 We're here at the Sydney Town Hall with David de Dormino, who is the sculptor of these magnificent pieces that stand behind us. We're here for a meeting about Gulin Assange, and David has flown from Rome and arrived a few days ago to Sydney. Welcome to Sydney, and this is the first time that these sculptors are here in Australia. Is that correct? It's the second time, because the first time was in Melbourne a couple of days ago. Yes, not this journey here. It's the first time in Australia. First time in Australia, but second city in Australia. How did it go in Melbourne? I think it was a good event. There was a beautiful weather, and a lot of people was in the square, participating to the event, and traveling on the chair, so it was very nice. Finally, we arrived in the country of Gulin Assange, so that's one of our goals since the beginning of the story of this statue. What is the story? The story started in 2013, and I realized the artwork in 2014, and the first time that we exhibited it was May 1st, 2015 in Alexanderplatz, Berlin, so it's a very symbolic date, and this is the 22nd city. One of the characteristics of this artwork is that it's a traveling statue, so I move it from city to city, to spread out the topic. I decided to pay an homage to the freedom of expression and information, and I chose the three individuals. They have the courage to revelate all of us, all crimes and whatever, the most powerful government. So you got the idea and tell us about how you worked on it, how long it took you. This is bronze, I understand, is that correct, and you did it in your studio in Rome? No, I did it in Pietra Santa next to Carrara where the cave of Marble, because there's one of the most important foundry of bronze in Europe, I mean, and they did an amazing job. So I realized the clay model there, and then they took the gallery. You can visit the website of the sculpture, that is anything to say dot com, and you will receive a lot of information. So you can see this clearly standing here. Tell us about the salt chair. An empty chair. Yes. Tell us what is that signature? I think that every artwork needs a missing piece, because the missing piece is the public, that sometimes are involved with the emotion and in other cases like this with an action. So the fourth empty chair is to invite the public to take stand next to them, but also for ourselves, because the chair is a comfortable place and we grow up, that is my opinion, when we go out from the comfortable zone and we change our point of view, of course it's a risk because we are more visible, but also we have a different view of the time that we live in. So art in this way, when I say art, I mean all the artistic, the artistic tactics, it's a way to, they gave us the opportunity to read in a different way our times. And of course these men, and now women shall see Julian and Ed Stone did what they did for the public. Yes, definitely. So when the public stands with them, they join together. Exactly, because they fight for our rights to know. And in the sense when we get on that chair, when any person from the public, they become part of this community. Definitely. Not exactly equal, because very few people have the courage to do what they do. Yeah. Well I'm very happy. Does anyone have the courage to get up on the chair and say something? It's your turn. How many people come, how many people actually get up there and speak? I don't know, until today you mean? Yeah, I do. They just want a photo, do they? No, I don't know. But a lot. Free speech. Stand all the way on the chair. This is beautiful. How many cities you say that you've been to? Twenty-two. And how many countries? Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Australia. When are you coming to Washington? New York, yes. That's one of the goals. Have you gotten any negative reactions people are saying? Of course. Let me hear about that too. Most of the, you know, when you, this artwork is also very political. Political in the sense that when you do something that makes sense for the, it's dangerous because it's also an indication to develop, to develop our critical sense and this is a very strong weapon. Yeah, for example the town hall, Anna said, did not want the chairs on their side. Yeah, so it means that half of the world is against this idea and the other one is with, so it depends from which way you want to see this. We're here at the Sydney Town Hall with John Shipton, Julian Assange's father, John, welcome. You have flown back from the tour of the U.S. just to be here for a couple of days. Why? Well, this is a pretty important occasion. This traveling sculpture is called anything to say of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange. It's an important occasion in Australia but I can't emphasise too much that Australia is the only government with standing in the relationship with Julian Assange because he's a citizen and now the Australian government is the only government in the world that backs with its diplomatic skill and its resources, the freedom of Julian Assange. I can't emphasise that too much. We won here and we're moving on now to the United States. How is the Australian government doing in terms of what they're certainly going to do? Well, we will see next week when Prime Minister Sunak, Prime Minister Albanese, President Biden meet in in San Diego under the Orcus How is the tour going in the U.S.? Holding allies, I understand. We've got 50... Pulse, Oklahoma? Tulsa yesterday? Yeah. Nine universities, 52 exhibitions so far. We'll probably go up to about 60 extending into about the 17th of March after which we'll go down to Mexico for a little bit. But the circumstances are that one exhibition is like throwing a small pebble in a pond. Two is another pebble. Three another pebble. Four another pebble. Five is starting to get a ripple. So we've got reviews from Variety, reviews from the Los Angeles time and we expect there to be more reviews of the filmmakers spend fortunes just to get a review. But we get the reviews because of the substance of the film and not least the people in the United States that we meet are really concerned about the abrogation of their holy grail if you like. Or if you're Jewish, the Ark of the Cup, the First Amendment, the Constitution of the United States. That's their holy grail and they brought a hang of it. They're really concerned about that. And as that, as Julian is part of the First Amendment, then that umbrella covers both sides of the aisle. As you know, they're at each other's throat. Something fierce in the United States at the moment inside of their aisle. They're showing daggers at each other. But with our thing, they all sit under the same umbrella. They can't throw those word daggers at each other if the First Amendment is abrogated. So you're getting all kinds of people here, all walks of life. Some of them maybe knew very little about filming and they learned. I mean, they're open-minded to hear the story. They're good people. They're open-minded to hear the story and they want something. They're looking for leadership. So you can see that in the phenomenon of Donald Trump. He gets up there and he says, if you want retribution against the deep state, I am your retribution. This automatically puts a ripple right through the United States because somebody's saying what they want. I'm not the illustrating Trump. I'm illustrating the thirst in the people of the United States, not Trump. They understand that the both parties have abandoned them, the interests of the American. And they see the First Amendment issue as being real as well because they've been kicked off Twitter sometimes as we found from the Twitter files. Finally, the last time that the case went to the High Court, it took eight months for them to decide whether to accept it. We're coming up to at least eight months now. I believe they have a year to decide, is that correct? Or can it go on as long as they want? I'm told that they're pretty relaxed about these things and they can wander in the desert for 40 days and nights. We've just got to keep on emphasising that the legal thing is a day of pull over a political persecution of a journalist and publisher who published war crimes, published, didn't steal, didn't leak, just published equally. The New York Times, LeMond, The Spiegel, Washington Post, El Pay, all published exactly the same thing, but they're not arraigned before a coup. So clearly the law doesn't matter. Every single human rights has been abrogated in Julian's case. Every single convention of the soul is abrogated in Julian's case and all of the due process that's fundamental to the United States and rural law and the United Kingdom has been abrogated, dismissed in a series of irregularities and malfeasance. It's a disgrace and a scandal. It's ruining the reputation of the United Kingdom, the United States and already ruined the reputation of Sweden. We can say now that we used to imagine Sweden as a model society. Now all we see is Sweden is bad laws and selling junk furniture. I'd like to pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and my brothers and sisters are in the audience today. On behalf of the traditional owners of this land, Nandawabi. Nandawabi! Thank you very much. He's going to do our smoking ceremony. Now a great journey to get the truth of the colonial process out there and up and running to get it acknowledged instead of this continuous unaddressing of how the country's been colonised. It's a drive for the truth and Julian Assange's same powerful drive for the truth and it is a great feat. And someone who said it, the truth will set you free. And all these people are stressed off their bonkers running around in capitalism trying to make a living and just get by. They're probably some of the biggest prisoners of them all because capitalism shuts you down. It shuts your reality down and it pays you some money and says there you go. But it's more than that. This is about spirituality. This is about your life. This is about your health. This is about your children's health and this is about your family's health and their well-being as well. So I'm happy to be here and to be able to share this ancient process of the smoking ceremony with you here this evening. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. It was even witty. Tonight we have three people here who will speak to you of what actually did her. The first, Dean Yates, a witness to the destruction of Iraq. There, the dispatch officer from Reuters knew well the photographer and the journalist that were slaughtered in collateral murder which you've all seen. Dean has written a book. It comes out June. Be aware that it describes like the cables the internal events of a heinous, destructive war that entirely destroyed deliberately an entire nation. I'll pass you over to Dean. Thank you, John. My name is Dean Yates. I was the Reuters Baghdad bureau chief in 2007 when an Apache gunship with the call sign Crazy Horse 1-8 killed two of my staff, Namia nor Eldin and Sayyed Chum. That attack on July 12, 2007 was later made famous when Julian Assange published the footage that he called collateral murder. For nearly three years Reuters had tried to get a copy of that tape because we knew it existed because I'd been shown the first few minutes of the tape in an off-the-record briefing by the US military. We knew the tape existed. Reuters lawyers tried to get a copy of that tape through Freedom of Information requests with the Pentagon every time we were refused and on April 5, 2010 when that tape was published, I think we all knew why Reuters was never given a copy of the tape. The tape showed grainy figures on a Baghdad street, hideous pilot banter, cannon shells the size of a man's hand crashing into men on the ground, rules of engagement that have been thrown out the window and in an attack on a Mi van that killed the Reuters driver Sayyed who had been trying to get up who was badly wounded for nearly three minutes while all my international legal experts described as a war crime. By publishing that tape Julian very quickly made himself an enemy of the United States and when that tape came out I was actually in Tasmania on a holiday with my family and I literally froze with shock and horror because I didn't know what had happened to my staff for three years we had tried to find out and unlike Julian who was trying to tell the world the truth about Iraq when that tape came out I basically went into hiding. I was unable to speak about it even though I knew more about that event than virtually anyone else in the world. I didn't know it at the time but I had PTSD. I had PTSD as a result of working as a journalist in Iraq in 2003 2004 and other years as well but I could not deal with what had happened to my staff and I just couldn't face it and so I buried it deep inside myself until six years later in 2016 I became suicidal and the reason I became suicidal was because I blame myself I failed to protect my staff but also blame myself for not speaking out about what had happened when people like Julian did and Julian had showed so much courage Chelsea Manning had showed so much courage in speaking out because they knew what was going to happen to them they knew the consequences and yet they still did it and here I was not having the courage to speak out of the time about what I knew and so that the moral dimension of what had happened to me became very hard to bear and I ended up in a psych ward in Melbourne with coppers veterans and others and it was there over a period of time over a course of three admissions three years that I learned that I had to make peace with myself and I did eventually and I forgave myself and I stand before you now much recovered but because I want the world to know that what Julian did by publishing that tape was a pure act of truth telling he exposed the lies in Iraq and he showed the world what was really happening in Iraq and as John talked about in his in his introduction the he the the it's important that we remember the destruction of Iraq now on this 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq because there has never been any accountability for the decision to invade Iraq there's never been any accountability for the decisions that Australia made to follow the United States into Iraq and I know what it was like to live in that that country car bombs going off every day people's family members disappearing hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Iraq and millions of people were displaced millions of people had to flee to Syria and Jordan and this is a country that was destroyed and until there's an until there is an accounting of that I think it is it really is a it's something that we we just can't let our leaders off lightly without that accountability and so I just want to thank everyone for showing up today I really appreciate it and it's we have to do everything we can to ensure that Julian is brought home so my final words are Prime Minister Albanese bring Julian Assange home now thank you Dean thank you Jimmy the smoke is there um next we have a person who's chronicled the late 20th century in such detail with such ocean outside of the State Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who actually plan these crimes get paid to plan these crimes nobody knows more than that speaker nobody has chronicled in-depth and shown extraordinary capacity to realize for us in film and print what has gone on what has happened and there's been a witness to what actually happened it actually happened John Kershift this is a an honor to be here and to be in the company of Dean Yates and especially John Shipton John is an old friend but in I would suggest almost a fourth member of David's wonderful sculpture and that is John John's campaign John's campaign yes please clap him yes there has been a film made about John's campaign but I've seen it over several years and it is one of the most heroic acts I've seen and known and I can't pay tribute more to John his calm steady support for Julian is utterly inspiring so thank you to John thank you Dean Yates and thank you to David for this wonderful sculpture it's an extraordinary likeness of the sense of what these three men achieved you get a sense of their heroism so to have it here in Sydney I think itself itself is almost heroic but here it is and I for one am grateful Julian has been a friend of mine for quite a long time now since he first went to England and through almost all of that time he has suffered incarceration and persecution of of some kind he I liked Julian almost from the moment I met him I liked his dark sense of humor he's funny I liked the fact that he was sharp and not a member of the media club in any way in fact not a member of any club I liked his thoughtfulness I interviewed him at my home in London and his thoughtful pause before answering every question produced something that was incisive and erudite and I came to like Julian very much and to be I hope one of his one of his true supporters I last saw Julian not long ago it was just before Christmas in Belfar in Belmont's prison we he was in relatively good spirits for two hours we talked about almost everything but not the the case we we talked about books and as I sent him a collection of books he talked about life it almost seemed at one point especially when he laughed that that things might be all right some things might be all right but of course that's not the case we know that in the arcane system that has imposed itself on Julian he is still waiting for a judge to approve an appeal to go forward his laughter and his good spirits of course are a shield when the prison guards began I noticed this every time began to jangle their keys and that's their way they like doing it it's their way of telling you that time is up and that it's time to go he fell he fell silent and normality this protest normality of him in Belmont return and when I crossed the room to the other side and was leaving he did as he always did if you can imagine this he put his fist in the air with a clenched fist and he shook it in defiance he is the embodiment of courage there are those those who are the antithesis the opposite of Julian in whom courage is unheard of along with principle and honor stand between him and freedom I'm not referring to the mafia regime in Washington whose pursuit of a good man is meant as a warning to us all but rather to those who still claim to run a just democracy in this country Australia Anthony Albanese was melding his favorite latitude enough it's enough long before he was elected prime minister last year he gave many of us precious hope in especially Julian's family as prime minister he added weasel words about not sympathizing with what Julian has done apparently we have to understand his need to cover his appropriated arse in case Washington called him to order we knew it would take exceptional political if not moral courage for Albanese to stand up in the Australian parliament the same parliament which will deport itself to Joe Biden in May and say the following as prime minister it is my government's responsibility to bring home an Australian citizen who is clearly the victim of a great vindictive injustice a man who has been persecuted for the kind of journalism that is a true public service a man who is not lied or deceived like so many of his counterfeit in the media but has told people the truth about how the world is run I call on the United States a courageous and moral prime minister Albanese might say I call on the United States to withdraw its extradition application to end the malign fast that has stained Britain's once admired courts of justice and to release Julian Assange unconditionally to his family for Julian to remain in his cell at Belmarsh is an act of torture as the United Nations reporter has called it it's how a dictatorship behaves unquote. Alas my daydream about Australia doing right by Julian has reached its limits the teasing of hope by Albanese has now closed to a betrayal for which history will not forget him and many will not forgive him what then what then is he waiting for remember that Julian was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government in 2013 largely because his own government had abandoned that alone ought to bring shame on those responsible namely the Labor government of Julia Gillard. Gregor was Gillard too relued with the Americans in shutting down WikiLeaks for his truth telling that she wanted the Australian federal police to arrest Assange and take away his passport for what she called his illegal publishing the AFP pointed out that they had no such powers Assange had committed no crime it's as if you can measure Australia's extraordinary surrender of sovereignty by the way it treats Julian Gillard's pantomime grobbling to both houses of the US Congress is cringing theater on YouTube Australia she repeats is America's great mate or is it little mate her foreign minister then was Bob Carr another labor machine politician whom WikiLeaks exposed as an American informant one of Washington's boys in Australia Carr boasted knowing Henry Kissinger his hero his hero like other government ministers Carr claimed that Julian was receiving full consular support from his government but when Julian's lawyer Gareth Pierce and I met the Australian Consul General in London Ken Pasco I asked him what do you know of the Assange case just what I read in the papers he replied with a laugh today Prime Minister Albanese is preparing this country for a ridiculous American-led war with China billions of dollars are to be spent on a war machine of submarines fighter jets and missiles that can reach China salivating warmongering by the country's oldest newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald is a national embarrassment or ought to be Australia is a country with no enemies and China is its biggest training partner yep this deranged civility to aggression is laid out in an extraordinary document called the US Australia forced posture agreement this states that American troops have and I quote exclusive control over the access to and use of armaments and material that can be used in Australia in an aggressive war that almost certainly includes nuclear weapons China as the yellow peril fits Australia's long history of racism like a glove however there is another enemy they don't talk about it's us the public it's our right to know and our right to say no since 2001 some 82 laws have been enacted to take away these rights and protect the Cold War paranoia of an increasingly secret state they involve secret courts and secret evidence and secret miscarriages of justice and this Australia is said to be a model for the master across the Pacific Bernard Collery David McBride and Julian Assange deeply moral men who told the truth they are the whistleblowers and the victims of this paranoia and our national heroes on Julian Assange the prime minister has two faces one faces us with hope of his intervention that will lead to Julian's freedom the other face ingratiates itself with Joe Biden and allows the Americans to do what they want with us to lay down targets that could result in catastrophe for all of us the question is this will Albanese back Australia or will he back Washington if he is sincere as some supporters of the Labour Party still think he is what is he waiting for if he doesn't secure Julian's release Australia will cease to be sovereign we will be little Americans official this is not about the survival of a free press as it's often said there is no longer a free press the paramount issue for Julian and for all of us is justice and our most precious human right to be free thank you we next have another witness this is Stephen Canning acted as solicitor for David Hicks Stephen has been to Guantanamo Bay he's been in the belly of the beast and seeing the effects is now Julian's lawyer I commend you Australian lawyer I commend you to listen to Stephen Canning and I thank you just a editorialize just a second if you allow me I was reading Sy Hersh's essay on Daniel Ellsberg and he says well I adored him it's not some a word we use amongst us in Australia but I have to say I adore these men who will speak to us and who have done life's work at a man's cost Julian, John Pilger, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, David McBride and they bring further witness it did happen and is happening Stephen Canning yes look can I just add my acknowledgement and respect for who is now my friend John and the wonderful work he's doing for his son Julian could be truly proud of him and know that he is really doing everything he can the amount of work that he does is just incredible and I'm so glad to be able to be part of it and to know John and I'd also like to give another round of applause for John Pilger as well I mean how true it was all of that and so there's no need to repeat it but I'll talk I'll talk a little about British justice and my ancestors who are Irish knew about British justice but I'll just tell you what Julian's facing he had his first hearing in 2020 and now it is only now that he's actually able to appeal the bits that he missed out on appealing and the rulings that were made against him I guess it's the clock telling him it's time to speed up this process he won the first round the Americans appealed he couldn't cross appeal because the court's procedure didn't allow it so he had to wait until that was heard and a decision was made sometime later and then the minister for state agreed to his extradition and only then could he reappeal and he did and he has and in November he filed all the documents he needed to and it's only an application for leave to appeal to some judge has got just look at the papers there's no hearing required five months later there is no response I mean seriously what is going on here it's just a symbol of what's happening but you need to take in mind this is why we need to keep up the momentum you need to keep supporting Julian because if he gets leave to appeal there'll be an appeal hearing in six to nine months and then there'll be a judge who'll sit on it and think about it and another six to twelve months will make a decision and then the Americans will probably appeal because Julian should win his appeal and and so we're looking at two three four years before his legal process is to be completed in the UK before we even start to go to America and that's years so you all know this is a political prosecution it requires a political decision and our prime minister has effectively made a promise to the Australian people he will bring this to an end and I say to the Prime Minister enough talking is enough we need some action now and the prime minister has the perfect opportunity next week in San Diego the Australian people will look more fondly on him if he stands up for justice instead of war machines and I think you'd be happier and he would be you know more popular in Australia if he came back and said look I'm sorry I didn't get a submarine contract but I did get an arrangement for Julian Assange to come home thank you thank you Stephen gather around I have to editorialize just for two minutes they've given me that was proposed that there would be a submarine base in Fremantle equally proposed that there'd be another submarine base in the Brisbane River there was during the Second World War a nuclear submarine an SSGM carries 24 ICBMs or 24 T-LAMS cruise missiles each ICBM carries seven reentry vehicles nuclear tip seven times 24 one submarine based in Fremantle of atomic bombs the same in Brisbane each B-52 housed in Darwin has a canister in its Bombay which holds six T-LAMS cruise missiles nuclear tip in the racks in the wall beside it a total of 20 26 nuclear bombs housed in Darwin nuclear war planets know that the other side has got a lot of missiles many missiles 5200 how do you cope with that in Dakota and Yukta they have silos where they put their nuclear missiles in and they say that's to keep the missiles safe from attack what it actually is is a sponge to seduce the opposition war planners to fire all their missile not all a lot of missiles into the sponge in order to destroy the silos what do you imagine the planners in China and the Department of Defense in the Pentagon calculate about the B-52 bombers in Darwin the submarine base in Fremantle the submarine base in the Brisbane River what do you imagine they calculate well if we can use a X number of missiles on those three targets there will be less targets on the continental United States that's the reality of nuclear war planning that our department of defense is not so innocently for I'm sure they've got brains I'm sure they understand salvos I'm sure they understand leakers that's the salvos that get through they understand all that they learn the maths at the University of New South Wales come camp campus used to call it done true they learn those things they have that knowledge and we depend upon men like Peter Cronow I'm putting Peter on the spot here deliberately Julian Assange Chelsea Manning John Pilger David McBride Bernard Colary we actually our lives our future depends upon the courage of those gentlemen to reveal to us what I've just spoken to about and not only to reveal to us that help us face the actuality that some people in the Department of Defense in the United States the Department of Defense in Australia know these things know the maths do the calculations are aware of it anyway my two minutes are up and so the next speaker yeah is the artist David Domino every action stems from a need and often needs are the processing of a luck for me as an artist any inspirations sprouts from a questions how can I through heart and sculptures give shape to the freedom of speech and information and to the courage the answer was the fourth empty chairs next to Assange Manning as noted the fourth empty chair invites the single individuals to stand up instead of sitting like the others art reaches where politics failed creating bridge which unite the boundary of the human soul art cannot change the world but it has the capacity to give us a different vision to show us the contradiction of our time and see the world with new eyes to develop our critical sense friends today gave me an advice and I want to read you what he told me you don't need to be the written man to know which way the wind is blowing thank you all thank to the wow Holland Foundation the Assange campaign John Pilger John Shipton everything from Austria and all the people who makes this possible finally the start of a Julian Assange arrived in his country free Assange we have two more for you one is David McBride it's my belief firmly that the end of the war in Iraq was begun by the revelations in the cables 250,000 Department of State cables and the 400,000 Iraq war locks it's my belief that the revealing began a process of the ending of that war it's also my belief that David McBride's revelations in Afghanistan began and the panicked end of that David McBride hand for my friend Edward Snowden fantastic to see everybody here tonight what a night hey what are we going to do with Julian Assange that's right let's wake up the crowd you know the good news is we are going to win this we are going to win this and you are going to be so so proud of yourself so so proud of yourself that we are winning we are winning a great victory as a tiny minority a tiny minority we are the 300 Spartans we are taking on something that you can be very very proud of don't be afraid of the fact that the great big cream puffs of Pompeo and the Americans are against us they will fall they will fall and they will be embarrassed that they will look like the sort of idiots that pushed for the Vietnam war and then had egg on their faces when everybody became quite clear that that war was an absolute abomination resulting in the deaths of a million people in southeast Asia irreparable damage to the American psyche and the Australian psyche it was an embarrassment and you know who Alpernese is going to look like Alpernese is going to look like Harold Holt he's going to look like Billy McMahon he's going to look like all those people are called to the Americans what I do believe he's probably going to release Julian Assange just before the next election to try to look big but by then we will be effectively another state of the United States you know I know that Richard Miles has got a picture of Donald Trump on his wall he's got a picture of Joe Biden on his wall he has sold us out so completely we are now part of the US Navy we are now part of the US Air Force we can only go to war if the US goes to war we will definitely go to war if the US goes to war we do there is no longer a country called Australia as far as international relations go and that is a disgrace that is an absolute disgrace I'm going to finish with a couple of stories imagine if you were an Iraqi Iraqi mother say back in 2005 2008 and your husband who's a hard-working taxi driver gets pulled over by the British or the Americans and he gets tortured to death like as happened so many cases even though he was just a taxi driver and some idiot soldiers decide that he's al-Qaeda and they torture him over a period of days and he dies now imagine that there was no inquiry and you went to get justice and you understand that mistakes happen in wars but you went to get justice and you found out that that inquiry was a sham that nobody got blamed and then the Americans even tried to cover up that had even happened at all now this is just one case 25,000 murders were deleted from the records by the Americans how would you feel if you're an Iraqi and you knew that and that's fact how would you feel if you're an Iraqi and you were just trying to take your kids to school and they were shot to pieces by an Apache helicopter like we saw in collateral murder and you're carrying your five-year-old who's dead or dying and then the Americans tell you it didn't even happen how would you feel if you were the last remaining person in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria and everyone in your family had been killed and not only had they been killed the Americans the Australians had lied about the fact that it happened and then papers like the Washington Post the New York Times the Sydney Morning Herald lied about it as well and they didn't even cover Assange how would you feel I know how I'd feel I'd be get strapping some explosives and I'd be going to America and that is what will happen that's what I would do and why wouldn't you and you know why this is important because they know they know there is a man called Julian Assange they know there is one person in the west who stood up one person in the west who said no one person in the west who didn't do anything except expose the truth of what went on in Iraq and that was enough it was so disgusting it was so despicable and it wasn't just the Americans it was all the lackeys it was the Germans everything the diplomats it was lies everything about the western way of war was a lie and one man exposed it and what did we do we put him in jail and what did the Sydney Morning Herald do they said nothing the Washington Post the New York Times they're complicit the future of the the world that's not an exaggeration to say the future of the world depends on this case if we let Julian Assange die for exposing dark war crimes death murder lies what do you think is going to happen to someone who tries to expose a mass murder say they decide to go and kill um a nationality say in east Palestine they just kill everybody that the witness to the terrible thing they just murder them all what's going to happen to the whistleblower they're going to get killed they're going to get put in jail they're going to be charged under the espionage act if we don't stand up now there will be no there'll be thousands more Julian Assange and there will be no justice there will be no justice if we don't stand up now now you are all doing that you're all doing that now 250 years ago white people came here we started settlement not far from where we're standing obviously they've had many many unlimited thousands of years there are already people here and I believe their magic is here with us today Australia my ancestors were convicts my grandfather fought in the second world war I often think what would they want us to do what would they want us to do people who came and fled from Europe they could have gone back to Europe they didn't want to go back to Europe Europe was corrupt Europe provided no chance of a decent life for someone without money and someone who wasn't prepared to have a life of crime disguised as establishment action this country gave us a life this country my parents got scholarships they were the first people in their family to get to university and I imagine many people here are the same this country is not the United States Richard Miles is an idiot if he thinks we have shared history we have a very different history we are not based on slavery we're not revolving around guns we are a different country we stand for truth we stand for no bullshit we stand tall in the face of adversity we don't bow down to other countries it's ridiculous that now the China the China hysterical people running around like chooks where their heads get out their head they say okay China's not going to invade us but they're going to do industrial invasion they're going to like bring their corporations here and they're going to influence our politicians they say that with a straight face when all our politicians all our corporations are completely owned by a foreign country already and it's despicable and it's disgusting you people are standing up to it this is Australia we don't want to be American if we want it to be American go and live in America and we need to stand up to the people who say it's okay to put truth tellers to put people who stand up for a dead Iraqis stand up for law stand up for justice the country that says it's all right to murder whistleblowers we say no I'm standing in trial and I'm happy to go to jail it will probably be the only way I'll get justice because this government is so bent we are so beholden to the Americans but I'm going to go to jail and I know when I go to jail everyone here is going to support me everyone here is going to support my children I'm not just talking I'm living by example because it means so much it is so damn important I've got 15 year old kids just like most people here if you're not young people yourselves what sort of world will we leave them if we leave it where whistleblowers anyone who speaks up about corruption anyone who speaks up about murders anyone who does the right thing gets chucked in jail what sort of a dystopian disgusting world will that be it's not good enough for our children it's not good enough for our ancestors we stand up we stand up for justice our enemies only care about money they would sell Australia for a hundred billion they would drink our blood if they thought there was a good return on it they hate us they have fooled us we are here and we will beat them the great thing is we will beat them because we are right and whenever people are right they end up triumphing I always when I think of Julie and I think of a guy called Tyndall Tyndall was a churchman who decided quite rightly he couldn't believe that the the priests of the time in the 1500s wouldn't let the normal people read the Bible and they would they would tell them what was in the Bible and Tyndall would say well that's not actually what the Bible says and they'd say shut up you don't understand it's more important that we put out a doctrine than you what you tell them what's actually in the Bible now Tyndall made a point to say I'm going to let people know the truth and he translated the Bible into English and you know what they did the state killed him the state killed him just because like Assange he wanted the people to know the truth and they did not want so people in government you are the people that would have killed Tyndall the Henry VIII hideous hideous courtiers that wanted to pay rise and they killed Tyndall and a couple of years after Tyndall was dead his Bible became the official Bible but that's the sort of situation we're living in they can't handle it they can't handle anybody exposing the truth but the truth will always win just as it did in Tyndall's case just as it has every other case so be proud of yourselves be proud of yourselves for turning out here day in day out it's not popular a lot of people don't like Assange it's made up on very spurious grounds but you are right we are right we will win and you will be so so proud for the legacy you leave for your children because you stood up when people had to stand up and most people get him to do it so we have uh we'll round out with uh James McGlone singing you another song I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming along and terrific speakers if you could all just gather around the the statues and we can get our photographers to take a group shot you know it was evidence that we're actually here come down free free free Assange thanks everybody free Assange