 Welcome to tonight's edition of Resistance TV. It's 10 years since WikiLeaks published the Iraq War off in about 10 years tomorrow, exposing the horrific war crimes of the US and 10 years ago as well, they published the collateral murder video which had such a profound impact I think on worldwide opinion. Now Julian Assange of course is languishing in Belmarsh prison fighting potential extradition in the United States of America, where he faces a jail term of up to 175 years for bringing this inconvenient truth to the attention of the world. So what's the future for investigative journalism? I think this question in the UK has taken on a particular significance in view of the government's plans to give immunity to war criminals and to authorise criminal conduct by the security services. Incredibly, that bill there was an attempt to amend it to explicitly exclude from the criminal conduct murder, rape and torture and that was voted down on the floor of the House of Commons. So there's never been a more important time for investigative, brave investigative journalism of the kind that Julian Assange epitomises. Before I introduce this evening's guest, what I want to do is play a clip from the collateral murder video just to remind ourselves of the horrific war crimes that the US perpetrated in the early 2000s in fact. So the controller tells them they need to stop this evacuation of weapons and bodies. But it looks like the pilots understand that their commander will give the go signal if there is some interaction with weapons. So they seem to have this understanding that if people pick up the wounded that is enough. The reason to get permission under the rules of engagement to kill them. You can see that they also deliberately target Saeed, the wounded man on the ground. Despite their earlier beliefs, they didn't have the rules of engagement. The rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded, when he was rescued. Suddenly that belief changed. You can see in this particular image he is lying on the ground and the people in the van have been separated but they still deliberately target and kill him. This is why we call the collateral murder. Unfortunately, Robert Siever, who was due to join us this evening, Edward Snowden's lawyer is unable to be with us this evening, but I'm delighted to introduce Kristen Graffnison, who is the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks and a deeper driver who has spearheaded the Free the Truth campaign which has been incredibly inspirational and has done so much to bring to the attention of the general public, the plight of Julian Assange. But let me start by first of all going to Kristen and just ask if you could just give us your thoughts about two things, really. One, what happened in the court hearing of more Julian's show trial, if I can put it that way, but also what was contained in the Iraq war logs that were published 10 years ago tomorrow? Well, it's incredible. Let me start to thank you for having me on here. It's incredible to think back and it's that it's been 10 years since we had these stressful days in London preparing the release of these extremely important documents. 391,000 field reports from the US military basically outlining the entire war in Iraq in the words of the US military from January 2004 to December 2009. This was unprecedented. This was the largest leak in military history and one of the largest leaks ever. It was of tremendous importance. It had a shocking effect on everyone that were diving into this material because what it pertain was the brutal truth of the war written by the invading armies into Iraq and therefore they could not deny the authenticity of it or the truth that was exposed there. It's hard to sum up all the stories that were mined in this material, but if I mention a few, it was the number of deaths and the fact that more than 60, about 65% of all the deaths that were registered were civilian deaths and the fact that the US military was actually keeping a record on the deaths in Iraq, which they had denied earlier and said on record that they were not counting bodies, they were lying. That was exposed, but what came out of this was more than 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths and in this release we were working with the organization Iraq Body Count who could add that to their online memorial of those who lost their lives in this period. I mean, we're talking about more than 30 civilian deaths every day during this period of this horrible war. In total there was reported 110,000 deaths in that period and that was almost certainly way below the real numbers of the casualties in that period. There were other stories that sprang out there and which caused outrage. It was the incidents, the single incidents, the hundreds or thousands of incidents that added up incidents such as murdering civilians who were driving towards checkpoints and were driving too fast according to the 18, 19-year-old soldier from the US who was manning the checkpoint and opening fire, killing entire families, the soldiers who were singling out children and shooting them on the street. We're talking about all the evidence of the torture, the rape, the murders that were recorded in these documents and what was extremely damaging to the US military and was the fact that they were observing from a distance torturing, maiming and killing of detainees by the Iraqi government but they were ordered specifically by the top from by Pentagon not to intervene but collect the evidence and write reports. They should not intervene but that is basically a war crime in itself. This is sort of swept away the last sort of little inch of an attempt to legitimise this invasion and this horror. Before 2010 I believe there was an attempt by many to at least say, of course we knew all about the lies that were used to justify the invasions at that point but people were still saying and trying to justify this by saying well we had to get rid of Saddam Hussein, he was torturing and killing his citizens but what we got out of this report was the evidence that under the shield of the US military and the invading forces and the occupying forces the puppet government in Iraq was basically doing the same thing without intervention, without any attempt to stop it by the US military and the British forces as well. There were so many stories and we were watching the collateral murder video which I took a rich part in preparing, we released that on April 5th in 2010 and actually there is a report in the Iraq warlocks pertaining to that incident. It is less than half a page and it does not reflect the truth. Only individuals that are mentioned there as killed are called enemy combatants so that gives you the idea of how things were categorised by the US military. That is absolutely untrue of course as you can see in the video evidence. I like to mention one other incident that was reported by the US military and it actually pertains to the same helicopter unit that we saw in the collateral murder video with the call signal Crazy Horse 1-8. That incident was about two individuals who were being chased on a vehicle by the Apache helicopter and they shot upon the vehicle, it immobilised it and two individuals jumped out and threw away their weapons and signaled surrender to the Apache helicopter who was hovering over. According to the report the crew on the Apache helicopter called their base and asked what to do in a situation because there were no ground troops nearby and the reply came back we have to let's pass this one on to the lawyers at headquarters and after the lawyers had been consulted the reply came back well according to our handbook you cannot surrender to an aircraft so shoot them. So these are the horrific stories that when you have seen the Apache helicopter video the collateral murder video you can envision the horrors and the criminality of this in its entirety. We can maybe talk about the trial later but I want to mention as well that this was a shocking evidence about the war and which came relatively close in time after the start of the war after the invasion and I think that never before have we got this sort of in entirety the evidence of what happened in the war in their own words in the words of the US military we of course were also breaking new ground in the way we were handling the material it was very very responsibly handled it was heavily redacted we were actually criticized for over-redacting the material which is quite contrary to the the claim that Wickelis was irresponsible and and put people in harm's way by the publication which is a hollow argument we were working in the biggest media alliance ever put together at that time working on a single project it included not just the the publications originally that we had worked with previous to December the the German magazine Der Spiegel the New York Times and The Guardian we also worked with the bureau and investigative journalists and to create content for a documentary on channel four television content for Al Jazeera both Arabic and English we worked with Swedish television Italian newspaper and El País and Le Monde in France so it was a biggest media alliance put together and that it actually created the understanding that this is the way to go forward and this is now what everybody is trying to do in with the limited resources that the the mainstream media has today just as an opening to sum up I mean it it was basically the entire truth of the Iraq war that was exposed and no one has been able to try to spin that in in any way it's impossible it the truth is there it is still there maybe we haven't come to in terms with how to deal with it in our democratic societies we have to accept that this was done on our watch and even though we can claim it was not in our name personally it was our leaders who took part in that and and and to bear the responsibility no one has been brought to justice for the obvious war crimes that were exposed there and I think we still have a way to go to come to terms with how we're gonna justify all the the these wrong doings that happened on our watch basically but that will it's for the future but the evidence is there it's online it will not go away and we have to go back to that later Julian is on record isn't he is saying that you know wars well actually all wars over the last 50 years at least have been started based on lies and if wars can be started through lies then you know we can we can start peace by getting the truth out there and it's so you know shocking and appalling frankly that a truth teller like Julian is is languishing now facing in Belmarsh prison potentially facing up to 175 years jail term which obviously is life of course in the most horrendous circumstances in the US if they're successful in extraditing him and you know Julian has performed an international public service because these sorts of appalling the war crimes have now been brought to the attention of the world and this is something of course that the the US authorities the British authorities the military industrial complex are desperate to keep secret and you know give it as I mentioned in my opening remarks the the the sort of repressive legislation that that this is looking to pursue now you know the the crucial importance of people like Julian and the crucial importance of winning this case and preventing this extradition I mean you know it couldn't be starker in my opinion but deeper I mean obviously you've been very involved in the campaign and in the free the truth campaign and doing incredibly important work but it's been an uphill struggle hasn't it in terms of getting the mainstream movement to actually you know give this the the attention that it deserves I mean this is probably the most significant third case since the pentagon papers were maybe even more significant than the pentagon papers were published by Daniel Ellsberg and of course we know from what the authorities are saying in the united states that if they're successfully in extraditing Julian then he's not going to get a fair trial over there because they're saying that the you know the US constitution won't apply in the same way that it did to to to to Ellsberg what's your take on where we are and and why the media have taken the stance that they have done in failing to report on the Julian's Pride and not just failing to report it but actually misrepresenting and distorting the truth about Julian um can I start Chris by actually saying that I I got involved with this relatively recently like many people um while I was aware of the courage and the excellent work that Julian and Kristen and Joseph and others have done at WikiLeaks um I had not realised that when Julian took asylum in the embassy uh I hope you can still hear me um the conditions that Julian was under was so horrendous and it was when Julian as we got to knew that Julian was being dragged out of the embassy that I really started to pay attention very closely I came as a real shock to me to find out that for years while he was in the embassy he had a terribly nasty tooth infection and a serious shoulder injury in addition to a long-term chronic lung condition since 2012 and the British government had uh not allowed him to have basic medical treatment and given the way we treated walker mills like and um dictators like Pinochet for example it was just appalling to see this when he was dragged out of the embassy I was I couldn't believe it had happened because despite being uh from a former colony of Britain and recognising the horrors that colonialism brought to other parts of the world I had quite seriously expected some element of the rule of law to be upheld in Britain and to find British politicians complicit in the way Ecuador's sovereignty was violated and how the Ecuadorians were pushed into or bribed into doing what they did to Julian really um bothered me that's when I started to pay very serious attention and when Julian was taken into Belmarch that really was the law last straw for me I began to get involved with the grassroots movement and also started to attend all the hearings including the administrative hearings and more recently I've been the legal observer for the holiday and society of socialist lawyers attending all the days of the trial at the old Bailey and what John Sloboda who was one of the expert witnesses at the trials he's the co-founder of Iraq body count said was that the iraq warlogs were the single largest contribution to public knowledge about civilian casualties in iraq they revealed an estimated 15 000 previously unknown deaths 10 years on the iraq warlogs he says remained the only source of information regarding many thousands of violent civilian deaths in iraq between 2004 and 2009 by making this information public manning and assange were carrying out a duty on behalf of the victims and the public at large that the US government was failing to carry out and this um you know we talk about black lives matter and we're in black history month right now and it is it is atrocious to see the way in which black lives all over the world are being destroyed by British and American war crimes and until Julian and WikiLeaks allowed and I remember going to a session where Patrick Coburn was speaking the journalist and he was saying that those on the ground in iraq some of the experts like him knew this was going on these crimes were going on but they didn't have the proof and why didn't they have the proof and this comes back to your question as to what why the journalists are quiet it's because the journalists were censoring or self censoring the information that is made available to the public about the crimes that our governments commit in our name and this is what we need to deal with and it is in this regard that I think um it is shameful to see the absolute absence of serious mainstream critical journalism in relation to Julian's case yes there has been coverage of the case and I've seen some excellent articles from say John Bilger from Charles Glass, Fidel Narveshaw to Excellent One, Marjorie Corn wrote something and these are some excellent articles that have come out but if across those uh four weeks of the trial if you look at the kinds of um people who were what will be talking about on the BBC they had a journalist in court every day almost every day was any report of any meaning Dan and this shows you how how terribly skewed the court court process was for even in terms of basic open justice on the first day 40 um civil society organisations found out that they no longer had access to the court those of us who were members of the public who were queuing outside to get into the court to the public gallery there were two courts in operation one with the trial one which was an adjacent court both courts had 33 seats each in the public gallery so 66 seats across the two public galleries how many members of the public were allowed into court two and on parts of the day five towards it's only at the end of week three that the that the seats that were reserved for VIPs by the judge were even released to the public after complaints from civil society organisations that these people who were the ips had not shown up in the first three weeks and i'm shocked and horrified at the journalists who were sitting in the in the court many of whom not just didn't report about the case i saw one who came in and ate a sandwich and read a newspaper and went away there were of course some good journalists and huge credit to them both covering it online and covering it in the room but there were others who were who seriously do not seem to want to understand what is going on i saw a comment from the BBC online from one of their journalists saying that the reason they weren't covering it is because it was repetitive yes yes rape murder torture the potential to poison the defendant spying on the defendant the government's colluding on on spying on a sovereign embassy on British soil and the British being complicit in that the city of not the city of London the the city not what do you call it the mayor of London's office approving the budget for the metropolitan police to spend tens of millions of pounds pounds surveying both the public outside and union and this was allowed in the name of justice supposedly i mean this is just horrendous and this makes me ashamed to be to to be to think that i even thought there would be a semblance of justice no i couldn't agree with you more i mean it's shocking that you know this is happening on British soil i mean Britain you know likes sort of portray itself as a the upholder of human rights and the rule of law and and the scales of justice as it were and due process and it seems all of those are being trampled on but as well as the the absence of the of the fourth estate the the mainstream media the politicians haven't exactly covered themselves in glory either have they deeper i mean what sort of response have you had when you've sought their support for your campaign you'll feel the truth complain because it seems to me it's very rare that any parliamentarian has raised this on the floor of the house so i find it hard to recall a single time when it's happened what has been your take on that i mean what responses have you received from from parliamentarians when you've when you've sought their support well firstly i'd like to thank those parliamentarians who actually did show support and people like um and and i know you know many people will will recognise that much of this was too little too late and those of us on the left are particularly guilty of this because we haven't stood behind junior in the way we should and if you think of the left politicians whom many of us look up to it took a while for them to get on board and say something publicly though they clearly understand how horrendous this case is but we know of the the turmoil in british politics in the run up to the elections and the kinds of challenges they faced of course those are no excuses but i am proud to say that people like Richard Bergen, John McDonald, Diana Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn more recently Absanabegham came to court and i've seen Claudia Webb on one of the don't extradite assange campaign with moderating an event so people i know you Chris were the first when you tried to put in that early day motion you've supported us right from the start and in terms of true labour colours that's where from the working class movement that's where the support came from but i think the political discourse has been weak and why has i mean how we have to recognise that particularly and and all of my comments today of course are only in a personal capacity rather than on behalf of any organisation but we have to realise the serious worries we have if Kerstamys CPS at you know at the time of the swedish investigations wrote to the swedish authorities not to interview julian in london uh said to them in explicit words don't you dare get cold feet and prevented justice from being served in the way in which um they prolonged julian's arbitrary detention i mean julian as a result of that detention julian has i mean we've this has been discussed in the media so although i won't make comments about julian's help uh in any detail because you know i'm saying this as an outsider and i feel bad to say it in front of people like kristin the nor julian well but you know he's he's suffering from osteoporosis he cracked a rib when he tried to tie his shoelace he's um when he was in the embassy his maximum range that he could walk is about 10 10 meters or thereabouts within the embassy i am told he his peripheral vision has been reduced because of the um the the closed quarters that he's been in for years his um his you know his his uh psychological they talk about you know his mental health condition well if you stamp on somebody and kick them in the face and then you say they have a physical disability that's exactly the same that what britain ecordor sweden australia and america have done to julian they have which i feel so frustrated um uh deeper the the the absence of of proper reportage from the uh the corporate media and indeed the lack of interest from parliamentarians and you know you mentioned some notable exceptions but there are 650 mps and you named less than uh less than a dozen and uh that's that's shamed by my opinion on the on the british parliament it's shaming on our representative democracy but if i could maybe return to you were christian because you i believe were able to observe the trial from start to to finish and i wonder when you respond if you could perhaps give your thoughts as well about the media coverage and particularly the guardian and the guardians the role is because many of those you know is it well on the progressive left in this country always in the past looked to the guardian as being the champion of fearless progressive journalism and yet not only have they distorted the truth about julian um they are central are they not to the extradition proceedings that are being taken against him and i find amazing you know for somebody you know brought up to believe that you know the guardian was a bastion of great journalism but what was your take on the on the hearing itself christian in terms of how it how it was conducted well first a note on the media it was appalling how little was reported about the context content in the in the during the hearing which took a month and and especially the fact that the bbc was there the entire time but it didn't report at all on it it is of course shocking because of the the implication for journalists especially in the uk and all around the world it's it's their job that is on the line it's their interest to to monitor what's going on there and as much the uk journalists are journalists in other countries who are who can if the extradition goes ahead will never be can securely work on stories that pertain to national secure to to to us interest if they perceive that it is against their interest they can pursue individuals anywhere in the world that demand extradition and throw them in jail for decades for life but to to be honest at least the the reporting on julian and his plight war was at least not negative which we were seeing only a year ago in the uk media so there was a transformation for being negative to no reporting at all to to a little bit of interest but it was shocking to to how how obviously it was overlooked just if if not only for the from the reflection of the the self-interest of journalists and journalism in the uk i mean for example when when the judge parature will will decide and and give her decision on on january 4th she will have to basically define the official secrets acts because of the dual criminality elements in in the extradition process and if the understanding of of the of the american understanding will will will prevail that will mean what it will be criminal for for a uk journalist to receive and hold on to classified material it will be a violation then according to uk law to of the official secrets acts just to receive it it's it's incredible but in overall the it was quite a shocking experience i i did not have high hopes for the proceedings last month after we got a glimpse on how things went in the first two weeks in febru but it was worse than i had anticipated it was hurried through through in in a in this very important trial in in in such a way that that it it diminished the witness statements the important witness statements that were being presented there they had to be uh uh uh read into in in a summary into the court records which is shocking we're talking about statements from people like norm chomsky that were were basically summarised uh because there was no time left and it was such an outrage that the judge was demanding the magistrates when as a preacher demanding a a short version of a testimony from a torture victim al-masri who who's who's who's of course got justice on the base of of wickilyx material and at that point in the the hearing basically julian couldn't stand anymore and said i i will shout it out from the glass cage i will not have a torture victim censored in this court i mean it it it was just surreal to be a witness to this uh and in the end all this was hurried through because the the magistrate had decided it would end on this day even though we had lost days and days because of covid scare that had to be postponed the hearings etc so i mean i'm i'm i have to say you know i've i've uh i had before all this experience uh a belief in in the uk justice system that there was uh an ability there to deliver justice uh but after this experience i i i'm not sure anymore this case is is so blatantly a political uh in in nature that it should have never reached this stage and it's incredible to witness the the sort of positive demeanor that the the magistrate had towards the prosecution the the lawyers working on on behalf of the united states when they were presenting their uh uh you know outrageous twist in the laws i'll give you one example i mean the extradition law uh extradition treaty uh which is not that old i mean it was it's from this century outlines the state specifically that you cannot be extradited on a on a basis of a a political act and now you have the defendant julien asans being indicted for on the base of the aspionous act it is it as political as it can get and this was actually put into the treaty on the demand of the united states but when this is pointed out it is not really denied but but they say well the extradition treaty has not this clause in the treaty has not been incorporated into the extradition act in the law in the uk thereby it's just a treaty it doesn't matter in that respect but on the other hand we want to measure that on the basis of that treaty but we will cherry pick and choose it's outrageous how can you present such an argument in a in a in a society that is ruled by law and and the political nature of the entire process the fact that the fact that you have leaders of a country basically calling in such a biased manner and prejudiced him like mike Pompeo secretary of state both now and his previous role as as the head of the cia jeff recession the the attorney general and it is totally impossible to get a fair trial there and I mean the evidence presented in the the courtroom uh in the timeline that shows that after after um Trump took power and after he had actually sent on the emissary uh in in the in the congressman Dana Roebacher to the embassy and in the in the night spirits to to offer uh in a mafia like deal to julian you know you give us your source for the dnc leak and I'll secure uh a pardon from trump and and he said that he was basically on with the approval and the knowledge of Donald Trump and I went when julian says of course I will never expose a source a journalist doesn't do that that's when we saw the the machine starting to roll and and the and the trumpet administration reversing what we now know was a decision under under baroc obama uh to not to go ahead with the indictment against julian because of what they call the new yw yw'r tîms problem because they couldn't distinguish between what wickelis did and julian and the new yw'r tîms nor the guardian nor other and and if you needed any proof about the political atmosphere in the courtroom was towards the end when uh when the uh at Fitzgerald the barrister for julian was saying well um they were talking about timetable and and and and Fitzgerald was saying well uh unless something major happens I think we could finish this by this state and and uh judge barracher basically asks him bluntly when you talk about something major things uh would that include the outcome of the u.s election and we were all shocked i mean he was basically admitting the political nature of what's going on in the courtroom if it matters how old the outcome of the election in the united states and the third of next month it it's basically underlining the fact that this is a political persecution yeah this it it so it it was shocking on so many levels I could go on and on about the the the the constant shocks in the that courtroom in the old way I mean and and it's interesting uh Kristen I mean you know you've just revealed there uh so much more than anything we've heard in our corporate leader in this in this country and you know when there's deep out the uh you know the bbc correspondence saying oh well it was it was repetitive implied it was kind of boring you know I mean it's it's just it's astonishing I mean truly astonishing and as far as Donald Trump is concerned of course there's plenty of clips I think was it in the in the 2016 election where he was very very complementary about wiki leagues and of course these things have changed attack subsequently but but you were outside weren't you for a large part of the because as you mentioned unable to get in and I know there's been some complaints about the way in which the the police actually you know as it were controlled the the crowds that were outside I mean what was your experience of the policing of the of the crowd who gathered outside the court um firstly I my time outside the court just reaffirmed my in to the very negative aspects of the court but also the very positive aspects of solidarity it was amazing to see so many grassroots activists there helping to get um you know helping us by you know holding our space if we wanted to go to the Lou while we were standing in the cube because you know you only have two seats and if you miss your space you can't get in it was so I'd like to firstly thank them and acknowledge what they did I know Rebecca Vincent at reporters with our borders who was who she and I attended almost all the days between us and she also had had this sense of gratitude towards them in allowing her to to understand what was going on but um it was also very depressing to see the way in which we were treated um I mentioned earlier that I was an evil observer of the holiday in society and I asked if I could go in I was told no you know that won't be taken into account I wasn't even allowed to hand in the paperwork I had I emailed it in but I didn't hear back for a while and it was all very complicated um you will be going to this additional court where all we could see was a a screen which was about 30 feet away like a home television screen we queued from about six in the morning to get in at about 10 o'clock um when you got into the court you weren't allowed to take water or even you know forget about other things even if you could bring them inside so for the whole of the day you ended up basically um or at least half of the day at each in each half you ended up without even a glass of water to drink I'm a disabled um I have a disability and I was told I asked if I could use the disabled lift and I was told that I would lose my place in the queue because the disabled lift was at the other entrance and if I didn't climb the six floors of stairs to the top I wouldn't be let in so my disability relates to pain so I kind of dealt with it and went up but this is the kind of access supposedly in a system which is where the equality act applies I think the other thing as a as a disabled person I also felt very sorry for Julian because here is a man who is sitting in court in his own trial being served the information that he needs to prepare for this trial at a time when he's under huge psychological duress on the first day of the trial so he's not able to meet with the lawyers properly before because he's been locked down and his lawyers have not been able to communicate with them they're having to post things in which then don't reach him he then in the court he is this clever intelligent hugely capable man is reduced to being sitting down at the back of the court in the dock far away from his lawyers who are at the front of the court and he has to talk over the US people who are in the back rows in order to communicate with his lawyers he has to get on his knees and speak through a small hole in the glass to tell somebody oh I need to talk to my lawyers and this is the kind of adjustment they do for somebody who has who it is it's clear from the evidence as well you know which even the US admit he is suffering from depression he is having suicidal thoughts hundreds of times a day he is in a lot of pain I mean this it is just a travesty to watch this and I felt in some ways you know some amount of catharsis to participate in that pain because I felt what I was doing was you know that he's suffering solidarily in Belmarsh 23 out of 24 hours a day locked in and what he what he can expect in the US and sorry Chris to go on about this but people need to know what he can expect in the US pre-trial is to be in under something called special administrative measures if you've never heard of these these are conditions where the defendant and his lawyers are under serious restrictions so they cannot communicate to the press this is pre-trial so this is somebody who's on remand yeah when he is in that jail they say he will be in his cell 22 hours a day he will be allowed out of his cell for individual recreation and this individual recreation euphemism is that he's moved to another cell just like his which is again empty where he will be allowed to pace around he will his only contact will be through us a metal slot in the door through which his his meal will be passed and this is what Britain wants to condemn a journalist and a publisher to this is horrendous and we should all agree it is Neil Nels Malthus, UN rapporteur on torture has essentially accused Britain of actually torturing Julian Assange I mean this is just truly shocking that that Britain is responsible for this I mean it's funny almost unbelievable frankly but this is there it is it's happening but in the last 15 minutes also before I go to to Sean to get any reaction from our viewers if I could go back to to you Kristen and give us your thoughts on what do you think the future is for the kind of fearless investigative journalism that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks represents if they are successful in extraditing and sentencing him I would say that this this is such a serious precedent it will be sat here that it will it will kill off all serious investigative journalism efforts especially when it comes to measures of that pertains to national security it will basically silence everybody no one will dare to to have a critical dissection of of the the United States foreign policies their wars and their actions overseas and that is that is the aim let's let's you said at the opening Chris that and you cited Julian Julian said well uh if we can expose wars and the truth about wars uh in the way we were doing with the Iraq war logs we should be able to get to the point to actually and we should strive for stopping war happening by exposing the truth about wars and and we we can get there and I think that's the realisation that is lies out the the foundation of the the persecution of Julian the fact that they the the forces that we are dealing with realize and especially with the revelations like in the Iraq war logs that the possibility is there to actually stop wars and and of course that is the vested interest that they are they have in trying to strike off and so they they they were they've decided to use any measures uh uh possible to basically silence Julian and science and more than that basically kill him and I have to have a word about the the prison conditions Deepa is right I mean the prison conditions since Belmars are are horrible and we heard the the evidence of that in the the courtroom and and the most cynical part of it that the worst treatment was in the the period when they they uh they put Julian in the health ward that meant basically uh a total isolation in Belmars it was used as a punishment they emptied the corridor when he went from from his cell to to any other point to to make sure he wouldn't meet anybody and couldn't have any communication that's where he when is this mental health deteriorate in the weeks in the health ward ward but bear in mind that even though Belmars is is is horrible and the treatment there is horrible what awaits him and it's not even contested the description of it of the prosecution in the courtroom the the so-called special administrative measures the SAMs which always remind me of other sort of niceties in words like collateral damage or enhanced interrogation techniques SAMs basically means isolation it means torture it is a torture to put somebody in a cell which is 15 square feet it's it's by the size of a parking lot and keep the person in there without a contact to other human beings for years that's pretrial and and and pretrial in the u.s. in this case could mean two to three years so i'm going to remember as well christian that i mean julian shouldn't even be incarcerated at the moment i mean he was he was put in prison wasn't he for for i mean the offence of skipping mail when he saw asylum in the aquedorian embassy for understandable reasons that was bad enough in my opinion that he received a gel term for that but that gel term is now elapsed and yet he's been detained in in in this high security prison in the most inhumane conditions on the grounds as i understand the judge said that he poses a flight risk he's been he's been on he's been on remand he has been on remand now for more than a year and it breaks all guidelines the guideline is you should not keep anybody on remand for more than 180 days that's maximum he's been there for 370 days rewriting the rules or simply ignoring the rules i mean this is you know it's a complete breach of the rule of law of due process and you know we we should all be up in arms about this because you know this is the thin end of the wedge if they get away with this then as you say christen you know we are it's a very dark road that lies ahead in my opinion for for all of us and that's why it's so important that we that we build a and continue to build and there is a lot of support there but we need to continue to build that support for julien and on that point i mean practiced in conclusion before i've been shown back in i'll maybe go to you deeper firstly and then get a comment from you uh christen as well is what would your advice be to people watching this program this evening what can they do what more can they do to support julien to try and help your campaigns to go ensure that justice prevails and that we secure julien's release what would you say to the people what would you advise people to do this evening watching thanks christen i um i just want to if i may with your permission just add to one thing that we were talking about earlier to say that there is currently a court case going on in spain where evidence has emerged of the way in which the united states government has spied on julien asanj and his lawyers so breaching all legal privilege and breaching medical confidentiality they've also put stickers on the windows of the Ecuadorian embassy in order to be able to spy on them from the building opposite so hearing conversations in a sovereign embassy on british soil and this these are things that we we really need to be concerned about and i would urge people to follow the trial and i know sean very kindly has posted some links um that that are useful in relation to the trial i'd urge people to follow craig murry who has done an absolutely sterling job reporting from the court every day i know craig um write some very interesting and detailed pieces with a lot of knowledge from his own experience as a whistleblower i think people have to firstly recognise that this case is about the criminalisation of whistleblowing and the criminalisation of journalism and everything else beyond that is a distraction yes it is a horrendous horrendous torture of an individual and i feel for stela and her children and julien's parents for the kind of hardship they are facing but this trial as much as it is about julien assange it is also about the crimes that our governments committed our name the use of classification to hide crimes to to prevent embarrassment and then the use of the law to in the case of julien and this was revealed through the stratfor leagues they want to move him from country to country you know leave him in prison treat him like a um be a prison bride and to eat cat food and this is what they say in writing and this if julien what he revealed and chelsea what they what she revealed despite the torture that she faced later were things that provided us with information and we talked to the start of this about you know peace can be achieved by revealing the truth but we are now at 10 years after the iraq war logs and much as it pains me to say so that the transparency has achieved a huge transformation in some ways in terms of our understanding of war but very little transformation in terms of the way in which we are funding wars in ymen in other parts of the world these are political questions aren't they deeper and this is where you know we need our political class to step up or replace them but we also need ordinary people to educate themselves and to organise sorry to speak over your perspective on that's okay no no fine now i'm just saying you know our parliamentare our political class are not fit for purpose and uh and that you know the point you're making about you know the lack of change that the uh publication of the war logs is you know is brought about i mean is is because of the failing of our political class and and this is why i mean we are supposed to live in a democracy where it's in our hands to to to change that and if our parliamentarians aren't stepping up to the plate we need to replace them with people that will do that and of course this isn't just about what man important though that is as i've already said this is about all of us this is about all of our people but i mean um just before i bring i keep saying i'm going to bring sharn in in a moment but i just wanted to get a thought from you if i can Kristen just in terms of whether you've got any any any comments about what people can do to help you and and wikileaks and and to support julian over and above what would deeper just mention in terms of you know following the various links that she's put on or had put on the screen yeah tip i was right i mean it it it i encourage people to go because they cannot trust the mainstream media in reporting on what's what's going on there to all the the venues that are reporting on on the facts of the case and uh but they can also put pressure on the mainstream media or the the corporate media they can put pressure on on and i've seen that in in common sections and it is a possibility to put a pressure on them and shame them into actually into action and it it sometimes works and and i i urge people to do that and of course they should should pressure their politicians their local MP into take action and and make it known that it has a political cost to ignore this case and and you know if politicians have have have have some sense they should start to take the polls i i have taken the polls in the country in the uk and so have my my my colleagues and we know that this is uh there is there is there is a lot of support for for julian in the united kingdom i'm very thankful for that and uh and if politicians were there to ignore this case and and and pretend it doesn't affect them they are very very wrong because people and the voters they do care and they have to make it known in any way possible that it will have a political cost if you ignore this well thanks very much indeed christen and and deeper i wonder if i can bring in Sean now to get any reaction from our viewers this evening any any comments from our viewers this evening Sean that and christen might have a response to in the last couple of three minutes yeah we've had lots of comments tonight people have been fascinated by this incredible story and they feel really educated this evening a lot of the comments coming through uh people are listening with complete fascination um about what's been going on with julian um with the trial his condition in bell marsh brishland and also um with the refreshing them with the memory of the rap warlogs which was so very very important um i just want to give a quick shout out to some of our regulars on um youtube we we we get a lot of people um tuning in every week we've got Kevin mark Jack T john h uh samshur um nj uh demo um and all this if i've missed you out i'm very sorry we've got for us and leslie and lizzie all over on facebook so i want to thank them all for tuning in this evening if you've joined us for the first time tonight please subscribe and um you'll be able to get notifications for when we go live each Wednesday so going back to the sorry chris okay so going back to a couple of questions i think you you asked one of them people are asking what what they can do uh someone has asked um can the unions creator strike or non cooperation movement harass persecutors persecutors of usange um on nature um as as this veils falls and reveals the extent of the complicity how can we hope to hold to account this utter mass of the involved i the forces governments journalists mainstream media um security forces perhaps you could try and answer that one so the question was how can we hope to hold to account the but this utter mass of all the involved yeah i mean i mean i mean obviously as a trade unionist you might have a comment to make on that we are sort of out of time but let's just sort of get you an opportunity to say a few words and and christen and then we'll close um there's a couple of things i wanted to say in terms of organising i think firstly once people are educated they will be able to engage with things like doing mis-feasons and mis-feasons and public office complaints ensuring that our institutional arrangements are fit for purpose also of course campaigning with MP supporting the don't extradite asange campaign supporting stellar morate in terms of her fundraising for paying for the the support that julian needs and the stellar lean of julian's partner deeper indeed indeed who has very young children and um you know to raise two young children at a time when your partner is suffering in this way it's just horrendous so my heart goes out to her i'd also like to um say that people have to the trade unions and i'm a trade unionist myself and i say that the trade unionists have failed to recognise some of the trade unions have come forward for example i think the nj motion that was passed is a good one we've had good motions across branches and unison and unite um but the trade unions have to recognise that what will have what happens to julian also affects whistleblowing not just in relation to war crimes but in relation to all kinds of crimes that american corporations commit and the reach of the american state across the rest of the world and they also have to think about how the british state is dealing with whistleblowers and people who enable whistleblowers and how that criminal criminalisation will affect workers and this this the trade union movement needs to be stronger on this absolutely and i think it's also important deeper just to add to that that um the government as i mentioned in in my remarks are bringing in legislation which could have a profound effect on trade union activities the one legislation which which provides for and it says it's explicitly in the bill there's a clause in the bill which provides for the security services and the police to engage in criminal conduct which isn't kind of on i mean you know they've kind of been doing that but now they kind of explicit about it and the sorts of things that will be permissible to commit criminal conduct if it's deemed to be on the grounds of national security or preventing and detecting crime or preventing disorder so that has an issue that has an implication in terms of demonstrations and our right to freedom of speech in that sense but that's more more more even more sinister than that is the reference to where it's deemed in the interests of the economic well-being of the united kingdom if it's deemed in the interests of the economic well-being of the united kingdom well who's going to make that judgment i mean what we're saying is you know anti-capitalist campaigners you know this is really it seems to me you know giving carte blanche to the the the deep state to to to you know commit criminal conduct against people who are taking action against corporate capitalism which has had such a profoundly damaging effect on millions of people in this country and at the same time taking the kind of action that they're doing to to to close down free speech to close down a free press and with the interaction that we're taking against a julian asylum so this is absolutely it seems to me in the interests of trade unions to be very much at the in the vanguard indeed they should be in actually speaking out for julian as i've already said not just because it's you know the terrible treatment of one man but because of the wider implications of it all but chris i'm going to go to you for the for the last word because we're about three minutes over time but you might need final closing remarks and then we'll close thank you yeah well we are grateful for the the the support we've had from from trade unions but of course we would would like to get more uh and and to get people to join forces the the organizations in our society to who have taken an interest there uh we have you know journalistic organization organization of journalists reporters without borders amnesty international et cetera they should all and pan uh they should all join forces basically to put a pressure on on in this case and and just to remember this is not over it's not going to be over on on june sorry January 4th uh where uh it is very likely that the the magistrate will decide in the favour of the united states it will be appealed and and so this will go on this fight and hopefully beyond the restraint sort of of COVID so there will be opportunity for us to actually meet on the in mass which always works best post COVID i hope that's going to happen just on a a note because we started out talking about the iraq warlocks and the material from iraq and and just remember that the the the revelations about the the the the horrors committed by the troops in the country when it what were exposed it caused such an outrage in the country that when Obama was actually seeking an extension of the amnesty for the US troops in the country the government in iraq was forced to basically say no we cannot and that led to the removal of of the remaining troops in iraq so it it in in an essence ended the war so that that was a positive contribution to the the of that revelation but the fight will continue and we need more than ever in a in a society now that is basically on a on a slippery slope down to a very sort of dark place we see international agreements being ignored or an international organizations being ignored as well even united nations in the uk are are do do not have any bearings in the courtroom and i'm quoting basically directly to one judge in in in their son's case etc so we don't join forces if we want to change the tides and i got the it dawned on me towards the end of the hearing in in old Bailey last month but the fact of the matter is that this is not juliana son's on trial this is our society that is on trial it's our civilization are we going to stand by and just have people being tortured war crimes being committed and justice being ignored like in your son's case that's not going to reflect well on history and we're going to end up in a very bad place if we don't resist and take action well listen thank you very much indeed to our speakers christin harafnason and deeper driver thank you everybody for for watching we've had a truly international audience today thank you to consortium news who've livestreamed the broadcast this evening as well and i'm seven thousand of people have been watching on on that platform this thing i hope you've found the discussion interesting in my opinion we are in very dangerous times if we're not careful we are entering a truly dystopian world and it's there for so important for all of us that we stand together in solidarity that we that we support the campaign that we get behind christan and wikileaks that we support the work that deeper driver is doing and others to ensure that justice prevails and that in many ways you know the reputation of great britain is on the line as well and you know we are all british citizens or many of us british citizens are watching this evening and you know this has been done in our name and it's simply not good enough so we've gone nearly 10 minutes over so apologies for that but i think it was a very fascinating and worthwhile discussion this evening so apologies for going over slightly over the the allotted one hour but i hope you found it useful and interesting and please take up the advice that deeper and christan suggested in terms of getting involved and supporting the campaign thank you for watching this evening tune in next week at 7 p.m. and good night thank you