that they paid six billion pounds in bribes on an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, was rewarded with a six and a half million pound apartment in Mayfair in West London. Or Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark, who has paid a 12 million bribe on that same deal. These corporate executives soon are not looking for someone to sell weapons to, they're looking for someone to bribe because that's how they can make the most money. And of course the intermediaries, not the shadowy dodgy arms dealers of Hollywood films, but the besuited multi-billionaire arms dealers who live in the most expensive parts of London. The bankers, the lawyers, the auditors, and the consultants, all of whom become incredibly wealthy on the back of this trade in death. And of course, all of this is protected by a veil of national security imposed secrecy. The very veil which people like Laurie and Julian and others have been courageous enough to try and pull aside so that we, the citizens of the countries doing these things, can see what our leaders are doing in our name and with our money. But let us also never forget that power and its compliant media will never give up anything willingly. That the only way power concedes is when enough of us, for long enough, struggle against that power to overthrow it. And you know, as we sit here tonight wondering whether tomorrow the British justice system will do finally what is legally and morally right in Julian's case, or whether it will once again show itself to be the US's corrupt little poodle. As we sit here and imagine the foreboding that Julian must be sitting in his cell with tonight. As we sit here, let us commit ourselves to the sort of struggle that hopefully tomorrow, but if not tomorrow, in another tomorrow, will finally set Julian free. And what gives me hope that this will finally happen is because I had the enormous privilege as a white, comfortable, privileged South African to play a very tiny and insignificant role in the struggle against a legalized system of racism, apartheid. And you know, at very little inconvenience to myself, at very little inconvenience to myself, I was forced to leave my country, South Africa, in the mid 1980s to avoid serving in the apartheid military. And the night before I was needing to leave the country at somewhat short notice, I drove up to a hill that overlooks Cape Town. And I thought to myself, never in my life will I see my homeland again. Because that's what everybody thought, that the strength and power of the apartheid state supported by the British, American, and many European governments seemed immovable. If someone had told me at that point, that just five years later, Nelson Mandela would walk free from 27 years of prison. But four years after that, he would be the country's democratically elected president. I would have not just questioned their level of political understanding. I would have questioned their sanity because it seemed an impossible dream. But that is what happened. That is what happened in South Africa. And the reason it happened was because the vast majority of South Africans refused to stop the struggle for freedom. They made the country literally ungovernable. And with the support of ordinary people in every corner of the world, they forced the banks that had been bankrolling the apartheid state to make it much more expensive for that state to continue its legalized system of racism and oppression. It was done by ordinary people, people like you and I. And South Africa's democracy has not been without massive challenges. After over 360 years of racist oppression, that's hardly surprising. One of those challenges is the way in which military corruption elided from the militarized apartheid state into our young democracy. Just four years after our democracy, the country decided to spend $10 billion on weapons. Weapons that we didn't need, weapons that we have barely used. This was at the time that our president, Tabo Mbaki, told the six million South Africans living with HIV or AIDS that we couldn't afford to provide them with the anti-retrovirals they required to stay alive. Over the next five years, because of that policy choice, 365,000 South Africans died avoidable deaths. 32,000 babies a year were born HIV positive because we couldn't afford mother to child transmission treatment. But we could afford to spend $10 billion on weapons because conservatively the defense companies led by BAE systems championed by Tony Blair paid $350 million in bribes. But you know what? In South Africa's young democracy, where our investigative media puts a country that is supposedly home to the world's oldest parliament to shame on the 11th of April next year, I along with over 200 other people will give evidence against former president Jacob Zuma and the French arms company Thales who bribed him for that corruption. But today, I live in a country where Tony Blair, one of the most corrupt war criminals on this planet, not just walks free, but every time he opens his mouth, every mainstream newspaper in this country, especially the Guardian, fawn over his every word while an actual truth teller is tonight in jail. So let us remind ourselves that to change our political system, to change the nature of the world that we live in, that benefits not even 1% of the population of this planet. It is up to us and no one else. And so let us say together tonight and let us say together tomorrow morning and let us say until Julian is free. Justice for Julian.