 As the founders run that club I'd like to welcome you here, this isn't the first event we've done about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. In fact I think it was nearly something like 13 years ago Julian knocked on our door and he did a press conference. He knocked on our door on a Friday and on Monday he had a press conference about the Afghan warlocks, which I'm sure all of you will know about. So we started doing events here with him and then when he was no longer available we've continued doing events about Julian for all that time. It makes you wonder. I have I must say the most huge admiration for Stella, for Jennifer and for Christian, for all the support they've done for Julian and for WikiLeaks. It's been tireless and I must say I really admire them particularly Stella for this extraordinary effort. It's hard for most of us to even imagine the stress and the difficulty that every day must be for her. Tomorrow Julian, again, is in court. I'm not entirely sure whether he'll be allowed to be there or he'll be on a video link and it just occurred to me that it's not just Julian that is being scrutinised. I think it's the court that's being scrutinised. Julian is clearly a political prisoner and it strikes me that in our country today, in this country, there's such a level of civic dishonesty. You have to wonder where that sort of thing comes from and if the court is being employed as it is perceived by me to be employed as a vehicle of lawfare for the powerful, for our political masters to remove somebody who they feel their voice makes them uncomfortable. This is what perhaps promotes as much as anything that sort of dysfunction in our country that we see that's so rapid what I call civic disorder, civic dishonesty. Anyway, with that that was all I have to think about it and you're not here to listen to me. So with that I'd like to hand over to Chris Hedges who will introduce the panel and thank you very much all of you to come and discuss it. Thanks and I just have to say coming back to London it's always hard to come back and not see John Pilger. I just want to mention his name. I was walking by a discount clothing store. I'm embarrassed to admit this and saw a white linen suit and bought one. My wife said, when are you ever going to, but I did it. I just remembered a funny way John, who could be totally irasable and impossible at the same time but was an amazing journalist and really got what was happening to Julian from the beginning and just did not let go with that kind of doggedness and brilliance and he was a beautiful writer so I just wanted to mention him as a journalist to make that he's kind of here. So I'm not going to butcher your last name, Kristen. You're welcome to. Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Jennifer Robinson, human rights attorney, Stella O'Son, you all know also an attorney and I guess we're going to run for about an hour and then open into questions. Maybe we should begin because even I have questions with you, Stella and Jennifer just from the legal point of view because the court never tells us anything so you know we all kind of are you know we you know for Deus Ex Machina appear out of the sky with some decision we never know when but maybe you can let you start Jennifer and then you Stella just lay out legally where we are and to the best that you can what you expect. Well first thank you Chris, thank you for your work and thank you for raising John and I do think it's appropriate that we do talk about John and I just want to share a little anecdote about him before we kick off. John was there at the very very beginning he was rallying people to to post bail for Julian at the very beginning he was rallying other Australians in London we talk about the Australian mafia. John was really at the forefront of that in rallying support for Julian right from the very get-go he was invaluable to us as Julian's legal defence team at the outset in Ghana and that support and continued to be so I really want thank you for raising him and I'm sorry he's not even with us. The the appeal this week is Julian's last appeal in the United Kingdom and we're seeking permission to appeal so you remember we won the case back in 2021 on the narrow grounds that Julian's on the on the basis that it would be oppressive to extradite him because of the particular prison conditions he would face the oppressive darkest black hole of the US prison system prison conditions he would face combined with his mental health picture depressive illness and autism diagnosis that he would be caused to commit suicide that is the accepted medical evidence before the courts of this country that if he's extradited to the United States it will cause his suicide it couldn't get more serious than that. The US then offered an assurance a conditional assurance which is even an assurance is not worth the paper it's written on from the United States as Amnesty says and then in this case it was conditional in that at some point in the future they won't put him in those particular prison conditions but they will do if he does anything to deserve it and the people who decide that are the intelligent services who tried who wanted to kidnap and kill him. The intelligent service who have the power who wanted him dead have the power to put him in prison conditions that will cause his death and we have no ability to usually review that nor did the British courts in this country allow us the opportunity to test that assurance before the court and an evidential hearing so it's extradition by diplomacy that's where we got to we're now appealing the decision to extradite him on that basis we're appealing the home secretary's decision and the decision of the district judge to to all the grounds that we lost the first instance so you'll be hearing from us this week on free speech this is an unprecedented prosecution it's the espionage act has never been applied in this way to a publisher and a journalist the fact that the US is exercising extraterritorial jurisdiction over Julian as a journalist who was publishing information outside of the US and yet will not give him constitutional rights at the same time the fair trial aspects of it that he won't get a fair trial if returned to the US the fact that once extradited the US could have additional charges that could expose him to the death penalty these are the arguments you hear this week but if we are unsuccessful in getting permission on even one ground that's it this is his last appeal in the United Kingdom we will not be going to the High Court we will not have recourse to the Supreme Court our last attempt at appealing to protect information extradition is the European Court of Human Rights and to say a quick quote about that if we lose this week and we have to go to the European Court it is not a given that we will get provisional measures to protect information extradition it is an exceptional measure there were 63 similar type applications made to the court last year in deportation and extradition cases one was granted and we all know what happened when that one provisional measure case went forward in Rwanda the political backlash that we saw in this country towards the European Court's jurisdiction so Julian could be extradited and very soon and that's how serious it is right now you have a law degree come on um well i mean i think the big picture here is that Julian hasn't even been able to appeal it was his permission to appeal that was rejected and that's the decision that we're trying to overturn the High Court which is the second of three levels didn't even want to hear his arguments we put in an application that was 152 pages long and it was rejected in a in a three-page decision which didn't engage with any of the arguments and he said there was no arguable point of law Julian should have been granted an appeal on each of these of the points that we raised and none of them were granted and it was dismissed in a very um disturbing manner and uh one has to understand that this is a political case um that the courts are not behaving in a predictable manner in fact um we have to prepare for the worst case scenario there's no point preparing for an optimistic scenario because when you consider what an optimistic scenario would be i.e. him winning this round it would only mean that the court has agreed to hear an appeal on one of the points or several other points and many more months if not years in Balmarch prison it's punishment by process yeah. Stelw just if you could run through quickly the litany of legal anomalies that have defined this process from the beginning um any one of which should see this case thrown out of court that's what's always stunned me starting starting with UC Global and filming the or recording the meetings with attorneys destroying attorney client privilege in any court of law in great britain or the united states that's it the trial is and yet they just violate their own rule after rule after rule and that that has always struck me you know i don't know whether to call it farce or pantomime or what you know it's a it's a show trial and when you get into those details which maybe you can just lay out a few it becomes completely apparent that this is not a legitimate judicial process i think that's absolutely correct it is pantomime jewlin's imprisonment is done through legal sleight of hand the extradition itself doesn't deal with the merits of the case um we can't interrogate the veracity of the statements of the prosecutors who have completely misrepresented uh wikiliwt's activities and and actions and polishing the the broadened espionage act prosecution for goodness sake for the most important material uh the journalism has ever seen as a as a companion of um of state illegality and torture and systematized arbitrary detention and and civilian killings and the horror and and a catastrophe of the middle east of the wars in the middle east um so this this prosecution should never have been brought in the first place um but once it's brought it's a bit of a it's a bit of a trap because once you engage in speaking about the process you sort of legitimize it as you go along uh your your caught in a well surely you'll face a fair trial hold on possibly face a fair trial if the case should never have been brought because what the united states is doing is criminalizing journalism um and there's no public defense and there's no you know so so so it's kind of channel channeling julian into um a state of perpetual defenselessness um and this is this is kind of the the some of the difficulty though that we face that the violations are so egregious that you're almost you're not even speaking the same language uh the the the spying on on julian's legal meetings with his with his lawyers discussing his defense strategy and so on his his legal documents were shipped off by Ecuador to the united states um that the plans to assassinate him um and it's met with a non-engagement because it's just so um it it's so extreme um so in a way when when we're when i'm asked about the process or you know what happens next or what happens once he faces trial in the united states it's like for goodness sake he's facing 175 years can't even who can entertain a the argument that that he could possibly face a fair trial under any circumstances if you take that even in isolation so um this is a bit of the it's it's kind of a little bit like when julian was inside the embassy and i thought how do you possibly translate the situation into the into in a language or in a way that people just walking down the street would understand and and believe um i think we've got through a set of pretty extraordinary things that have happened whistleblowers um in spain actually giving physical evidence of what was going on inside the embassy to Spanish police who then raided um the security company obtained hard drives with conversations with julian and his lawyers evidencing this and then um you know emails with instructions from from the united states and english talking about how to how to spy on julian without the historians knowing and you know just such a such a huge body of evidence to show that this was actually happening and then an investigation in the u.s. that then prompted this disclosure about Pompeo plotting to assassinate julian um and then the lawsuit now against the cia uh which the cia is trying to shut down by invoking state secret privilege um so it's quite it's quite a it's quite extraordinary really that we have a case where we know so much um but translating that into a way where that public awareness is really there uh that that's the challenge well we'll talk to christian and i think the problem with translating it in public awareness is that the press has not done its job that's pretty obvious they have come around a little bit at uh the lead up to these two days there seems to be awareness now that this is is about them it's about their work environment and they seem to care about that uh but you have to remind them this is not about journalists it's about journalism and in the end of course it's about people's right to know that realism is is it's sort of slowly getting getting there i feel so i i'm really hoping that the focus tomorrow and Wednesday will be on the court as Juan said it's very important that the the courts will be scrutinized and the proceedings there um the and mind you have to mention that the fact that journalists are having a really hard time actually getting access live streaming from the court is denied to everyone who is outside england and wales for some reason uh so it is it is it is like they they don't want this good for me so the realization is there they are they have been constantly trying to block access reporters without borders have mentioned the case with julien asans as the worst case that they've been trying to monitor in any country i mean they've been going to turkey other countries the problem of being an NGO monitoring julien asans case has been bigger and worse than they've experienced in all these other countries which speaks more about the case and the entire thing yes of course juniors should have been more agile scrutinized the entire thing and we're still we're still seeing popping up we're still having to shoot on misconception and part of this slander that had went on for years and years and years just this morning as a legal expert on one of the television stations here in the uk talking about the so-called assurances or something that was something to to hang your hat on a law expert and and for having sake the amnesty international scrutinized it and as jen said said it was not worthy the paper that it's written on it's uh it's a you know basically assurances that they will treat him fairly it's a statement it's a diplomatic statement it has no bearing in the us and uh the the bureau of prison in the u.s. is notoriously independent uh john kiriwch the c.i.a was a blower who told me the story that you know when the judge is in his case when he did a plea pardon a deal uh recommend that he would be put in open prison for the short period of time that he had to serve but the bureau of prisons said well we don't care what the judge says we are independent the only organization that has a say in how julien is treated in the u.s. prison is the c.i.a the very agency that were plotted kidnapped and assassinated that's how severe it is so this document the so-called assurances is is not is worthless and i must say that from a judicial perspective i'm not a i'm not a lawyer but from a commons sense perspective to be allowed even in an appeal court without sending the entire case back to if it was so important it should be heard in entirely on a lower lower states because it changed everything to overturn a decision on the base of this piece of paper just shows how utterly utterly bad the system is and how you just cannot rely on it and i've lost all faith in it i have to say the only inkling of a chance that these two judges will overturn a decision of the colleague is if there's a powerful public pressure powerful scrutiny and of course that possibly the politician will wave their hands and say no we can't go on for this is becoming embarrassment of to this country which it is and it is an embarrassment to this country that Julian Assange is lingering in Belmer's prison for almost five years i want to ask you about a c.i.a in vault seven because i think that was a turning point but i met julien through michael ratner who was representing him michael was a very close friend of mine and a wonderful human being and just a courageous lawyer and amazing guy but he always told me and he did he was the one who got representation for the people in guantana mom and he's just had the small amazing career but he said it's without the people in the street i can't do my job in the courtroom i can't there has to be that pressure to essentially wake the judicial system i want to ask i'll start with you christian about vault seven because the obam administration decided not to ask for julien's extradition or what they call the new york times problem the new york times problem which was the guardian's problem and he'll tell you his problem and i'll know his problem and there's people problem is that in partnership with wiki leaks they published the same documents and that's why we had all this charge that fault's charge that julien was trying to assist chelsie manning with getting because they needed something else that changed after vault seven the trump administration crossed the rubicon instead of charging whistleblowers who had provided information to the press and obama was very aggressive about this the trump administration charged the journalist with espionage just explain i mean it's always my reading that um that the engine now behind the extradition is the cia explain what happened with vault seven and how things changed after vault seven once you start christian then maybe you all can i think you're correct in that evaluation this is the the the driving power behind this persecution of julien now is the intelligence community and or the military intelligence interest in the united states they are the these are the the powers that that want revenge and they want to see a debt it's it's it's as obvious as that uh the vault seven leaves which was exposing the the the cyber tools of the cia how they could basically break into your telephones and the cars computer system even when they're off sorry even when they're off even when they're off yeah um and was obviously had a public interest to expose that this was in their arsenal it was the most embarrassing leak in in in cia's history and the fury was obvious and you have to remember that at that time my compere was the director of cia this is in the early years of 2017 and shortly after in his first public uh sort of speaking engagement he went to the podium and talked about the the the greatest danger facing the united states of america which was al-qaeda and wikilees the journalist organization al-qaeda and it's then when he carefully turned to this um definition of wikilees and it was we didn't realize at the time i did not realize how serious this was when he said this is a um wikilees is a non-state hostile intelligence service nobody everybody dismissed it as as being sort of hot air at the time but it was not it is it was the lawyers came up as a legal definition that they could hang the hat on in the assassination plot because you can kill a foreign agent that is hostile right that's what that's that's what cia does it kills people right so and of course later that plot was was was realized and discussed in the highest chambers of power in the white house um and given a goal so that was a turning point and i think that this is still the power that we are facing more so than president biden secretary of state blinkin or attorney general it is that power you know more about the details of how that works on the inside i don't know fully the entrails of it but we have past history to rely on to see what the fact that can have so that is the that is in my opinion uh the the the dynamics and the politics that is pushing this case and uh and the reason why we have to be honest i was a political prisoner here in London just to add the the trump administration was actually very very transparent about the shift um in their uh i forget exactly which document it was but it was kind of their national threat framework type the way we see the next five years and they identified activists linked to visits and public disclosure organizations as their greatest threats and of course julian and wiki leads fell into the third category um as a as a threat model to to the trump administration public disclosure organizations basically mentioned in pillars of democracy it's a threat to the administration well just on on the cea point i will never forget getting off a plane in the united states to the new to reading Mike Pompeo's comments and it was immediately clear to me what they were doing which was to use these semantics to create a new category for wiki leaks that will allow them to pursue wiki leaks in a different way and it's similar to the kinds of semantics we saw around Guantanamo Bay and thank you for mentioning Michael who's a dear mentor on lines it's a sad reflection of how long this case has been going on that we've lost so many friends along the course of it Michael Ratner being a brilliant one to me and to julian um but as soon as my Pompeo made that statement i actually gave a speech with the UN special officer on freedom expression David Kay at UCLA that later that day and i stood up and said exactly that this is exactly the kind of semantics we saw the bush administration engage in around Guantanamo about unlawful enemy long combatants this new these new phrases that did not exist under humanitarian law which were invented to lock up people in Guantanamo for a really long time and when i heard this language i immediately said they are going to use this to pursue wiki leaks this is a new kind of language which they will use to make it possible to prosecute julian and to cross this threshold i use those phrases in front of the UN special officer on freedom expression and within days jeff sessions and then attorney general came out and said prosecuting a scientist's priority and that's when the drums really started beating for this indictment so i think we have to we have to look at this indictment and we tried to argue this before the court action excursion case this indictment was driven after the cio publications they're prosecuting him for what happened before but the impetus to prosecute him came under trump after wiki leaks published the cio publications and my compare was done for this i'm going to ask about the british court so within the american court system the cio is virtually untouchable um they have all sorts of legal mechanisms uh any terrorism laws sands uh you know immunities immunity everything that essentially makes them untouchable but we see and i i think all of you are right that this is being driven how do they exercise that kind of control within the british court system i'm not sure to say that they exercise that kind of control what's been concerning is the way in which the court rejected our arguments about abuse of process raising these issues so i was spied on as a lawyer i've seen recordings through the context of the spanish criminal proceedings of my meetings with julian videos and recordings of my legal privilege meetings with him i have had to sue the british government for spying on me which they settled um not just spying on me but spying on me and information sharing with the united states as a result of the snow disclosures which they settled um but if we look back historically for example at the prosecution of daniel ellsberg the pentagon papers leaker he was a whistleblower not a publisher but prosecuted under the espionage act under nixon what had that case thrown out breaking into a psychiatrist office that was sufficient under the nixon administration to have the entire case thrown out with prejudice which meant they could never bring it again in our case spying on julian's medical appointments spying on us as lawyers seizing legally privileged material the list goes on and on and on on the abuse of process and what does it say about our democracy today that us raising these arguments when nowhere in the british courts and that this in this prosecution continues in the united states when there's been far more abuse than what we saw under the nixon administration what does that say about our democracy today well i'm curious because it's just a given within the american court system that the cia is untouchable and and is the british court system now so decayed that it just bows to any form of pressure or is it replicating the kind of power the cia has within the american court system because i'm asking a question about what's what is happening within the british judicial system in terms of its uh it's it's clearly dancing to the tune that they play and i guess i'm asking why is it just because the coal system is decayed is it or is it i mean the american judiciary is you know not in good shape of course but you it's just we know as a reporter you can't if you can't go up against the cia and what's happening internally as far as you can tell i guess i'm asking both of you here well i i i think things are a lot more open in the us than there are they are in the uk um just beginning with a cultural skepticism of too much state power um even in popular culture when you see the intelligence services portrayed here they're usually portrayed as competent um you know admirable honorable all these things whereas yes there's some of that in the us but i also see a lot of popular culture where the cia or the bad guys um you don't have that so much here uh and uh i think there's a the things are a lot more sewn up here i think um and it's less transparent um starting with the well declassified has done a lot of work looking at the at the judges involved in in this case and um i you know i have to be careful with what i say because we're going before the judges tomorrow um but have a have a read um there's um it's very small it's a small world at the top um the of the establishment here and it's very integrated and julien offended all those networks so i think there's there's some of that and then there's also kind of a practical aspect which is in extraditions uh you know it's it's 99% politics if this were rush or rush on russian extradition request um it would it would have been thrown out from the get go it wouldn't have been certified uh you know a journalist publishing evidence of war crimes committed by the state in the context of the war um and then the espionage act being used for receiving for possessing communicating information about war crimes to the public received from an insider who was a whistleblower i mean you can't even it blows your mind even uh transpose that situation into a different country but of course it's the united states and there are all sorts of internal arguments that are involved like of course we trust we have to trust our close you know uh friends in the united states and the integrity of the traditional system and if there was intelligence uh interest in doing as they as the judges kind of well um referred to the cis assassination laws interest intense interest of course um um uh then uh we're not going to question that and so the it's just kind of a a revert to a formulae uh get out uh because there are friends and our friends are fair democracies that don't do bad things and of course um everything we know contradicts that right beginning from from the torture the torture program to black sites to antennae and so on like this is this is a country that has found a million different ways to break the law and to break international law and undermine the international system and to and to torture and to kill and so on that's who we're dealing with but you're dealing with a kind of dual register into a certain extent i wonder how much of it is careerism they know if they render the decision is that the state wants it's very good for their career and we have seen judges i think of a lot of known the attic uprising is in the uk but there was uh you know those who stood up for this was the broke into a prison killed 39 shot dead guards and prisoners um but you know judges that they were just their careers were destroyed and declassified has as you point out uh detail the links with the defense industry and you know you know so it's it's a select group that is embedded within intelligence services in the defense industry but also um they know the cost i don't know what you think Jennifer all i'll say as counsel we will be in court tomorrow yeah i'll say is that those who end up being appointed to the judge are typically establishment to to end up in a position where you're appointed to be a judge and so the judiciary tends to be rather conservative and i think following this over the years and i just want to say coming out i work 15 years of the near times coming out of that culture um for people who don't come out of those institutions it should be clear that from the inception of the 2010 iraqi warlogs uh those within institutions like the new yrraith times low to him such because he shamed these institutions into doing their job and they had to print that material because if they didn't print it they would be exposed as lap dogs to the elites and stenographers to those in power and this has traditionally been the case so that's why and i've heard people raise it you know after these information was published you saw the first probably institutions that began this long character assassination um were the guardian the new yrraith times my old editor bill keller and others um and this letter which is good that was published by uh limon i my understanding is that was pushed on them by by the lawyers who said uh you know this is not to uh call for two hands releases suicidal um if julian is extradited if he is found guilty uh then and i published classified material in the new yrraith times just to possess classified material much less to publish it it it becomes criminalized it's the death of investigative journalism into the centers of power it's over it's finished um but i want to talk a little bit about the uh you know the consequences uh for the press from this case and i think that that is what got a lot of us initially who saw it behind it let's talk about you know what god forbid let's say julian is extradited let's say he is found guilty what does that mean for the press and and and just one more thing watching it from the united states you're watching a journalist who's not american who wikileaks not a us-based publication uh he was not leaked the materials in the united states and it's this message that you can see so journalists no matter who they are no matter what nation they're from no matter where they are and through what the euphemistically called extraordinary rendition i think the consequences for the press are absolutely terrifying and maybe we can start with you christian and everyone can address that issue yeah with the president being said that he's dawning on on on journalists gradually and it is the the reason of course when we had the rather she turned around in into support by our former media partners back in 2010 and i love them the new year times the spiegel and the guardian and others who were part of that media alliance pushing out the uh publishing the the the the warlocks and the cable and the alkan warlocks earlier it's it's out of self-interest it is dawning on them and the the president is extremely serious uh and for some reason for example here in london we had a meeting last week with the foreign press association with over 100 journalists the the foreign press in this country seems to get it more than the local journalists for some reason they do understand uh even coming from countries from the shake here past and and dictatorships and living memory like latin america they do understand what this means and and it is serious and and that is the this president is is is so chilling but i we're always talking about what if he is actually died and i just want to mention the fact that the persecution of julian saas has already had a serious killing effect and it has all already set an example for others from less democratic countries for the taterships to go after journalists we do have uh we do have examples from china from the asir bhajani president and from russia where they cite during the saas as an example why do you think you can criticize us when you have julian saas sitting in prison this is the exact word of the asir bhajani president who's shot back and fired back at a bpc report how can you criticize me for lack of press freedom when you have julian saas in prison it'll so that that's it that is the bad inspiration they get and you have evan gerskovich sitting in prison in russia being charged with espionage what is the difference between julian saas and him and uh so julian saas is a prison a prison a political prison and we saw on friday what can happen to political prison in other countries so it's a serious matter um so i see i feel that throughout this this long saga is 13 and a half years since we were here actually in this club preparing the release of the the algan war diary the chilling effect that the the the persecution of julian saas has already had we've seen raiding even in the abc offices not strangling them they demanded access to a computer to try to find a whistleblower unprecedented and so the examples have been piling up the damage has already been done but the full damage will be done if it's actually done so it is so important than to to put the line in the sand this needs to stop here for it to be reversed just to reiterate what christen said this precedent means that any journalist anywhere in the world is publishing truthful information about the united states quickly prosecuted extradited to be prosecuted in the united states for publishing that information without constitutional protection and that is a terrifying precedent so and it's not just about what as christen said it's not just about what it means here and we've seen ads place in the newspapers here by the unions and free speech groups saying the uk is no longer a safe place of a place for media workers because of julians the extradition case against julian um but it's what it says about to the rest of the world as christen said it's diminishing the moral authority of western liberal governments to raise free speech concerns but it's also putting people at risk elsewhere and i want to recognise john dundar who's here a turkish journalist who was in prison in turkey he was explaining to me we talk a lot about this so we talk about the fact that evan gurskovich is in prison and pooton says well what do you when blinkin's saying you can't prosecute a journalist but espionage should be released and pooton says well what about juliana sanj similarly for john in turkey when he was in prison julians case was raised um and used as an example why the turkish authority is about why they can do this and so it's not just this is not just about julians case it's not just about the cases that will happen in the future but it's about what's what's happening in other cases in different jurisdictions around the world and the precedent that's being used to justify this kind of treatment to germless i think we've crossed a threshold beyond which there's no going back if this case goes ahead and it is a terrifying precedent we have to stop it i don't have much to add other than it's uh it's a race to the bottom um and uh yeah the media has played a very uh bad role in keeping people ignorant of like really giving them completely misleading information so that they don't have the elements to really understand it um the other ring of julian and wikileaks and it's not really engaging with the with the indictment itself i mean you still you still have to you know correct journalists who say oh well this is this is about hacking and it's just like how how many years of um of and how many articles and how many explanations and how many how much debunking do you have to do to uh you know to get through to them but um sometimes i think it doesn't it doesn't really matter there are some journalists that are going to be hacks and arguments are just kind of deployed as as weapons um and if you shoot that weapon down they'll just come up with another and it's just positional it's just basically projecting their alliance to um to you know power basically um and in fact they don't those specific journalists who are hacks um don't want to hear the they don't want to engage they're not interested because they see their role as further the interest furthering the interest of that power yeah i think that's an important point unfortunately you know at elite institutions like the new yw'r tîms it's a fairly high percentage and and it's not just furthering the interest of power it's furthering their own careers um because that's how their careers advance and if they actually do journalism they become a management headache um you tell us something when we in my forwarding years i mean i was to repair the the the new yw'r tîms for the role in the pedicum papers which we mentioned here Daniel Ellsberg rest in peace um it he came over here in 2010 in October for the iraq release and i met him at the home of of gathered by fat and another great support when we this greatly that's passed and i recall how energized he was until i was 20 he was running up and down the stairs and he just couldn't control himself saying i've been waiting for this for 40 years finally finally he just he couldn't sit down you know you just got a plane from america this was so energized by what was going on it was so important but he told me as well if i was i was going to this from the same thing as i did in the 70s 70s 70 months um i would never have seen in the today's system i would never have seen the single day as a free man and we have totally changed and it was a it was an eye opening for me that you would we were at worst state and then in the darkest hour under the next administration that's how corrupt the system is that's how lame the media is and another issue that has been raised here was about the endless fight to correct the misconception which comes even from our media partner who know better for example that there was this irresponsibility about throwing out the information data dumping putting lives at risk picking up the the talking point of the of the pentagon and the american administration nothing is further from the truth nothing is further from the truth and you know before the publication of the afghan warlock julian was working tirelessly night and day to do harm minimization with acting 15 thousands of the entire documents with the afghan warlock and mark davis an australian journalists and lawyers was actually following around in these rooms here and the rooms that once applied us thank you very much for that one have you paid the bill and he has testified after he was witness to the fact that the media partners had no interest in the reductions they thought it was a nuisance that he was taking too far the same thing applied in the october release of the iraq warlocks in a bigger media lines which i partly had to men's who have heard in cats we had to postpone a demand to postpone the release and we did for two weeks because we were not finished with the reduction process i just want to close before we open to questions i think we can't leave without talking about the physical and psychological cost to julia which has been immense i don't very many of us plenty any of us in this room could endure what is endured and maintain his integrity and strength the way he has i think neils melzer what do you call it a slow motion execution it's just you know along with the egregious violations of traditional norms um they have used the punitive power that they have going all the way back to his seven years in the embassy and the reasoning was seven years in the embassy is because the british government would not allow a free passage to the airport that's why it was there and i guess still maybe you can just address that when we get questions well i think the the very massive impact this has had on julien um it's been a constant decline because what i and i really see it when i see footage from you know five years ago or eight years ago 10 years ago i mean the decline is steep and he's aged prematurely how could you not you know the full extent of the impact on his physical health his psychological state is a constant struggle there have been very very dark moments inside that much and we're going into a very difficult as well which always comes with stress and sleeplessness and um it's uh you know it's there's never a time of recovery in the middle of this it's just one battle and then getting through it and then decline and then further battle and getting through it and decline and five years in in belmarch is no one can deny the harsh um treatment that that julien is being subjected to just indefinitely into the future in the worst possible environment in the uq prison system but he's he is helped by the enormous support there is you know and the knowledge that that support is growing but there's initiatives all over the world really um yesterday in parliament um honorary citizenship in Rome the journalistic community here giving him you know membership for the Bulgarian and the Serbian and the Italian and the German journalists to you declaring that he's one of them all of these things are so important and keep it going of course great so we can do about half an hour or so of questions just keep the questions short so other people can ask questions i was interesting when you talked about all the redacting of governments because i remember a few years ago lots of newspapers were written by the consulting by irrespective of the agent slice of the bris is that rubbish well if you don't believe me you should believe no no let me let me let me finish you should you should believe the uh the the witness of the government in the Chelsea Manning case who had to admit under oath that there was no evidence of anybody being physically harmed as a result of this release and now 30 30 and a half year later 14 year later we haven't heard of any uh any damage there was great effort put into to this process and uh to this date we have not not heard anything but it was a propaganda point he's a hacker irresponsible dummy information internet nothing is further from the truth i've got two questions um one of them could you explain for nonlawyers why um this case can't go to the supreme court that's that's the first question um the second question is a bit more complicated um i noticed too after the various judgments on on the case that if you look on social media much of the response has come from as it were continental journalists not british journalists um with a background in countries where lack of free speech is just about within living memory if you look around the audience here tonight this is a different audience from quite a few when i come to the front line club if you come to something about gaza you will find that pretty much everybody is under about 35 are you looking at as it were a free speech generation that has no successes and do you think and as a sort of sideline to that do you think that the um the sex accusations from Sweden um did they have an effect on a particular generation that doesn't make it i'm happy to take the first question about the spring court uh we were refused permission to appeal basically the the high court will hear but you don't get permission you don't get um you can't appeal as a right you have to see permission to appeal uh we sought permission to appeal on the decision for example that the courts waved through the u.s assurance i think that was a great point of the spring court we were not they did not want to hear us um we now are waiting to see if we get given permission to appeal it may well work its way up to the supreme court and we think we have a number of really important legal points that that deserve supreme court consideration but whether or not we get there is a separate question but if we refuse permission that is it and we have to guard the european court it's just the nature of the appeal process next we should guess it's um on the on the uh i mean the the honest answer to to that is that the guardian has played a very serious case uh for many years in undermining um public understanding of julien's case and it goes down to the um publication of cable games and the publication of the password that then led to the unredacted cables appearing online on the third party website and then the guardian had to get blamed someone and uh the evidence was there um that it was in their book um they were to blame and they uh deflected by smearing julien and getting the other partners to smear julien as well essentially um and so without the uh liberal left and of course the swedish allegations were pumped up uh to play into that and the guardian gave it a lot of um uh fans that that fire um it undermined political support also because the guardian viewed julien as a other competitor and wikileaks reputation as an existential threat to the to the viability of the guardian in the longer term um wikileaks came about at a time this is a more generalized problem that wikileaks came about at a time when when the mainstream press was uh struggling to find a uh viable funding model and here came wikileaks which much with much greater impact with much higher quality sources um and uh basically blowing blowing all these legacy media out of the water so they had to they had to destroy his reputation so you know you see all these half these un enthusiastic defences of julien oh it doesn't matter what you think about the man all that is uh not just cowardly but it's also to cover up for how they've engaged in um putting him in prison essentially their election of duty allowing their self-interest to making him pay with his life for their selfish self-preservation however i have to say it's been late in the day but they are aside you know they've made this joint statement they are clearly you know saying julien should be released they have enormous influence and so uh i don't you know i i i i pick my moments uh to to really express what i truly think which you know of course this will be there for for posterity so but that's the truth you know this hasn't come out come about by coincidence this isn't a situation of julien's own making i just done the swedish stuff you should read neil's melzer's book on this yeah it's great and you know he's a lawyer he speaks swedish and it was fascinating about melzer is that he admits at the beginning that he fell for a lot of this garbage i i would just draw an analogy i was Ralph Nader's speechwriter and nader terrified the democratic party and so they did the same thing to Ralph and what they do is essentially create what don chomsky calls these thought terminating clichés and then the press which is and i come out of the press it's a superficial entity uh uses these thought terminating clichés at shorthand and um that became very effective in turning Ralph who i think is one of the greatest American figures you know the last generation uh into a pariah and they know very well what they're doing and they did the same thing to julien but i think that i don't know what still things but i think melzer's book is uh really for people who really want to understand what they did i think it's probably the best that i know there's also information in stefania marisi's book hers is very good but hers is different it's different but she's exposed through her the the documents as you got through uh foia uh how politicized the entire side was and it should have ended you know in 2012 or 13 when actually this week's wanted to to get out of it this is absurd and we're pushed onwards by the prosecution service in this country yeah the party's book is very good too i see melzer's book is a deconstruction and and stefania marisi's is a reconstruction yeah that's a document yeah forensic detail what he's got the mic okay yeah that's fine um and they're recording so the one she's talking about um question for you know sam's the assurance is that us um that's not arguable that's not arguable upon the floor because they can only change them right whereas um judge uh barrensa she's she gave julien her positive because on the platform that is more weight than the sam's assurance is for example so how come julien doesn't win on that point because e-chr is only territorial in europe once asan goes to us then i have to listen to e-chr they will sound will disappear overnight so they can do whatever they want so my question to you is is that why wouldn't e-chr listen to julien asan's application on sort of health ground suicide grounds for example because sam's is not arguable it's not arguable upon the floor it cannot be it's not no so why wouldn't then plus this is the biggest case in publishing in the last 100 years even 200 years no one has ever done this no one will ever do this this is this is once not in a lifetime it's once in a generation and i'll do a disagree with you i think they will listen it depends on how the application is put forward and i really really think this is the strongest point because in all the proceedings this is the only point that has favoured asanj and that is um judge venissa's julien on this and she she did a massive favour by them because i i believe that it was a point she let's get jenifer to resolve is one of the people well the first thing to say is that we did seek to appeal that point as i said we didn't get permission to appeal on a question of didn't like assurance that will absolutely fall apart of our european court of human rights applications so that point was as the lawyers in the room or though we need to exhaust domestic remedies before we can apply to europe we exhaust the domestic remedies on the point of the medical evidence about the impact of the prison conditions on drill entities to be extradited that point is waiting in the wings as it were so once we've exhausted all domestic avenues of appeal on all the other points we have we have a european court of human rights application ready to go which will absolutely be raising those issues along with free speech their trial on the back there's on thank you alexis the swab lawyer at the broslaw's bar and vice president of the international federation for human rights the fidh who came to london to support the case of julien assault because it's a human right case and the defense of our fundamental liberties my question is a legal question about the european court of human rights if we have to ask a rule 39 to stop the extradition if the case is and badly here tomorrow and the day after we know the uk government doesn't like the european court for human rights but do they respect the decisions of the european court of human rights we know other countries in europe belgian my country extradite a person 10 years ago to the united states despite the rule 39 that was to forbid the belgian government to do it but they did it what about the uk government do they respect it or i certainly hope the british government will respect julien's ability to apply to the european court for extraditing him and will respect any rule of the european court as it stands but of course we've been hearing some pretty concerning political noises from the british government and it's certainly something that i hope the australian government will be making clear its expectation that join as an australian citizen will be allowed the available remedies under the existing law which is that we should be permitted access to the european court and be given time to do so hi my name is chip gibbons i think some of you know me um my question is vault seven and how that sort of warped the psiliae's perspective of wiki leaks as a non-state hostile intelligence brought up a few weeks ago the person who was convicted of giving vault seven two wiki leaks received the longest sentence under the espionage act by decades in a civilian court in seeking this sentence the u.s. government saw a terrorism enhancement under the computer fraud and abuse act and argued that his actions were more like and argued his actions were more like people who gave evidence to hostile governments they compared him to richard hannison and and elder beams to actual spies who were not charged under the part of the espionage act he was is there any fear that this sentence in this sentencing memo is about cementing the view of wiki leaks as a sort of analogous to a four i know they're not analogous to a foreign intelligence agency and are we concerned with what that means if assange is extradited to the us well of course we were uh i've been watching those proceedings on the distance and i'm worried about this uh this length of imprisonment that the person what we've got in this case cellar you were you were opinion on this yeah i mean one of one of the concerns that we're raising one of the arguments that we're raising is that uh the u.s. once truly is on u.s. soil could seek to recategorise the specific charges that he's that he's been extradited under and seek such enhancements including his court of course under the espionage act there is death penalty under some some of the provisions of the espionage act and that could be done once he's extradited i mean once once he's extradited if he's extradited anything can happen yeah i mean technically they could add on to the indictment they would only have to meet a rubber stamp from London which i suspect would be easy to get yes i think you're absolutely correct chip that this sentencing is incredibly worrying about not just because it was an alleged weekly source so we're obviously following it very closely but for what it signals about where the courts are going in terms of sentencing for espionage act offences and so for the u.s. for example that uh in this case the u.s. made a representation in court that Julian would only face five years in prison was the representation made for the court that is absolutely not what the sentencing guidelines in Julian's case provide we know that it will be significant in longer um and this this latest sentence that's been handed down is incredibly worrying about where the courts are going and what Julian would face of course we've never seen prosecution published under the espionage act but the fact that a source is receiving this kind of sentence is really worrying and terrifying for the united states okay now i'm just gonna i'm gonna use the mic mic to record it uh if Julian Assange is a spy then who'd he spy for i mean uh if i remember right i think Chelsea Manning was charged with eating the enemy right so i'm assuming i don't really know the law but uh you you think that this is about providing information to a government but if everything about WikiLeaks and if everything about Julian Assange is providing information to the public then legally can you not work it into the legal defense in some way or can you not work it into the legal defense in some way that the government is declaring the public to be the enemy just on the Chelsea Manning trial which i sat through the argument that the prosecution made was that by providing that information it ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda um that it may not have been the intent but that that was the result that was Chelsea Manning that's right so the eating the enemy charge in Chelsea's case came because because she gave the material to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks made it public by that because it was made public and made available to the public it was also made available to the enemy and it you write it's a stretch but this this is why we say this the espionage app was never intended it's an antiquated piece of legislation dating to 1918 not intended to apply to publishers or journalists there is no suggestion in this case that WikiLeaks was operating with the backing of in support of a foreign power which is the base of what espionage is all about not at all this is purely about publications the espionage app was never intended to apply in this way to journalists or otherwise so it's it's absurd if you have to be right i mean if the WikiLeaks was eating the enemy the first thing that the enemy said was the people one specific government anyway you can pick because i want to ask a question sorry uh for just all my natalia wishes a Spanish high for that i have three questions um the first one who do you manage to keep in secret your relationship because she told that all the movements have been recorded the second one my second question is about how do you handle sorry because i tend to see the legal framework from Opsia from Latin America and for me i don't understand how it's working this tradition in this country because if you compare the Augusto Pinochet case and Julia Sanchez i don't understand a thing is political more than legal uh do you have any political support are you expecting any political support um from here on from Opsia my third question about the documents uh can we expect maybe in the future to to to know all the content about the documents oh well um keeping it secret from whom i guess is the question um we we never assumed that that um the people who were surveilling Julian inside the embassy with sophisticated devices didn't know um but um we we tried our best to stay out of the um places where there were cameras and uh and um you know um i mean Julian is a is a security expert um so he so maybe it's um might seem extraordinary uh from a perspective of someone who leaves a normal life um but you have to understand the the context within that embassy was very very specific um constant surveillance um but you find you find a way to to um to live your life you asked a question about political support uh we have been um we have been seeking the support of the australian government for many many years and it's with this most recent government the under prime minister elwyn easy we have the full support of the government so uh it took many a decade of lobbying in Canberra and uh an amazing amount of community support for some great community organisers in Australia who have been constantly banging down the doors of local MPs when i go to meet ministers in Canberra they tell me that they their officers are blanketed with free assigned stickers and people turn up at their constituents officers asking them what they're doing and that's made a difference so just this past week i want to recognise Julian's brother Gabriel who's here who's been doing a lot of work in in the parliament in Australia and in the community organising space not just in Australia but around the world here in John Chippton Julian's father uh but we've just had a resolution in australian parliament last week passed by two thirds of the parliament supported by the prime minister and the government calling on the UK and the US to allow Julian to return home to australia and i can tell you that that is a huge change i used to address rooms of three MPs briefing on Julian's case when i first started going to Canberra more than 10 years ago and now when we go down standing remotely we have support from every single political party it is a bipartisan issue in australia so the liberal party the leader of the liberal party came out and said that enough is enough we support the government's position that this needs to come to an end and then the question is now that we have the australian government support the Australian parliament the government the prime minister the government the parliament the people what will the US do with that we have a special relationship what does that special relationship mean and if we look historically with the support of the Australian government for example there was an australian in guantanamo bay david hicks who was accused of terrorism offences a conservative australian government under john howard negotiated his release and return to australia and what i continually have been saying to australian governments of both political persuasions and to this government if we can negotiate the release of an australian guantanamo bay then why can't we negotiate the release of an award winning Australian publisher and i think that's the question and i think it's a test of the australian-us relationship now and it's worth mentioning that of course the the importance of the support of the albansie government and the australian government and the bipartisan support that they now have in australia is extremely important um but the support has also come from from other countries outside the bubble of the nato bubble or the orcus of five a's five a's five a's bubble uh from america for example where uh the presidents of five countries have have issued statements uh met us uh oprador in brazil in in mexico peddor in colombia lula in brazil and uh kivsner and finandis in argentina were now left and the bolivian president it's it's wonderful i traveled to the region and it was astonishing to to to see the level of support not just on the top level of politics in in all the major countries south of the u.s borders in not just the south of america but one third of north america as well uh and president of honduras they've raised the issues of the nations lula in the general assembly issued the the the uh questions of of julian uh in his speech the first speech there and got an ovation which is very rare in the general assembly so and i don't know where the conference but at my specific it's because of in living memory uh in those countries you don't have to tell you don't have to tell them stories about the capabilities of the cia they'll know and they know dictatorship and you know what it means to be deprived of human rights and that is that continent and in other countries as well outside of this region we've had tremendous support but what does it mean in the end well we see in that current current conflict in that even though 150 nations unite on a single issue like within the ceasefire issue to the gaza it is not enough but it is in many ways you know the support is huge but we need more push and leave the public out we have time for like one or two more questions of two two more questions i'll just like you mentioned my case well i want to ask something about jovina um i was jailed because of the new story i made it was about a turkish intelligence service smuggling arms from syria to the esthams jihadist there and they asked two life sentences and put me in jail because of espionage charges and uh state secrets etc and uh and i was called as turkish assange by the turkish media there are a lot of similarities i was insulted confinement and uh one day jovina was in turkish and wanted to meet with my family my son and my wife met with him and during that meeting he said to my son that you can easily tell the reporters outside that your father is a hero and you must be proud of him and he did this meeting and the same joe biden now is trying to get the exhibition decision from the uk so what has happened i mean the same biden what i mean was it about um it was turkish intelligence service not the american intelligence service is that the reason why he was so you know talked about heroism in journalism cases or uh he changed during that time and i started with biden now oh yes it's what chamski calls this process of worthy and unworthy victims so there were four stories in the new yr tîms about nebony yesterday it were not about julian and as a reporter i think that about history is important and um my suspicions are what everyone's suspicions are about what happened to him um but he's a worthy victim and julian is not so uh they these governments need that moral imprint tour that moral veneer and so they will use quote-unquote worthy victims uh to give themselves that imprint tour while persecuting unworthy victims and the starkest example in my own career i covered the word out south or for five years and we had four american church women uh raped and murdered by the national guard we had oscar a mero was assassinated um and at that same moment there was a polish priest with solidarity who was killed presumably by the communist government of poland this was during the reagan administration so you had church people killed in el salvador at the same moment that you had a catholic priest killed in poland all the reagan administration did was talk about the polish priest um and in fact cast even though they were americans cast dispersions on the church women uh gene per patrick who was at the un said they weren't really church women and alexander haig who was the secretary of defense said that they ran a roadblock so it's there's no moral crisis within joe bighton um you were a politically deemed a worthy victim and julie and asange is an unworthy victim it's a very cynical game but as a foreign correspondent for 20 years i watched it play out over and over and over and that so nothing happened to joe bighton um he's he's the same shit you always but thank you john for raising your case of pointing out the hypocrisy and i think we have to continue to point out the hypocrisy which is if you were if you're willing to step in and help you be released from prison in such similar circumstances then why are they doing this and that's one of the things we continually do in our public advocacy certainly in our public advocacy is highlighting the hypocrisy of the united states in raising cases like yours elsewhere in the world but doing it at home and doing this to join so thank you for thank you for telling us about it just a word about joe bighton uh and uh hypocrisy consistency the biggest argument one of the biggest arguments in julie's case is the fact that it he has extradition is in total total contravention to the extradition treaty between the two countries the us and the uk uh article four isn't it it just totally bans extradition from political offenses and if any offense can be called political it is which are also espionats right so it should be impossible to to to carry out the extradition on this on this basis and it was pointed out to me i was sent on article from the belifar's time uh pointing the fact that that's in 1980 four or five then senator joe bighton fell so strongly about the political assumption in the extradition treaty that he fought tooth and nail against an agreement between ronald reagan and and marvin tatger for america to extradite uh suspected ira terrorist so he fought in the senate against it because the exemption was so holy as a rule that even the bad guys should not be extradited it which it was a it was a golden rule that should not be touched but he's irish he was irish so he was successful in that and and and and the this this individuals i think i think his name is walis was not extradited to the uk so and there are documents talking about this this importance of this golden rule and it's the united states who demands this exemption and all their bilateral views so be consistent senator biden president of biden and it you don't have to do that to go that far i mean biden was the vice president in the obama administration that decided not to pursue so not to discontinue because it has to do with him that the trumpet administration started he's a political decision itself one last question there's someone over here you can decide the yeah thank you um andrew who i'm uh from the power to assembly of answer of europe it's three times called for the immediate release of julia nason this assembly is linked to the court in strasbourg so i will come back to the question of the the court i think we have to say very clearly ignoring rule 39 is uh is um uh is it's it's a it's a binding law the treaty is a binding law britain has signed it we should say very clear that this is a breach of international law if britain would rarely ignore rule 39 i asked i'm members of the german parliament as well as my government two weeks ago if the ignorance of rule 39 would would be seen as a breach of the european convention on new rights and my government said yes this is a clear breach this is official and we have to take into mind that the post-aew treaties part of the post-aew treaties are very sharply bound to the respect of the convention on human rights there is a there is a phrase like this treaty this part was a treaty has to see shall cease if the convention is breached so this is i think we should make it strong i mean i know that we are able to reach it of course i know but i think we should make it as strong as as it possible and not say well it's it's up to the british uh i know that the torries they want they have a law now they try to weaken it but so far they respect it now they respect it in a wonder and we shouldn't uh i just want to appeal that we should make it stronger uh and not um i'll read no how are you how is the question to the lawyer uh how do you see the the binding character of the european convention on human rights of course it's binding as a matter of international law and of course the uk should comply with any provisional measures that are ordered by the european court there's no question that that is our position our concern is is the political noises that have been coming from the british government and so we will continue to reiterate that the european court is is an avenue of appeal that is available to any any resident citizen person in this country and we will be exercising that availability remedy and we fully expect the british government to respect its international obligations and comply with it okay thank you i hope all of you will be outside the court tomorrow we need to flood the streets you make a difference more than you know um the they these people who are managing this deep down inside know how corrupt the system is um but it's you uh all of us uh have the responsibility of calling them out thank you thank you