 I'd like you to introduce your arms to Shirley Lamar. She's going to give us some acknowledge from your country, and give her a big round of applause. First of all, I want to acknowledge and pay respect to Julian's father, Don Shipton, wherever you are. Is that in there? Mr Shipton, I want to pay tribute to and pay no respects to you as Julian's father, okay? Okay, so, my name's Aunty Shirley, I'm an Amuro Waka Waka woman, and today we stand on the land of the Gadigal people. But you know what? One of Australia's sons sits in a filthy prison languishing in another man's land, not our land! And he needs to be brought home now, certainly to his children, because that is where this man belongs. So, I don't know much about whatever Julian did, but out there they lock him up for speaking the truth. Because the truth always sets people free, and unfortunately has not set this man free. But we intend to support him in whatever way we can. So, our black fellas will be marching in May, and one of the banners will be bringing Julian home to his children. Because he's a father, and he needs to be with them. And what I want to say to people here, is black Australians, we're not Americans, Jackie Jackies and black berries. The white Australians might be, but not us black fellas. And just recently I thought about this white and bloke, I thought he might be a bit different, but he's not. The first thing he does is bomb cereal. What does that tell you? He's a warmonger like the rest of them. Aided and abetted by Australian politicians, and that's not on. So, in closing, I'd like to say that I as a person, and when I was black fellas, we'll be marching. We'll have a banner for you and for your son, and more important, your grandchildren. Because it's not right for a person to be separated from their children. I, myself, am a member of the Stolen Generations, over a profoundly disabled son who lives away from me. Saying they're the pain of a child and of a mother. And what I say to people, or what if it's his name is Gabo, how dare you do that to an Australian? How dare you do that? Just because he speaks the truth and doesn't speak with folk tongue like you. This is wrong, and it's a blight on this country. The fact that people from all over the world can stick up for this young man, and yet we have our own leaders kowtowing to the USA. So, yeah, that's all I've got to say. So, I will tell you that we will have that banner bringing Julian home to his children. And that'll be sometime in May. Because that is so wrong to deny a father the right to see his children. And I'm sure he's suffered enough over there. But I mean, when you look at, you can't but I'll wonder why. Because they were the same people that sent convicts out here. So when you look at Australia today, it is, was and always will be a penal colony. Nothing changes with these people. And what in saying so, this country is not Chinese Australia, Arab Australia, not even America Australia. It's Aboriginal Australia. And don't you forget that. And we intend to do a home run for this young man so that he is reunited with his loved ones. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, auntie. I should have introduced myself. My name's Ian Rose. I'm the member of support of Sergeant WikiLeaks Coalition. That's one of the first from the WikiLeaks shop. But I'd like to introduce you to Jacob Breck. Jacob Breck is an activist who's been on the campaign for as long as everybody. I was a journalist. Jacob's got a letter from Jonathan to read out as well. So just give him a round of applause, it'll be great. Thank you, everybody. And my name's Jacob. I'm here from Melbourne, part of Melbourne for WikiLeaks. And I've been one of the people who's in a tour with John Shipton and Graeme Dunstan and Ryan and Snares and others. Traveling around the country. So the first thing they want, but the first thing we wanted to do, we were expecting to have John Pilger join us today. But unfortunately, he sent a message in his place and he's asked me to read it out. So this is from John. He says, I'm sorry I can't be with you today. It's always an honour to share a platform with John Shipton. When this struggle is over and Julian is free, the tireless, courageous campaigning of John Shipton will have a permanent place in our hearts. It's more than a decade since the United States and its collaborators set out to smear and kidnap a journalist whose work they couldn't control, coerce or censor. WikiLeaks offered us a freedom of expression that bowed to no master. The kind of freedom that the Americans have boasted about being sacred to them. It's the ultimate irony that they who claim to have invented this freedom are now committed to crushing it. If they win their ratchet appeal in London and Julian goes to America, that freedom is lost, no truth teller is safe. That is why John's campaign is so important. He reminds us, never forget. He shames and persuades those in power. Today he and I say this to Scott Morrison. If you can get Kylie Moore Gilbert released after 804 days in Iran, then you can get Julian Assange released after more than 10 years in Britain. It can be done. You know it can be done. Or is your Australia nothing but a frightened country? Is it a country fit for cowards who never speak up, who never do the right thing, who go along with what the bullies tell them? Is that it, Scott Morrison? Help free Julian, Prime Minister, and Australia begins to be a real place, free and independent. If you say nothing, do nothing. If you just carry on managing scandals, handing out warts and kissing the backside of the world's bullies, then you are not the leader of a free country. Break the silence, Scott Morrison. Bring Julian home now. And thank you, John. Now, I'm not going to talk much myself on a day like this with the rain threatening that would be a human rights abuse in itself. Listen to me, Pratt along, you've got speakers here who are a lot more around the subject with a lot more knowledge than I do. But one thing I do want to say, and that is when John first came to me with the idea of doing a tour through remote areas, coming through Sydney on our way to Canberra, I was realised I'd been in Melbourne too long perhaps because I doubted the efficiency of it. But for John and for Julian, of course, we did it. I've got to tell you that throughout regional Victoria, whether we're talking Castlemaine or Bendigo, up in New South Wales where we went, Wagga Wagga, Aubrey, Gilbert, Bathurst, sorry if I left anyone out, Katoomba, Hazelbrook, yesterday in Parramatta's a different story, it's in Sydney. But throughout the rural areas, we had been absolutely job-smacked by the amount of people coming out and giving their support for this tour and for Julian Assange. And one thing I've got to say I've found it's really given me a lot of hope is to recognition as you'll hear from other speakers that this is not just about friend Julian. Of course, that's our primary concern. We want to bring him home to Australia. But the other thing we want to free is Julian's legacy. It scares me silly that we have the possibility of when we bring Julian home and it's a when, it's not an if, it's a when we bring Julian home. We want to bring him home to a country he could be proud of. A country where he knows his work has not been done in vain. His suffering has not been in vain. And we're concerned that we're asking everybody, everybody who comes here today, you're always asked aside petitions, you're always asked to kick money in the tin and of course you can kick some money in the tin today, it's on the table there. But one important thing we want to ask you is when you go home tonight, not tomorrow, not Sunday, tonight, and all you people down there listening in Radio Land through the community radio network, tonight go to WikiLeaks.org. Look up your favourite politician, doesn't matter what country, look up your favourite corporation, look up your favourite military, your favourite town, your school and get the information because that is what this is about. That is why Julian is locked up in a terrorist cell in a COVID-19 jail in the old yard because he's been providing us with information and it's our duty to Julian, not just to set him free, not just to bring him home but to make sure that his suffering, is not in vain. So that's why we're here today, we're going to have a lot of other speakers who can speak about various aspects of it but that's all I wanted to say to you. Thanks for coming out, supporting the home run for Julian. Thank you, Jacob, that was great. Now of course our next speaker is Lisa Johnson. She's a clinical psychologist, very much part of Doctors for Assigned and always with great insights. So please make her welcome. Lisa started researching and writing about Julian Assigned after attending a rally like this, just down the road at the town hall and John Pill just spoke at that rally he had a very powerful speech and at the time Ecuador had cut Julian off from the outside world and it was clear that things were taking a very alarming authoritarian turn and for me one of the most alarming things at that point was the resounding silence about that from a lot of the organisations and authorities whose job it is to protect our democratic rights from abuses of power like targeting and silencing a journalist. So I'm pleased to say that now a couple of years later that's really changed and you know changed dramatically. I mean I think it's fair to say that there's an international human rights and press freedom consensus that Julian Assigned should be free and he should be free now. Organisations from Amnesty International to Reporters Without Borders, UN bodies, you know legal experts, legal organisations, unions I mean I can stand here all afternoon naming the organisations, politicians from all around the world who are unequivocally denouncing the US pursuit of Julian Assigned both on the grounds that it threatens all of our democratic rights and freedoms and on the grounds that it threatens Julian Assigned's life and health. You know because the two things are the life and health of our democracies rely on informed citizens so you know that's inseparable from the life and health of Julian Assigned. So it was very upsetting and his extradition hearing last year to hear details of his really terrible state of health, his dire state of health and it was particularly upsetting as a member of Doctors for Assigned which is a group of over 200 doctors from all around the world and some very eminent people you know someone who's on the Executive Committee of the World Psychiatric Association someone who's headed up organisations of one not one but two Nobel Peace Prizes and we've been writing to governments since 2019 warning of you know the exactly the medical and psychological devastation that the court heard about at the extradition hearing last year and in late 2019 the Australian government and we itemised in quite a lot of detail the specific physical and psychological injuries that could be expected to occur as a result of the persecution and abuse being inflicted on Julian and those were precisely the physical and psychological harms that the court heard about in the medical evidence and the point about that is that we had no inside knowledge of Julian Assange's physical and psychological status it was just obvious and therefore predictable and preventable that those harms would occur you know particularly against that backdrop of medical neglect and fragile health in the Ecuadorian industry so then at the extradition hearing after the judge ruled against extradition based on Julian's fragile state of health or the direct result of the years of persecution and abuse she sent him back to prison for more she sent him back to the very place that the UN working group on arbitrary detention or the conditions that they had deemed arbitrary and that the UN record torrent torture had deemed torture so it's no surprise at all that the international his treatment shocking and excessive and likened it to the Abbey Grade prison scandal and it's no surprise that over 300,000 people tweeted the hashtag Assange after the Trump administration bailed to pardon him and imagine those 300,000 people here all shouting free Assange and that gives you an idea of the level of support that's out there and it's no surprise that the Australian leader of the opposition is enough so the Australian government would be on very solid ground if it's said to the US government look we just can't turn a blind eye anymore you know even we're the last party to this that isn't opposing this extradition request even the UK court ruled against it our parliamentary colleagues from across the political spectrum are against it the Australian people are against it the petition to free drill in Assange tabled in the Australian Parliament has over half a million signatures the third largest petition ever tabled in the Australian Parliament so the Australian government could easily say to the US government we have to step in to protect the life and health of our citizen because the world is watching and the Australian government could remind the US government that the Australian government has what's called a positive duty and it has an obligation to do something to protect its citizens when a finding of torture is made and to keep silent is called aqueousence and consent under the Convention and it's listed in the first sentence of the first article of the Convention Against Torture as part of the definition of torture so it's at the heart of the prohibited activity so the US government could say to the American government we can't be aqueousent he's our citizen he's convicted of nothing you lost your case it's time high time to free drill in Assange and drop the extradition request our next speaker of course is John Shipton you know I cast my eye around and I see faces that are so familiar from every fight from the Vietnam War onwards and the darlings of the heart really thanks for coming so there's a meeting in Glasgow a climate meeting in Glasgow every head of state will be there the United States and it's the UK preparing their submission a propaganda attack on the unvalues okay values the values of the United States Empire and if you don't mind we'll look at that a little bit because just down the road in London and Belmarsh is an illustration of the United Kingdom's values Julie and Assange now into the 11th year coming up to his 50th birthday since March nobody's able to pop in and say hello you know how shaky it's getting like jail has been infested with COVID the values so Gideon Pollya is an Australian academic who works in Melbourne he published a book recently he's an expert on excess deaths he calculates that between 6 and 7 million have died directly in the Middle East in the last 20 years between 6 or 7 million these souls have grieved over by their relatives their mums and dads sons, daughters uncles, aunts, grandfathers and their friends a pall of grief hangs over the Middle East a university publishes a study which indicates that the last 20 years of the United States and its allies activities in the Middle East have created 38 million refugees families, mothers, fathers when I say refugees it means us out of luck because somebody's ruined our country or wants something that we have in treasure 38 million values they are just our activity alone in fighting for Julian's freedom gives those grieving people some element of repose well they know that there are people who care there are people who know there are people who act in that and there are people who have seen the work of Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks crew any one of these events that I describe you can look up on WikiLeaks any one of the main actors if you wish to call them that you can look up on WikiLeaks you can see the deal you can see the deals they made you can see the supporting of decent people through blackmail through bribery bullying intimidation values but I don't want to speak too much more about depressing things they are facts and we shoulder them with our task to get Julian home we shoulder them willingly and if I may say so the task is a noble one but I wish to indicate to you that we are not alone 24 parliamentarians of God's spirit form the Assange group in representative government these parliamentarians bring the concerns of their constituents into the parliament and the institution of parliament pursues the executive to right this wrong a fine example of parliamentary action for us to observe and all surrounding Julian Assange a very good example the sentiment if I may use that word the values that propel an upwelling of support for Julian right around the western world in the Bundestag in Germany prior to Covid 29 cities each week had vigils for Julian Assange in the Bundestag they invited me to speak there which I did and nobody fell asleep or anything like that they actually slept and they asked me to speak again and they gave Nils Melzer an eye-standing ovation and I don't know who was most envious of the other Nils or me counting them there's a cross-party group now we were first here here in Australia we were the first to realise a set of values we realise that Julian Assange is a creation of this society formed within our bosons he is us not separate our values which we fight for in the tossing of Julian Assange on the other side in this instant there are many other fights that we can take on but in this instance that representation of our values in a living being is very important I'll say just a little more so that's in the Bundestag they have a cross-party group in Spain there's a group of parliamentarians in the UK a cross-party group in the Dial yesterday that's the Irish parliament for those unfamiliar with the gayly expression yesterday there was a the Sinn Féin spokesperson said that the government must approach must approach the American ambassador and the English ambassador they have the expression in Ireland the United Island for Assange pretty good has never been united for 800 years but Julian again values our values in action in Stockholm I am welcomed there by hundreds of people and three of their parliamentarians the same in Norway the same in the American Congress the same in Brazil so we're not alone and that's an upwelling across the western world which well in my heart will continue after Julian returns here to his family and society an upwelling that will continue to establish proper values and the seven countries that were destroyed in the last 20 years will have our attention and rehabilitation and apology thank you very much thank you John we have Alasen Brionowski it's a great honour to follow John and have this audience moved by what he just said and it's hardly necessary for you to hear anything more from me I'll take Jen's place as best I can in my working life I used to be a diplomat and when I couldn't stand that any longer I did a few other things including standing for the senate for WikiLeaks I should have won I've got a really old t-shirt too I should have won it we didn't expect to win we didn't expect to get anywhere and we didn't but that's how I knew John shipped it because we travelled all over the place just telling people what it was about telling them why we were doing it telling them we wouldn't win but at least we would give the cause some publicity and we had a great time and I hope that it gave Julian a bit of support as well he sure needs it now you know you get told all the time when you go up to speakers and say well what can I do and they say go and talk to your local politician go and write to your local member they always say that and it's good advice alright guess who my local member is Dave Sharma so I go and see Dave Sharma yeah so I go and see one of my former colleagues yeah I go and see Dave Sharma late last year and I say you're asking your constituents to come and talk about anything that's on their mind I've got something on my mind I've got two things on my mind yeah right oh he said what I said one is we've got to change the war powers oh yeah he says and the other is we've got to get Julian out of jail he didn't concentrate on the war powers at all as you can well imagine that just went straight through the keeper but on Julian he picked it up and he said you shouldn't be doing that I said why he said you should be putting your energies into freeing Kylie Moore Gilbert and I said you are kidding you are kidding me Kylie Moore Gilbert has been locked up for a year and a bit at that point Julian going on for 11 years even if it was only just that the relativities were so gross and I pointed out to him I didn't get a chance then but I pointed out later in writing to him that Kylie Moore Gilbert was accused and arrested for espionage in a country that has the death penalty and appalling conditions in prison Julian is arrested on charges of all wants to be exiled they want to extradite him on charges of espionage and taken to a country that has the death penalty and appalling conditions of imprisonment what is the difference there is none one is our noble ally to whom we are supposedly joined at the hip with all those values that John was talking about and the other is Iran which is not our enemy and has done absolutely nothing to deserve our enmity so why are our governments so afraid so willing to do things about Iran and so unwilling and afraid to take up the issue with either the UK or the United States and that's why I could not possibly work for foreign affairs now I would be absolutely useless to them as any kind of Australian diplomat because I am so disgusted with the behaviour of my own country and I told Dave Sharma about and he didn't like it but here's the point justice is supposed to be for everybody including the Attorney General IA justice is supposed to be everyone is supposed to be equal before the law except the ones who are facing American law and the ones who are facing Iranian law and then it's quite different right so what are we all doing about this well you're all here and there are people all around the country as John said and in other countries who understand the unfairness and the injustice and the actual danger to Julian to his life that is now on the cards Covid is in that prison by the way has any of our newspapers any of our media told you they haven't told me what is the infection rate in our jails do we know do we know what rate of deaths in prison from Covid we have we don't know in Britain except that we know that there are a lot of cases in Belmarsh now there are really serious crimes in there people who are locked up for awful crimes Julian as you know is locked up for nothing and he is exposed to that risk as you heard from my from our previous speaker he is exposed to that risk so unjustly and here we have a government which is spending over backwards and spending heaps and heaps of money just to save us from the virus but what's wrong with saving Julian from the virus I would very much like to know I mean why is his treatment different why is his treatment different from Kyliemore Gilbert why do we treat Iran differently from the United States and the United Kingdom well I went to ask a senior opposition shadow minister that question and he said it's the British legal system the rule of law and I said you've got to be joking but he wasn't he wasn't is no better than the government in this it is very hard to get any of them to take the slightest interest why because they are they are joined at whatever part of their anatomy works to the United States as well and they want to be in government and they know that if they know for hay the United States will overthrow their government I can tell you it's true thank you for your comment thank you Alison that was really nice alright so our next speaker is Joe Liora he's a journalist with consortium news who's trapped here on Holiday Island to our our benefits so please make him feel welcome would it be sufficient to be here today to defend a man who's been treated cruelly by two western states and abandoned by another that would have been enough to defend a son and a father but we all know that this case is much bigger than one man's life it goes to the very core of where the western societies will protect what is left of democratic institutions particularly the justice system and the press having had remote access to the proceedings at Old Bailey we at consortium news heard magistrate Vanessa Bereica pronounce the word discharge as in I order the discharge of Julian Paul Assange those who want to see the man free for humanitarian reasons or on principle were right for that fleeting moment to rejoice but then it was later that we questioned whether the word discharge had a different legal meaning than it does in the English language for Bereica as we know inexplicably sent Assange back to the hellhole of Belmarsh after barring his extradition because of the state of his mind and then we contemplated what Bereica's judgment meant for journalism even if Assange should defeat the American appeal she upheld the criminalization of the profession this is an immensely historic case because it is an historic first is the first time a publisher and a journalist has been indicted for espionage in the United States for the act of publishing defense information the espionage laws in the US and Britain were written not only to outlaw classic foreign espionage but so broadly as to make it possible to indict a journalist Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon had come close before in 1942 against journalists at the Chicago Tribune and in 1973 against reporters at the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case Barack Obama and Eulian died at Assange in 2011 but pulled back because his administration knew that to prosecute a journalist for publishing could invite a constitutional conflict put the First Amendment well Trump took that chance and it's now been endorsed by Joe Biden who had a chance to drop this appeal and did not and how is the media reacting to this on the day of Assange's arrest there were editorials that recognized the lethal threat to a free press after that there's been mostly silent thank you after all Assange has shamed the media profession he's done the job they should have been doing and he scooped them badly for decades with few exceptions the media has closed it up to power and covered up their crimes they've explained away the clues and the invasions and the surveillance as good for spreading democracy and protecting the rest especially America from hiked up or non-existent threats this is why so many people in the west find it so hard to support a journalist who exploded so many myths about their leaders about their country and about themselves they've been led to believe that political repression and extreme secrecy only takes place in those other countries the Soviet Union Russia, China and any developing countries that object to American bullying Assange helped make it possible for westerners to understand what is wrong with their governments and their aggressive foreign policy but many don't want to know I suspect many people walking by leaving their offices in the modern place may not want to know because they're attached to their national identities and turn on Assange for making them doubt what they believe about their government's good intentions to spread democracy for instance rather than the reality of spreading its geo-strategic and economic interests it's time for people to shed this fake innocence and embrace universal human values not the so-called western values that John Shipton spoke about and to defend Assange and the profession of journalism as it should be practiced Thank you Thank you John and sorry about the teething problems with our solar system there so pretty much that's a wrap everybody but there's a few things I'd like to take home with you that is invite your friends to support Assange talk with your family about Julian's plight and whether you're writing a letter to the MP your local MP asking them what they're doing ask them to join the Parliamentary Friends of Assange and it should be mentioned Labour people in there one of them been Julian Hill very interesting colour the other thing is we've got these amazing books full of essays from artists and academics of all working fields all from Australia giving their perspective on Julian Assange and what WikiLeaks has meant to our society you can pick one of these up for $40 and they will be signed by the Roadshow team which is John Shipton Grant Dunstan and Ron Seacup