 Good evening. I am very pleased to welcome you to this online and in real life politics in the pub event, brought to you by Politics in the Pub at the Gaelic Club in Surrey Hill Sydney and by the Mighty Consortium News. My name is Felicity Ruby and I'm going to be moderating this session. I'm speaking to you tonight from unceded Ewan land on the South post of New South Wales in Australia. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging of this beautiful and sacred land that always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Before I introduce our speakers who will address the case of Julian Assange, a clear case of Western political repression, the subject of our panel. I'm going to make a few introductory remarks and then I'll introduce and invite my panelists to speak to you tonight. First thing I wanted to mention is a new book that was released in December called A Secret Australia. It's a book that I co-edited with Peter Crono. This book explores what we've learned about Australia thanks to WikiLeaks. Because Julian is Australian, some of our book focuses on what his situation says about this case of Western political repression, what it says about the state of our democracy and independence and foreign relations. And while that's a pretty sad tale, quite a lot of it, many Australians are very proud that WikiLeaks was born in Australia and that this bold combination of journalism and technology was pioneered here and has brought so much innovation such as the anonymous digital drop box which is now routine and in many journalistic outlets around the world. WikiLeaks has also shown us the benefits of much more routine global collaborative partnerships between publishers to make the most of big releases. WikiLeaks has really shown the way on so many things. I commend this book to Australians and I suggest also that this model might work well in other countries. Gathering activists, lawyers, journalists and academics to explore what we've learned about Germany and France and Iraq and Afghanistan thanks to WikiLeaks could also produce equally rich volumes. The second point I want to make tonight is that we're right now at one of the most hopeful points in the campaign to free Julian that I've witnessed in the last 10 years of working on this. A most hostile and poisonous court in the UK refused the US extradition request. Yes, in a judgment that is terrible and quite dangerous in very many ways but I'm sure panellists will discuss. Still there is a judgment against extradition. The court has received the US grounds for appeal and will receive Julian's defense team's response on the 29th of March. So here we have a window of opportunity that we must seize to convince the new attorney general in the United States, Merritt Garland, to finally close this shameful chapter. And the third point I want to make is that there's a larger support base than ever. People who have been quiet or downright hostile are seeing sense in greater numbers. Political leaders are saying enough is enough. More unions around the world supported by Julian's union here in Australia the MEAA are organising. More journalists from a broad spectrum of outlets are saying that this cannot proceed without terrible consequences for their profession. More and more human rights activists and lawyers and the general public agree that this journalist and technologist, this Australian, should not be in a cage in Belmarsh Supermax prison in London for publishing. And if you consider the concerted waves of disinformation and psyops from very large well-resourced intelligence agencies and their contractors and collaborators, their mischief makers and provocateurs, this is more of an achievement that we might give ourselves credit for also because the people are very tired after 10 years of campaigning. And the final point I want to make is about this fatigue. Besides Julian, the people who are the most tired are Julian's family who have demonstrated such strength and resolve and who have been tireless in their campaigning. We've all been informed and guided these last 10 years by the enduring courage of Christine Sange, Julian's mother. And the clarity of her distilled facts and reminders to please be factual, polite and encouraging in your advocacy for her son. Right now, John Shipton, Julian's father, is doing a tour of towns from Melbourne to Sydney and then to Canberra. Julian's brother Gabriel is spending a lot more time on the campaign and Stella Morris, Julian's partner, is ceaselessly working to bring him home to their children. We would be well served to be supporting them as much as we can and also to be inspired by them to act now and to seize this moment with both hands, to have ideas and to implement them however small and however ambitious. I'm now very pleased to introduce members of the panel. Our first speaker tonight will be Scott Ludlam. He's a former Australian Senator for the Australian Greens and he served in the Senate from 2008 to 2017 and he was deputy leader of the Australian Greens from 2015 to 2017. He campaigned ceaselessly throughout his time in the Parliament to support WikiLeaks and he's also coming out with a very wonderful book quite soon. Look out for it because it also includes discussion of the power of WikiLeaks. We will then hear from some of the mighty doctors for Sange, Professor Thomas Schultze and Bill Hogan who have worked to advocate for awareness of Julian's health and they will discuss why the judgment that found against extradition on health grounds was right. The next speaker will be Joe Larrier who's with Consortium News and he'll give an eyewitness account of the case. Consortium News monitored like a very difficult case given COVID restrictions and terrible technology. Consortium News was among a handful of outlets that covered the case very very well and he has quite a lot of insight into the Espionage Act and will be a very interesting speaker tonight. We'll also hear from Nigel Parry who'll provide an insider story of the unredacted cables by the first journalist to decrypt them. Parry's investigation with media partners is fascinating. He co-founded the Electronic Interfader and has been working in other areas and he will speak on the impact of Julian's work. And then we'll have some free discussion among the panelists and after that some some Q&A from our YouTube audience but also from the in real life politics in the pub in Sydney. So I'd now like to hand it over to Scott Ludlam, our first speaker for tonight. Hey good evening and thank you Felicity. Thanks to the organisers and everybody for bringing us together. I'm also speaking to you from unceded UN country on the south coast of New South Wales and I'd also like to give a plug for this remarkable book A Secret Australia. The book is a great read for this campaign and it's also a great reset for two reasons in particular that I'd like to speak to. One is that it focuses on the purpose of the work. The book focuses on what was it that we learned from the publications that WikiLeaks made possible. What did we learn from the publications that people have put themselves deeply into harm's way to bring into the public domain? What did we learn about our country and about our world? All of us have been subjected to a decade of disinformation and misdirection to focus on Julian's character or on his socks or on his cap and so the essays in here read to me like a reset switch. Even for people who have been around this issue for a long while you will learn things about why this work mattered, why this work was done in the first place. The purpose of WikiLeaks, the purpose of journalism is to help us understand how power operates when it thinks nobody is looking. The second reason I find this book really valuable is in its timing. It's being distributed now right at the moment where we have our best opportunity in a decade to free Julian Assange. In the essay that I contributed I talk a little bit about political repression and the purpose that it serves. Principally, repression is to provoke fear and to dampen social movements by making an example of people whether they be high-profile people or just ordinary people and I feel as though I'm used to thinking of repression and maybe most of us have been taught to think of repression as a thing that happens in Burma or in Hong Kong or in Saudi Arabia but that's what this is. The purpose of repression is to make our allies go quiet. It's to make people avoid eye contact with us. It's to make the work that we're doing feel as though we're pushing it uphill and that's what it is. They're attempting to destroy the reputation of the principles. I mean we have to work hard to know and so do those who've directed this precisely the opposite effect. Repression can and I feel as though that's our job tonight and it's our job every single hour until our friend walks free. Provoke and inspire defiance and ensure that this repression is a failure. When Joe Biden was last in the White House the administration had made a judgment quite a carefully reasoned one that it couldn't prosecute Julian and the rest of the WikiLeaks team without running headfirst into the First Amendment and every single media partner that WikiLeaks had worked with during the course of its publications. Trump and Pompeo reversed that decision. Trump and Pompeo are gone. A new attorney general, a different political culture, different senior officials, different relationships with the liberal establishment in DC and across the United States. It is time for us to reach out now as Australians, as people with the unique ability to say that Julian is from here is that he's one of us. It's time for us to reach out so that the first item on the incoming Attorney General's desk and the easiest for him to resolve is to free Julian Assange and end this assault on journalism once and for all. So if you're here on this call or if you're at the pub or if you're coming across this live stream sometime later it likely means that you're already part of the solution that you've already refused to submit to fear that you're already feeling defiance and that's how you've come across this thing and so if you have a good idea now is the time to put it into effect. The Labor Party is shifting, trade union movement is shifting. Felicity gave us a range of factors that show that the ground is moving behind this campaign that is the most important time for us to push as hard as we can. If you're here reach out to somebody and let's get moving. Let's sprint for a month and get our friend free so that he can return to his family. Thank you so much for being here and I look forward to participating as we go. Great thank you Scott. I was reminded that in between hearing from Scott and our Doctors for Assange we're going to be hearing a clip from John Kiriakou who was a former CIA employee who went to jail for revealing torture not for undertaking it so please let's switch to the video now thanks Kathy. The New York Times did an expose in the spring of 2016 on one of the maximum security prisons in the state of California and they talked about how the United Nations has determined that solitary confinement for any length of time beyond 15 days is a form of torture. Well in the United States we keep prisoners in solitary confinement for as long as 44 years. This New York Times expose in California was talking about a solitary confinement system where you literally have no contact with any other human being. When you receive mail for example you don't actually get the mail. There's a computer monitor hanging from the ceiling of your cell of your six foot by ten foot cell out of reach so you can't damage it in any way. They'll put your correspondence on the screen for five minutes you stand there and read it and then it's taken off and that's it. The only visitors you're allowed to have are your attorneys and even they are restricted to once a month. You're allowed one phone call a month it's monitored of course live. You're allowed two showers a week. Your meals are provided to you through a slot in the door. Every one of these cells and I know this because I was in solitary confinement. Every one of these cells has a small door at the back and that door leads to a cage that's outside. Now the cage in my case was another six by ten feet and so you can either walk around in a circle or in an oval in your indoor six by ten cell or one hour a day go outside into the cage and walk in a six by ten foot circle. That's enough to drive the sanest man insane. At this California prison things got so desperate that prisoners were smashing windows and eating the broken glass just so they could go outside for medical care and speak to another human being. Well that's pretty harrowing way to introduce the content that our doctors Bill Hogan and Thomas Schultze will address in our next speakers. Doctors for Assange is a group of roughly 300 doctors in over 30 countries on all continents so we're of international scope. What really spurred it on was you know the removal of Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in April of 19 and the subsequent finding of the special repertoire on torture that Julian Assange had been tortured and then evidence of that torture was displayed by Assange at the first phase. Well not even the first phase of his extradition hearing yet but it's some hearings that fall and so the first letter that doctors for Assange wrote was to the Australian government and then another letter to the UK government and several letters sent since we've constantly been advocating that Assange is tortured he must be released from prison and cared for at a teaching hospital of a university and that his legal persecution and the conditions in the prison are contributory per the special repertoire to his torture and the only way to treat him as a victim of torture is to remove him from his conditions and then also when the COVID pandemic broke out he's obviously at grave risk prisons are breeding grounds for infectious diseases and you know he should have been released on unveil minimum last March and we wrote a response to that decision condemning it and so that's been sort of the main message of doctors for Assange and a brief history we have two Lancet letters the you know the leading medical journal in the UK and possibly probably the world and so that's our that's our message that's our advocacy that's what we're insisting on and continue to insist on. Thanks my name is Thomas Schultz I'm a professor of psychiatry in at University of Munich in Germany and upstate in Syracuse upstate New York and I came on board last year middle of last year I had been following the case more as a private citizen I think as many of us like many of us but of course as a doctor I have a different angle from which I look at case like this and of course I then learned about the work of doctors for Assange and I realized oh this is this is great and I definitely have to support them so how that's how I came on board and through the work I learned more about this case I learned about you know everything that had been going on in these 10 years and I and what was really amazing or an eye opener was the report by Niels Melser the UN special recorder and torture and you know he's a well respected figure in this field and he himself said look I didn't want to go into that I I thought Assange was kind of a strange and weirdo and you know and maybe he it was right that he was you know in prison or so but then when he went through all these documents he realized something is wrong here and I'm not I'm not talking about any the legal aspect I'm not a legal scholar I'm a doctor like Bill and we look at that from you know we never really take an oath but people think of that we take an oath but there is an internal oath that of course we have that is helping people and be crying things horrible things when they are happening all over the world and in this case we clearly see that there is torture and the torture was reported people say well how do you know well we have the evidence from a respected person in this field Niels Melser and he he examined Julian with two experts who I personally know I'm also on the executive board of the World Psychiatric Association we have a section on the impact of torture and the then chair of that section the Catalan psychiatrist Pao Perez-Sales was one of the two who interviewed we examined Julian Assange so I know him he's a very respected scholar in the field and the other Dr Duarte Vieira and Nuno Vieira I know him well also he is also very well known in this field he looks more at the bodily harm so we have evidence to an independent evidence that there was torture there was evidence of torture there's psychological damage visible and as doctors we have to decry this and this is going on and what we are we are saying is get him out he needs to be treated and it has been going on I mean 10 years of confinement within the embassy which was not voluntary because he had to you know it's like an asylum seeker he he had to flee from prosecution so and the way he was treated there medical there's sort of a medical neglect and surveillance and so forth that contributed to torture and now the issue is will he in case he's extradited to these prison conditions that he might likely be under will he is there a high risk of committing suicide and sure there is I mean I went through the court document and I think you know all these psychiatrists from both us from the prosecution side and the defense I think they agree there is a mental health issue the question is how you interpret that but I think there's overwhelming there's more overall evidence that these conditions that you would expect there would definitely cause um would pose a great risk suicide yeah and certainly the Sange is no stranger to special administrative measures and how torture detainees or how terror detainees in Guantanamo are treated in the history of the United States and given his publications he's fully aware of the wretched conditions and the fact that the judge in the extradition hearing who was otherwise barreling down the tracks to agreeing with everything the prosecution said held up and made a decision not to extradite based on mental health grounds speaks not only to Asanja's mental state but just the absolutely reprehensible and horrible conditions in U.S. prisons as an American you know the typical American I think I used to be fairly typical you know you're sort of aware of the international condemnation and shock that we still have a death penalty and that we imprisoned so much of our population but I didn't fully come to appreciate just how bad it was until this judge until I read about special administrative measures as described by John Kariaku and others and so the the one thing that the judge couldn't fathom was sending him to the United States because of its horrible horrible prison regime so that was an eye opener but also his mental state really is that bad he's you know the as Thomas so eloquently pointed out this torture is a fact it's a fact established by medical and legal experts the two medical experts accompanied Nils Meltzer examined the Sange independently and then talked about their conclusions so they both independently arrived at the same conclusion that day the the fact that Meltzer was even there was because an American physician Dr. Sondra Crosby was concerned about torture she's also an expert in this area in assessing victims of torture and so anybody who wants to try and dismiss it as well it's just that you know nobody likes prison no this is much worse than that this is an actual medically established fact of torture that that has not been disputed no one else who has done a medical assessment of Assange has come to a different conclusion or disputed the diagnosis there is actually an international diagnostic code for victim of torture so this is you know medically established fact and also in the extradition hearing we learn new things about his mental health we learned he has a form of autism called Asperger syndrome we learned and you know a lot of the reporters hated to report on some of these very personal and private details of Assange's medical history and so I you know want to respect that as well but he was diagnosed with Asperger's and he has had a number of other symptomatologies that clearly established that his severe severe depression and his risk of suicide is high and given his high level of intelligence and creativity and ingenuity the judge was convinced he could indeed and probably and almost certainly would find a way to kill himself yeah I would just like to add well thanks Bill one important fact I think in the non the non-psychiatry experts or the legal experts they think well you treat it right I mean if you have a heart a high blood pressure you take pills and that lowers the blood pressure or you have diabetes you take insulin or you know keep diet and and that that's that's it well here I think the lawyers like the prosecutor the prosecutor's side they might argue well we we can treat that you know we have antidepressants and if there's psychosis health hallucinations delusions well we give anti antipsychotics well first of all if it were that easy no psychiatric patient would not wouldn't would commit suicide under under appropriate medication unfortunately that's awful for psychiatrists to admit but that's that's a reality patients patients with psychiatric disorders do commit suicide even under treatment because there is no magic there's no silver bullet here to to cure this there's no cure you can only control symptoms but you cannot predict what will happen in one one's mind so the the idea that you treat some of you throw medication at someone and that will remove the risk of suicide independent of all the likely horrible prison conditions is is is not I mean the no psychiatrists would ever say yeah 100 guarantee there will be no no suicide and also we have learned that there's a family history and you know I do psychiatric genetics research that's what I've been doing for 22 years two of his and his family uncles I think commit suicide there's a history of depression he was treated for for mental for psychiatric disorders before so you already have strong genetic background you cannot remove that then you have the environmental external factors and they would be aggravated that is the prison conditions that he would likely face but again I would like to say that any prosecuted things well we can treat that we have prison psychiatrists just give a medication that will take care of it and he will be you know just a regular prisoner that's that's sorry that that's not how it works because if that were the case every patient that psychiatrists treat would never ever commit suicide which is not the case and this is very important to note because the United States has announced its attention to appeal the extradition decision on this basis that they can manage the suicide risk in various ways so you know they're almost certainly I think they've already filed their appeal I don't think the documents are public yet but they're almost certain to argue that the severity of the diagnosis is exaggerated and that they'll come up with some way to mitigate somehow the risk of suicide and mitigate the prison conditions in his case maybe they'll relax a little bit but I got the impression they were going to double down on special administrative measures which is shocking and horrifying under special administrative measures as karaoke pointed out you can't talk to anybody but your lawyers trying to get a message out to an unapproved message recipient typically under special administrative measures you're allowed to get a message out to only two or three people other than your lawyers and if you try to get a message out to someone else you can be disciplined severely one detainee under special administrative prisoner under special administrative measures tried to ask his son to tell his grandson that he loved him and that's not allowed so this is how inhumane and cruel and unbelievably wretched special administrative measures are and that the United States wouldn't back off on that just shows how cruel and vindictive and hateful this prosecution this persecution is and just how unbelievably shocking a regime it is it's it's hard to put in words thank you so much for those interventions and for the advocacy by doctors for Assange the work that you do and the expert opinions that you've been giving with your white coats on just has a disproportionate impact given the respect held for the medical profession but also the standards of evidence that you are echoing I have to agree with you as someone monitoring the court case for a month it was like really deeply shocking I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore when it came to this case but the the descriptions of Sam's and of the facilities in the US particularly the one called Florence the inhuman and inhumane conditions were were deeply shocking and and as someone who knows Julian well and who's visited him in Belmarsh of course it's upsetting to hear about his deterioration and his suffering um he is a strong person but only the very strongest kind of people can can can withstand such such a long suffering that he's endured okay so now we'll turn to Joe Larrier from consortium news who who similarly experienced that court case and has been a strong supporter of Julian for a long time thanks Joe for telling us what it was like to to cover this case and also some of your insights into the official secrets and espionage acts thank you very much for that thank you to politics in the pub for organizing this and also to the doctors their input now is more important than ever since the appeal hinges on the medical issue so we're really grateful for the work that they do we at consortium news support the facts in the case rather than support Julian Assange and the facts happen to support Julian Assange so uh and that's unfortunately not been the case for the mainstream media which did not cover the case very much of all he did every day enter the courtroom rather than go through all of that I uh wanted to bring us back to the theme introduced by Scott about political repression um I've got a bit to say that and put Assange's case in some very vast historical context unfortunately there's nothing unique about political repressions existed in every society from the beginning of civilization when an illiterate person in an ancient society looked up at a monument they clearly understood who was in charge and what their place was and when since literacy grew the elite trying to manage populations have tried to control press cinema and now even online media and always they have been behind that of course with brute military and police force in case the propaganda of the elite fails there's always the police standing by and the military if necessary which is unique in western societies in my opinion is uh especially in the US has been how the public has been led to believe that there isn't any political repression in their societies that it only happens in non-western countries that are adversaries particularly to the US like um Soviet Union and the eastern block during the Cold War Middle Eastern regimes today unfriendly to the west you've seen how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia repeatedly gets a pass or in today's Iran China and Russia of course there are political repressions in all of those countries without any doubt but pointing only to them by western leaders when they do that or in their media it distracts from the homegrown repression now citizens in the Soviet Union in the eastern block they were at least aware that they were being repressed uh I think the reason why western public's aren't can probably attribute to the fact that this is very more elaborate and developed orthodoxy that's imposed through western media on the people in western countries the lie for example that the US is spreading democracy around the world rather than pursuing their strategic and economic interests and in that pursuit they commit crimes but the media in the west amounts what do they do amounts to cover up of the crimes they commit in the pursuit of those interests and here comes Julian Sange and WikiLeaks to rip the cover off the those lies of omission and to end the secrecy really that protects the powerful so there should be no wonder why those powerful interests have been trying to get him since 2010 uh also I think because western publics have been conditioned to think that only that political repression only exists in our enemy states not in our own countries it becomes uncomfortable to for western people particularly US to accept what WikiLeaks has revealed about their leaders and and likewise difficult for them to understand Sange and then to support him understand the principles that are involved here he's ripped the cover off a very convenient lie that we have wonderful leaders and we have tremendous democracies here and we don't do these things only the Russians do that only the Chinese do that and this uh is the great value of course of Assange's work but also the dangers to western leaders and the uncomfortableness for western populations amongst the you mentioned the espionage act um flick among the tools of western repression have been espionage laws in the US, Britain, Australia and other western nations they have not only been constructed as we see now to punish class at espionage stealing secrets given them to a foreign nation but also to repress free speech I've been working on a piece now I have to admit for a year ago I started this I'm not to work every day on it but it's coming close to ending it is a it is a story that I'm writing about how Assange became ensnared by the espionage act looking at the changes in both the espionage act and the various versions of the official secrets act starting in 1889 up until 1989 how changes in the law both those laws have set the stage to get Assange this is a hundred years of changes it's a comparative history in many ways of these two acts and it's quite hard going because of the legal language to purposely obscure and vague nature of these laws but it's important because obviously in an extradition case to need to be dual criminality so that what Assange is being accused of doing in the U.S. has to also be illegal in the UK and the fact that the espionage act and the official secrets act over time it became more and more similar has made that possible to extradite Assange now yes she Vanessa Barrett to deny the tradition on medical grounds which I flipped correctly said at the beginning is something to celebrate of course her support for everything else in the indictment including the espionage act indictments especially is very very troubling without doubt I just want to talk about just mentioned two changes to the laws over the years in 1950 there was there were two amendments to the espionage act so-called McCarran act and that just clarified that mere retention of documents and that communicating them by any person not just a government official is a crime under the espionage act and now earlier versions of both the espionage act and the official secrets act starting from the 1911 U.S. defense secrets act which is based very much on the language of the official secret act of 1889 and then of course the 1917 espionage act which Assange is dited under Barrett from the 1911 defense secret act and the 1911 update of the of the official secrets act the change in 1950 or adding seven nine three e to the law and g made it much easier to get Assange and in 1961 there was an amendment also to the espionage act which changed the jurisdiction from just U.S. territory and possessions and the high seas to anywhere in the world that ensnared Assange who was of course an Australian and he was acting outside the United States but he according to the U.S. violated U.S. law this espionage act so they can go after him because of this 1961 amendment is an interesting story back to that which I could tell later if anybody's interested so here's where we are but Barrett sir you know very much had to rely on these repressive espionage laws and how they are the same fortunately for Assange's case the medical situation that he had that we just heard about is so dire and the conditions of American prisons are even more dire that to combine the two Assange in that kind of a system even a British magistrate could not in any kind of good conscience allow that a tradition to go forward it could have been a way out for the Brits to wash their hands of this affair but in any case she did not allow the extradition and we have to hope that those those who support the facts of this case that the medical facts as we just heard will win out and the Americans won't be able to convince the High Court in London that he is not in danger. I want to say one last thing about this 1950 amendment that as I said made it more made it easier to indict Assange on the espionage act President Harry Truman actually vetoed that bill and he he was not necessarily pointing out that he didn't agree with those changes but the overall impact of this act was to set up a control board to go after communists it was so he said in his statement in his veto statement to the house that this would basically turn the US into a solitary society so unfortunately that veto was overturned by a congress so it became law and so there were crazy things in the history of these two acts that had Truman's veto not been overwritten by the congress that perhaps Assange wouldn't be have been indicted under the espionage act at least under those sections would have been more difficult anyway so I will last say that James Lewis the QC the prosecutor turned on the very first day of this hearing which began back in London in February of 2020 turned to the press and said this is not about you we're not we're not prosecuting the press we're prosecuting a man who is not a journalist and then you go to September hearing in London and they basically dropped that art after so many great defense witnesses tore apart that argument and showed that in fact the indictment of Assange on the espionage act describes in its very words the work of a journalist getting a source keeping a source's identity secret asking for more information from their sources this is what happens routinely so they dropped out the US did and basically Lewis said yes he is a journalist but under 793 as I described under the espionage act we can prosecute a journalist anyway so tough and that's what stopped the Obama administration Biden being vice president from indicted back in 2020 they could do it it's on the books it's completely seems to be unconstitutional putting up against the first amendment this has to be challenged at some point now there are a group of so-called progressive congress persons in the US in the house who have introduced an an amendment to the espionage act that would carve out an exception to journalists and this is directly from the assange case nobody expects it to go anywhere but at least there's an awareness that this part of the espionage act that doesn't snare journalists has to be removed at some point has to be challenged has to be struck down as unconstitutional because it goes completely against the first amendment where government cannot make a law impinging the free press and this is what this part of that law does so it incriminates the work of a journalist and assange is the first ever to be charged under the espionage act for that crime and I think this is why it's very bad what Barat's said and her judgment but if assange is not extradited on the medical grounds and he goes back to do his work it's still a victory for the free press thanks thank you Joe I found that fascinating especially about Truman who knew I didn't know I'm looking forward to reading your piece when it comes out so thanks for persevering with that our final speaker tonight is Nigel Perry um Nigel is written in particular about the the call between WikiLeaks and the Department of Justice and some freedom of information um has become available just in the last week about that I understand anyway um welcome Nigel thanks for for being with us tonight thanks so much like I appreciate it my name is Nigel Perry and I came into this story a kind of circuitous way I was working in the Palestine West Bank at BSA University for during the second half of the 90s and it was very frustrating to live there and read the international media coverage because what was reduced from um the AP would do 200 words that would say something like Palestinians and Israelis clashed on the outskirts of Ramallah and um two Palestinians were injured and one died and you'd spent four hours out there um watching something unfold in front of you that was you know the reality of it was the kids who were throwing stones at the soldiers were way too far away to actually hit anyone and the soldiers would you know use live ammunition and shoot people and then give each other a high five I mean it was that brutal and uh it was mostly not covered because international journalists lived in the Israeli controlled areas west Jerusalem Tel Aviv of the 700 journalists that were registered at the time with the Israeli government um I think I was the only one living in Palestine West Bank you know so that gives you an idea of what you know how just basic perception happens and in September 1996 the clashes broke out between Israel and Palestine for the first time an armed Palestinian um sort of force was there the Palestinian Authority and Netanyahu who was also prime minister then had uh opened the tunnel under the al-Aqsa mosque kind of alongside and underneath it and the clashes broke out and on the first day 263 Palestinians were injured in Ramallah and five killed and I think 13 Israelis were injured that that day too and maybe some were killed it was it was hard to see because we weren't we weren't on that end of the front lines you know you can only speak to what you saw and the walls of the hospital in Ramallah were covered in blood and there was just no time to clean it because it was just this endless flow I mean you talk about how COVID can overwhelm a hospital um war certainly overwhelms hospitals and so being an eyewitness to this you really just wanted to do something about it and we'd learned to use the internet kind of in 95 and this is sort of September 96 and we'd launched Beers 8's website so we just whacked up an independent media website what in those days was called an old news website and I think that was the first one from a war zone I mean well I'd been doing a diary I mean you wouldn't get away with this now but Beers 8.edu slash diary I mean literally off the university um main website um and that it was amazingly attention that I got from outside because you were able to deconstruct those 200 word AP bulletins and the internet is an amazing leveler you know and so when WikiLeaks came out I first became aware I'd heard about them but I first became aware with most people around the time they released collateral murder um which was early to 2010 and that was stunning you know to know someone had done that for me this my instinct was well this is someone who's doing something a lot like we did I mean we we felt we had no power we certainly didn't own a CNN or a BBC or a New York Times but we have the internet and we leveraged that asymmetrical communication tool in the same way that WikiLeaks was basically doing it I mean there is a great need for a worldwide leaking platform that's safe and anonymous and you know I mean the idea of WikiLeaks is fantastic and it still is so when the cables were released sorry the cables were released 2010 and initially just to the Guardian the Spiegel and the New York Times and they began releasing a bunch of stories which was a sensible way to do it because just dumping it all out of there you know it would have just been chaotic reporting and there was stuff in there that was important enough to to merit you know systematic investigative reporting on it and that was a great thing you know too but at some point Daniel Domschitt-Berg and Julian Assange fell out and one of the sort of passive aggressive ways which this disagreement played out in the international media was Domschitt-Berg began giving hints that there were these files out there of cable gate that were unredacted and later on in another article a few months or so later he intimated that the password was also on the internet and eventually someone I it's in it's in the article I mean one of the things I was kind of thinking of doing here is a quicker screen share here this is the original article that was published on August 31st and what had happened is one week before that Freitag the German paper had said they had a decrypted an archive of WikiLeaks but it wasn't helpful because I really knew it was already out there and they offered no proof and this was this is what David Lee had done this is like literally a chapter heading in his book he published the the password there and I was following WikiLeaks very closely at the time because it was fascinating to me just seeing this thing you know basically laid bare the American war machine I mean it's quite incredible thing and I so I had every time a WikiLeaks book came out I bought one and at some point Domschitt-Berg actually said it was in a book I think and I'd read them all and there's only one book that mentions any actual passwords so I got this one out and this is what I saw meanwhile there are a bunch of people we've been I totally kind of understand the addictive level of the QAnon thing that people the cult that people have got into it's kind of like Pokemon collect them all and that's what this hunts had become on the internet anyone who's interested in WikiLeaks is trying to find the both the archive and cables and you know the part this mythical password but it already been said and I had the book there I mean from when I read it I literally walked up and and got the book and so one of these people said look there's an archive here with these strange files on xyz you know and I'm trying to I think I think there's actually pictures of this stuff somewhere we're looking at a an internet archive of the website at that point sorry David yeah here we go this is when crypto and published it later and so this torrent file at some point Julian Assange got worried that people were going to raid them so they they encrypted all the the data from the releases they hadn't released yet and put them on on bit torrent file and turned them into torrents so people could download the file but couldn't do anything with it until they knew the password and this is one part where I say there is definitely blame on both sides is that password that Assange gave on the thumb drive to David Lee should not have been used anywhere else you know I mean that that was a fail on WikiLeaks side but publishing it in your book as a chapter heading is also pretty dumb and so I tried that password on the last file there's ZP GPG and sure enough it and you know it opened and at that I I write about this in the article you can if you go into the internet archive Nigel Parry dot com you'll find this stuff I'll put I'll I'll put it on my twitter at flying monkey air the link to this article as well but the the second it decrypted and I opened it in a text editor and started looking at the thing that everyone has um why they've been such you know dicks about it for one of a better way of putting it you know and there's just this whole power associated with it for the Guardian and Despigo and the New York Times they were basically guaranteed of scoops every day for the next year um and so for the cables to be out there and completely available and completely decrypted you know obviously the cash cow is gone at that point so the whole thing is a bit distasteful in my mind just because there was a lot of there was a lot of um there were a lot of problems on all sides you know and this didn't need to happen it was a very basic computer security fail now what they've I mean what they've done with the sand and the fact that even Biden's administration is still going after him is beyond me I mean this was part of an era which everyone even in the democratic sort of party from which Biden's you know sent you know straight at bang in the middle of you know realizes that the Iran and Iraq wars are a bad thing so you know don't punish the don't punish the messenger um it's like he's gonna what's next he's gonna open up a you know a case against Daniel alberg again for the pentagon papers I mean it's old news at this point it's done deal and a sanchez state as the psychiatrist and psychologist explains so clearly earlier I mean you don't I've I spent time in jail and it's it's done something to psychologically that's really hard to explain unless you've been through it yourself you've just got no power you've got nothing and there's no point to it you know you can't be when he was in the embassy at least he could be productive but not in a jail situation you don't have access to anything you're lucky if you get phone calls and for something like which is your rights you know is a lawyer a legal visit I mean that's going to be a four-hour five-hour-round trip for you or you get strip searched first and after I mean those those kind of you know that just that just does your head in for one of a better way to put it so I'm very concerned for Julian and if they're going to go after him I mean is the New York Times Der Spiegel and the Guardian going to be added to the to the sort of the defendants list because they there's levels where they were definitely I look what they're trying to get Julian on is whether he solicited the leaks and it's like well he put up a website called wiki leaks and invited people to send them you know anything he said to any individual after that it's merely an extension and that's no different from what journalists have been doing for years so there's really no case there and Biden really needs to take advantage of being able to dump one more thing you know that just shouldn't have lasted as long as it has and I think the real key for activists in the US would just be to to make that point to Biden but it's enough enough it's gone on too long and the what was Trump said the cure is worse than the completely wrong metaphor you know well in this case the cure is definitely worse than whatever disease Biden thought and if he's going to call Julian Assange a high-tech terrorist then he needs to look at the other systems of the guardian and the New York Times and Der Spiegel because they they published the same information and you know it's like Manning has paid a paid a hard price for it at the time and now Chelsea and she's like she paid the price for this you know it was Julian Assange didn't sign any contracts with the US army and you know Chelsea paid a hard hard price and continues to so there's enough's enough we just need to press the wrap up button on this because if it goes through to the final conclusion and there is actually some extradition and there is some court case against Assange the legal implications in America are awful and if you've been living in America in the last few years I know it must look strange from outside but living in it is awful I mean even before the plague halfway through Trump I'm looking around at the people in the streets around me going after this long you got half you still think he's doing a good job I mean there's some really strange social psychological things going on in America that don't just end at the strange border of the Q and on cult I mean there's there's a lot of you know there's many people you know who study this way longer than I but there's some basic American I think ideals and beliefs that are just kind of don't match up to reality I mean it's it's nice to strive for things but reality is you know never gonna you can argue with it all day you know gravity is gravity and you can see that in the anti-maskers I mean did they argue with their mom about whether they needed to wash their hands after they went to the toilet I mean this is basic public health stuff you know it's and for it to have been politicized it was horrifying I mean I grew up in Southeast Asia and those cats had it down once they knew what was going on I think it's gone up now but for the longest time Hong Kong only had four deaths and if you compare the population of Hong Kong to New York City it's similar it's like 7.5 to 9.5 and basically everyone had already gone through it with SARS in 2003 and learned to mask up social distance and I lived in Hong Kong for nine months and Chinese people live like eight to ten to an apartment apartment building it's 50 stories I mean they are not socially distanced in living at all but man they managed to keep it down to four deaths for the longest time I haven't looked at it recently but I mean that's how you do it and it's been really disturbing to just watch that and I do think that's part of the science thing is there's a general feeling this I feel like I've been walking around in Oz for the last four years and that's part of this too so I just encourage everyone to to really push Biden's administration to just drop this I mean it's just not worth anyone's trouble at this point and if a Sange dies in prison or commits suicide or something horrible happens to him he's not going to win any friends and from his party I mean there's just no there's no benefit to this whatsoever if he wins and the Sange gets put away in an American jail he locks up a jail and it'll just start a whole other angle so you know that would be my what I have to say about it enough enough thank you so much for that wonderful presentation and also for your work on the electronic interfero a fantastic source of information that was indeed using the internet as we all hoped and wished that it would continue to be used so now I've been invited to just have the panelists ask a few questions of each other just a little bit of open discussion among the panelists just a few minutes but there has been some questions posed in the YouTube chat channel which I'd like to farm out as well so one question that I have for for our doctors is you mentioned that your recommendation is that Julian be treated in a hospital when he is free when we see him walk free which I've determined that we will and in not too long of a time can you talk a little bit more about why you would recommend a hospital I have kind of fantasies of him being in nature in Australia and healed by some time in the bush some time at the beach how long do you think he would need to be to be in a hospital for that's one question another one is have you experienced much pushback from from your colleagues for for doing something that would seem to be a little bit political as well as about proffering your your medical assessment how's that dynamic gone on and but I'll invite my other panelists if they have questions to to to pipe up and ask each other thanks uh while I was fascinating to listen to all the the speakers before that you know we are the medical guys here we are not really the legal expert but it was great to hear about all these things so from a psychiatrist's perspective a treatment of mental health condition like the likes of what Julian is experiencing needs not only medication in a in a box right in box being the jail cell he needs to be in an environment that is stimulating I mean psychiatric therapy does not consist only of medication it's psychotherapy it's additional therapies it is a different environment you need to get him this environment this is the oppressive environment I mean the strip surgeon being caged being shackled I mean again he's not accused of any crime in the UK he's there on remand he's it's an extradition hearing so this adds to this is torture as we have decried and because of that he's suffering from depression from psychotic events psychotic experiences and so forth that needs to be treated it needs to be treated in a in the right setting as I said when diabetes you can treat you know sort of at one level like the biological level but mental health that that's why a psychiatric hospital nowadays is no longer just in the silent where people are shackled right and but that's what we have you know a prison I mean there's prison psychiatry and I think they're doing a good job but then this special case with these special administrative measures that is detrimental to his mental health that needs to be changed that's why that's why he needs to be treated in a different environment yeah I would say you know we're not saying he needs to be institutionalized but acutely you know for a brief period of time he he needs to be evaluated I mean we say he's sick he's really sick and he you know obviously we would defer to experts on the ground actually evaluating them but you know psychological torture is not something that you can see your therapist once a month and take prozac and that's it and that's fine it's serious and so yeah he needs almost certainly needs given the severity of what we've seen and the reports although you know we have to be careful you know diagnosing and treating by proxy but you know it's almost certain that he needs some inpatient evaluation stabilization and yeah I want to see him you know on the beach in Australia myself don't get don't get us wrong you know that's the goal that's what we all want to see that's what we're all fighting for that's what we're all advocating for but you know as an initial measure as an assessment and stabilization you know and honestly to save his life it's almost certainly it's hard to imagine it's not necessary I just would like to add to your you asked us also about how our field considers our work or you know I think you know very often doctors are trying to be very non-political but again we are actually not saying this is political this is a medical issue here but of course there's a political dimension to it it's about human rights and I think you have many doctors who are active in human rights issues more people are joining us but I think there could be a little more because this is also and this is now not the medical doctor speaking this is the citizen the citizen of Germany but also the primary resident of the United States I love these these are great countries and they have helped spread democracy and I just feel we need to keep it that way and that's why we need to speak up and I invite even more doctors to join our cause I mean there are many causes where doctors can be involved like see the the we were genocide happening and so forth so I think we need to speak out when human lives are endangered and I think doctors will agree and if I could add my perspective on it too this wasn't easy this is the most politically active I've been in my life this is you know 50 plus years old the first time I'm stepping out like this seeing the absolute persecution and abuse of process and dispensation with you know due process and and rights and just how aggressive and just the white hot hatred that the intelligence community has for signs yeah it's scary and but it has to be done that this is not right this is an outrage they're wrong the convention against torture under which you know the special rapporteur has his mandate it has its roots and the atrocities and horrors of world war two and we can't allow ourselves to become what we fought in world war two I fear the more I look into it the more I worry about that so my colleagues almost don't notice sadly I do try to talk to them about it but they're either disinterested or they're similarly afraid to step out I've got a couple of questions that have come in here actually from the the youtube channel I might just plant a few of them one question is for for you Nigel what do you think the US is so afraid of if Julian is released there's also a question here for Scott calling our representatives what do you recommend saying exactly what other things can we do Scott I'll let you think about that while I turn to Nigel to answer the question what is the US so afraid of if Julian is released I'm not sure there's really anything for the US to be afraid of at this point I'll mean all the damage has been done and what's happening now is the the the ongoing damage to America at this point as their relentless persecution often you know I I think that's that's the issue here I don't think there's anything for them to be afraid of I think what's happened is at the time they reacted strongly as if that would change things and back in the day I was covering all of this stuff just just on my personal website the WikiLeaks kind of phenomenon and also what was going on with Anonymous and Lalsak and there was huge crossovers with that and watching like there was one weekend where I think 500 police police department websites were hacked and you know regardless of the criminality of it you have to just acknowledge that wow computer security is really bad and those guys should have it together I mean that's law enforcement right um so there was I felt there was just a general revelation of what was going on with the internet of course later when Snowden turned up with you know how much we're all being spied on which is really hard to grasp I come back to it I go back to the all of the stone phone with the the act of Joseph Leavitt you know the the guy from Third Rock because the just the dramatization of it within 90 minutes is it's hard to grasp the extent of these things so when you see people like WikiLeaks kicking against the Guards that's a big deal for a lot of people around the world I mean I'm from the twins I live in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis St. Paul and then St. Paul and when the George Floyd stuff popped off and that became international I mean people were protesting in Australia you know people were protesting in every city around the US Canada Europe it was and you know people were protesting in India I mean there's something universal about what's been going on over the last several years and I think the US government just got into it and once you're committed to doing that you know and we've we everyone's had other big fish bigger fish to fry during the Trump regime so I think this stuff's been back Bernard but that's what I just keep coming back to is the damage has been done and anything any further persecution of Assange is just not going to be good for America or never mind us you know obviously not Assange but definitely not America either so there's no merit in it I quite agree thank you and after Scott answers that other question I will turn to the politics in the pub you people who have shown up in a room in Sydney will pass the mic to you straight after Scott thanks Felicity I think if the question was about is it is it worth even bothering contacting our politicians emphatically yes especially now because the campaign is starting to hit the critical mass I think the comments that were made by opposition leader Anthony Albanese last week are highly significant that's the strongest that we have had the strongest break in bipartisanship that we've had in this case in a decade that makes it safer for other Labour members to speak out it haven't had before of parliament it doesn't matter whether they are government opposition or crossbencher it's very quick to write to your politician and make sure that they understand that there is concern out there so there are those formal avenues for participation but we shouldn't ever constrain ourselves to that there have been groups in the around the country that have done very highly vis-a-visibill and provocative actions they've been doing that for years hang a banner put a placard do graffiti make this visible make it impossible to ignore and don't ever think that you're alone because you're not there's huge support out there for getting Julian free I know it's a bit cheeky but I wonder whether it's okay to to pop a question to Joe while we've got you on the line Joe you've been following these issues for years you know a lot of the individuals that have been moving into the incoming administration what would be your message to Australians we don't get to vote in US elections what would be your message to Australians what kind of pressure are they likely to be interested in hearing from a loyal I would argue vastly too loyal ally from from our perspective what do you think is going to make the most difference now well you Australian should vote in American elections basically the 53rd state I'm not sure 51st might be Britain 52nd Israel the fact is Australia needs to have an independent foreign policy and something in between having good relations with China and the US for example they don't need to jump whenever the US says they need to and this is this is the heart of the issue for me about the Australian political class that they don't have the guts to defend the country's interests and they particularly in relations with China we've seen the economic interests of Australia being hurt because the United States put pressure on it now the Americans play a very dirty game and they will they have enormous leverage but one of them is just to not give intelligence to the fifth eye out here and I think there has to be sacrifices made maybe by the ruling circles of Australia if they want to do what's good for the Australian people and what's good for the Australian people is to support Julian Sange and not give lip service as we just saw the other day in in Parliament Maurice Payne the Foreign Minister was questioned by an MP and you know just platitudes about a consular services for Assange in Australia this had to be a major point that Australia needs to make with the United States to back off that in general this is the wrong thing to do this is not becoming of a Western society if we want to continue to say we're democracies we're going to have to take a hit here he exposed things even about Australia as your books Scott and Felicity Secretarial has exposed but mostly about the US and as Nigel just said the damage was done although I disagreed because if Assange goes back to work I think he very well could expose more things that would be the idea so they want to stop him and make an example of him for others who might have similar ideas like doing real journalism so Australians I don't have any hope that Australian this party in particular that's in power the Liberal Party would in any way step forward and support Assange and stand up to the US but if there ever were an issue that Australia needs to stand up to the US about it is the Assange case because it's a universal principle it flows beyond economic short-term interests and but I don't have much hope for that I don't see Americans tuned into what Australia thinks of Assange they're not very much tuned what Assange case is all about partly because the media has ignored the story most part and they were wrenched with misinformation misinformation about Assange's role in the 2016 election of course about the whole Swedish episode so there's been a lot of and this was a purposely as we know from that leaked document that Wikileaks itself published back I guess in 2008 about the Pentagon having a program to destroy Wikileaks and Assange's reputation and all the people around him so they've actually followed through in that endeavor to destroy Assange's reputation and that's unfortunately one of the things people who were trying to defend Assange are up against and I know that there have been public opinion polls in Australia upwards of 80 to even 90% support I think it was 60 minutes I did a poll here in Australia that said that many Australians support Assange that has to that message has to get down to Canberra so that they understand that this is a important issue and that they have the backing of the Australian people to stand up to the US at least on on this critical issue that goes way beyond the life of one man during Assange. I hope that answers. Thank you yes very well I quite agree with you on polls so now we're going to turn to the folks in Sydney at attending politics in the pub have you got a question for one of our panelists please direct your question and then I'm going to turn to Thomas. Thank you very much I think Scott Lodlam and Dr Luria have stolen my fire a little bit I remember back to 1999 where the Australian people stood up and supported the East Timorese and that as Clinton said that was a big road bump that road bump was Australia and they had to change policy because actually Australian people stood up and forced the government to change its policy I'd like to know there are a wonderful group at the back here who demonstrate every week at the Sydney Town Hall steps and they've reclaimed the steps for all of us they do wonderful creative stuff I just wonder if they and they mentioned banners and banner drops and so on just wonder what other I'm sorry but the people from the MEAA don't seem to be here but the question is what other forms of effective pressure can we put on the government to stick up for an Australian citizen who has done who has done a completely laudable and heroic thing actually and who's who's suffered like like Greater Thunberg suffers from a condition that actually makes someone very much focus on something that needs to be focused on thank you just like Greater Thunberg thank you great thanks for that I think Scott did did ask answer like some of that question earlier the kinds of things that people can be doing are directly contacting their representative asking if they are a member of the parliamentary friends group to bring us on tome there's every reason to ask why you aren't a member of that group right now it's a growing group there's now 24 members so there's the ability to communicate directly with your member and indicate that you vote and that you care there's also opportunities to use social media to share content to correct misinformation on on social media it's a it's a it's a pretty hard task that but if you can chip in and cheerfully and politely engage with people that makes a big difference all kinds of organizations exist that you can plug into doing public work wearing a t-shirt I find and walking around an airport defiantly is you know something that everyone can do support and be curious and use WikiLeaks and share information that you find on there there's a there's a variety of public private social media and in the streets ways to support you can also give money to the the various support groups that are around and directly to the legal team via Stella Morris's go find me Scott would you like to add to that before I turn to Thomas yeah just one thing that's occurred that if you find yourself with the enormous good fortune of being in a pub surrounded by allies surrounded by like-minded people make sure you don't leave without introducing yourself to somebody that you don't know and sharing ideas share your ideas listen to others ideas you're surrounded by the people that we're going to need this next little while it's just we need to build a greater social movement starting with what we have which is a lot so some of us are stuck on zoom calls you're out there drinking beer surrounded by allies so please don't don't waste the moment and you dear people in Sydney um do join um on Friday evenings at the Sydney Town Hall the wonderful people for Assange a wonderful group of people Thomas you have a question yeah it's a question for all the uh my colleagues here the journalists on and more politicians on the panel I think there's this notion that now we have Biden and the Democrats and they are the good ones uh well obviously they continue but you know I would like to point out that there are many uh Republicans also very diehard ones like Trump supported I would think of like more the libertarian ones uh Ron Paul uh then um Thomas Massey kind of a nerd if you will but they are the ones that staunchly based on the principles of free speech um actually advocate for for that and on the other hand like the Andrew Young the who was a presidential candidate from the Democrat side he's now running for mayor of New York I think he says well Julian Assange has to stand for trial has to stand for trial so it seems to me that it's not like a clear cut thing Democrats Republicans and I think if you believe in freedom of speech you will find many many in the Republican side so what's your take on that where do we see bipartisanship here and is there more growing I would like to take that I'll take that I think you're right when you talk about libertarians that they uh while they in my view have some horrific uh views about domestic policy they're pretty good on foreign policy and on civil rights issue such as freedom of speech so I think they're they're speaking from the point of view of principle there are other Republicans who mistakenly like Democrats and that's why the many Democrats oppose Assange believe that Assange stole the 2016 election and gave it to Hillary Clinton which is absolute of course nonsense because the emails that were released by WikiLeaks that came from the Democratic National Committee we know now that Sean Henry the head of CrowdStrike is testified behind closed doors that they had no evidence it was even a hack and there was no collusion or conspiracy according to a two-year 32 million dollar investigation where Robert Mueller all the way debunked that also the night before the U.S. election November 2nd the Mueller released a redacted document but it showed that they did could not go after Julian Assange they never interviewed him in that investigation but they had no evidence to go after Assange that he was aware that in their opinion he was talking to Russian Asians but the fact is those emails are true and that's all that matters it doesn't even matter who the source was WikiLeaks set up a drop box an anonymous drop box that's now been copied by major media around the world The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times therefore theoretically the Russians could put something in CNN's box and it could be it could be turned out to be accurate and newsworthy and CNN would publish a story and not know that even that it was the Russians who gave it to them so it doesn't matter if the story is true it doesn't matter who the source is this is a completely irrelevant argument but it was raised to a national crisis that Russia had interfered and tried to steal the election etc etc and during Assange was central to that he was an agent of the Russians etc we know that story now many people on the democratic side still believe that and they don't like Assange for that even though this indictment and this extradition hearing and then this prosecution has nothing to do with the 2016 election only would release in 2010 that message doesn't get through it's still there's a hatred for Assange based on those personal matters as Scott alluded to at the beginning about his cat the Swedish story and of course the 2016 election has really damaged Assange in the eyes of Democrats falsely it was Hillary Clinton's documents that showed there was corruption in the DNC they tried to steal the primary election from Bernie Sen it's all there and it's the doing her speeches to Goldman Sachs and the big banks that's their doing that the journalist reveals that they're not they're not the criminal here they're not the ones who did anything wrong they've done their job but unfortunately it's become a pattern here that when politicians are exposed they have a convenient excuse now to blame the farm power for being behind it and they get away with it even if the farm power did hack that and leak it to at least it's irrelevant because the information was accurate and true and that's what people should focus on but they don't and I think that's why Democrats oppose Assange and a lot of Republicans also believe that nonsense story may support Assange too thinking that he did help Trump win why did Trump say I love WikiLeaks because he thought it helped him win because they revealed what Hillary Clinton and her team had written on their emails all the various things we know okay is there a question there from the pub so I'm going to ask a few questions and I'll let you guys think about them for your response now firstly if if Assange won what is that to stop more Trump of charges to be raised to carry on more court cases against Assange secondly what is the final court that ceases to draw out this joke so for example if the magistrate said Assange cannot go to the US would that be the end of the case or is there always going to be the chance where some new court will be raised and say no but we've got oversight and it's going to be drawn out forever next thing is what flashback or ramifications are there negative ramifications are there for the legal system for allowing this to become a bit of a debacle rather than sort of letting it go and saying this is enough and move on and lastly from the from the talk tonight from all the speakers I have a query in terms of when is it that the law seems to be enforced or is valid and when does politics and playing games with issues seems to sort of override when as in when are we dealing with things that are purely political and if you like social issues and when is that actually the law applies and is relevant or does the law have to sometimes step back and say this is not part of the law this is more of a social norm or a social discussion thank you thank you for those questions quite a lot of them are pertaining to legal issues and there are actually no lawyers on this panel tonight unfortunately because I would like to be able to be authoritative when I say that if the US drops the charges if the new attorney general indeed says I've got really bigger fish to fry and I've inherited a bit of a mess here in the US and so I might let this one go that would stop the charges for you to both leave the UK and maybe even return home it's impossible it's a it's a it's a nostradamus question as to whether there'll be other charges from another government or indeed other charges from the US which we just we just it's impossible to say for sure what the future holds but those charges being dropped would allow Julian to be free right now he is safe in the United Kingdom because the United Kingdom has ruled that extradition should not happen but if Julian for example came home then Australia might say extradition can happen that's why it's important that those charges are dropped by the US in the US and then they cease to be active as to your questions about when the law applies and when politics applies well there's principles and then there's reality and I can't I can't answer that question necessarily any other responses from panelists to any of those questions if not I'll turn to Nigel who has a point to make about the UK does anyone want to answer any of those questions go on yeah the the first time the the politics and the pub peeps were asking questions they were saying you know what should we do and it occurred to me you know I mean I'm Scottish and from the UK but I've been living in the States for 22 years and I don't think it really matters where you're from in this issue so I think I would encourage everyone from anywhere to write to those three governments to the UK to say I mean remember back in the early days when he was in that country house of that guy you know the ally why can't he be restored to a state like that at least where he's not in medical immediate medical threats you know that seems a very basic thing to ask the UK government just that one thing you know also dropped the charges obviously but that one specific thing he can be on an ankle you know whatever just get him out of the jail and to the US government you know it's it's it's just got on too long drop the charges it's it's it's not going to get any better for you guys from here on in you know and to the Australian government you know I think I obviously should write to both the UK and the US ones but why not write to the Australian one as a British citizen say you know I'm not that happy with what my government's doing you know you guys should be defending your citizens I'm basically encouraging everyone from anywhere to write to all three of those actors in this case and put pressure on them because it's at this kind of point where the thing is deeply embarrassing for America I'm actually quite surprised they appealed that under the Biden thing but there's there's also a level that are we absolutely sure that that was not already that kind of trajectory was on that already not in place from during the Trump era you know of of choosing to appeal that and I don't I'm not sure of the answer to that someone actually may know that but yeah I do actually have a sense I have a sense that it's it would have been highly unusual for an acting attorney general to halt a trial or a prosecution when it was so far advanced but in fact that a new attorney general is the juncture where those kinds of decisions that kind of pivoting and change of policy can be enacted and indeed at any time the new attorney general can do so but until March 29 when the defense arguments are being put in we have this perfect timing to to really build and mount the case one of the the emphases of this this panel has been to take action doctors within their realm and with their expertise have been taking action and appealing to governments and providing information that we can all work on and appeal directly to the court consortium news and journalists have been like like Nigel have been investigating and explaining and decoding and and analyzing the the material that we he leaks has made available to us but also the implications for a free press and activists and advocates such as Scott and myself have been organizing and communicating and writing and coming up with terrible memes is one of my favorite things to do so within your realm with with the the resources that you have and the ideas and the networks that you have please have ideas and do them now reach out to others meet communicate write think and um keep on pushing until Julian Assange is free he's free to come home if he wishes and he's free to continue his work he's free to heal and um we are assured that our our democratic ideals might one day be realized of a free press and of an independent judiciary and of governments that seek to be and want to be accountable and transparent in in their in their actions on our behalf so i want to wrap up with those words and warmly thank my fellow panelists who've come in and beamed in from all over the world including here in Australia to be with us thank you to politics in the pub for the work that you do to make these kinds of discussions possible thank you so much to the magnificent work of consortium news may you may you um keep keep publishing and keep printing and keep um broadcasting the work that you do thank you so much everybody and thank you politics in the pub goers nice to see you there thank you thank you for this thank you yes also yes read this book