 in 2010 everybody thought that the war had been won and it was over it was just small pockets of resistance but when you looked at the data and it was analyzed and a totally different picture emerged that actually had gone from bad to worse you must remember that the attack on Iraq although presented as a war was not a war it was so one-sided and it became an attack on the civilian population the most vivid and probably the most educated revelation was collateral murder the collateral murder has had a wide impact it has changed the perspective of the war it woke people up to the horror of this illegal invasion and the war and the aftermath of it it was very important to actually go to the scene and actually do investigative work on the scene in this instance because there were lack of clarity from just observing the video who these individuals were and we wanted to know get the know to know the names to understand the circumstances of how on earth you had wounded children being taken out from underneath basically the dead father who was well in my terms assassinated it was important to go to back that so you can get an untainted evidence and witness testament and that's what we did we brought there we got death certificates and and other evidences pertaining to the incident and of course the compelling testimony from the individuals who all told the same story you are obviously going after unarmed civilians who are actually on a rescue mission to save somebody who was wounded so it's an obvious war crime and it's shocking to maintain that this is within the frame of rules of engagement of the U.S. military it's important to understand the the asymmetry of the situation there that you have even a silent helicopter so high up in the sky it's not visible the cannon on the Apache helicopter is in quick with large hollow bullets so the effect when the bullet hits the its objective is that explodes like a small hand grenade it's designed basically to be used against armored vehicles and tanks because they can penetrate steel and to use that against humans on the ground is just how outrageous in itself when I was on the ground there in Baghdad and meeting a group of relatives of those who were killed on that this that square that day among the crowd an old man came forth and said I mean they bombed my house what can be seen in that part of the video is that two men obviously with the AK rifles on the back go into our house and it's decided to basically or deliberate the house with a hellfire missing before they pull the trigger the an innocent bystander or a man just walking past there's a market nearby is seen walking straight into the crosshair and the path of the hellfire missile despite seeing this clearly on the screen they shoot this is a residential neighborhood when you walk through this neighborhood you can see laundry hanging hanging from the the lines people going about their daily lives trying to adapt to a very difficult situation in a war zone but people tried to retain their level of normality five families were basically living in this house that he owned it's another example how there is no total disregard for those who are nearby just to get these two guys you have two men you are you are you are ready to down and kill everybody inside and I remember when I first met Julian he said that the to him and the others it was that word nice the term the stomach the told you so much in other words it was murder well in this incident they call it a murder incident and there is no mention of any civilians everybody is is categorized as enemy combatant it is to to lower the numbers of what they call collateral damage which is a rather an awkward term for for killed civilians welcome to this stone extra diet science broadcast my name is John Reese I work for the don't extra diet science campaign here in London and we've got a terrific panel of people here today to discuss the impact of the collateral murder video there's been a double page spread in the Guardian earlier this week and that was revealing the thoughts of one of our guests Dean Yates who was the Reuters Bureau Chief in Baghdad when that video was released and we'll be talking to Dean later but first I want to come to Kristen Harfordson who's the Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks and he's going to give us some of the background to the collateral murder video and the impact that it had when it was released by WikiLeaks Kristen thank you John yes it seems like it happened yesterday although it's been 10 years that when Julian Assange showed me that video on a cupcake in Reykjavik a few years a few weeks before it was released on April 10th 2010 I was a broadcasting journalist at the time for the Icelandic State television and I instantly suggested that we should cooperate that the state TV should become a media partner in that project I was stunned seeing the imagery it was on silent we were sitting at a cafe I didn't hear anything but I flicked over the screen just stunned me and I saw instantly this was of historic importance I have been to Baghdad a couple of times before and I had seen images from conflict videos but all the other ones that I've seen I were of much lower grade which lets me believe that the US military when they released something like that downgraded the videos to hide and obfuscate the fact of their superiority now I got a copy of that video and I watched it hundreds of times and then of course the audio came in and it became just worse and worse I studied frame by frame and I was quite shocked to what I had seen and heard especially the discussion between the crew members when they open fire and complimenting each other on their achievement saying things like look at all these dead bastards and you have reply nice to this day when I hear the word nice it actually reflects me back to that video it almost destroyed that word and the killing of of side smile who is who is wounded in the original attack is of course of outrageous concern you see them the helicopter video helicopter crew having him in the crosshairs and certainly realizing that they have to play by some rule books and they decided that they couldn't open fire on this wounded unknown men but they are pleading for him to reach out to a gun all you got to do is pick up a weapon they'd so wanted to kill them and then of course you had the minivan coming to the scene with the driver Matastar Tomal and his two children and two of his friends that he had been giving a lift and attempting to help side smile and they decided and plead to get permission to open fire and basically obliterate that minivan or bongo truck that one that incident is a is a clear example of a murder and but no one has been held accountable for that now the effect of this release has been tremendous I think that it will forever define the way we see the Iraq war the callousness and the total disregard for civilians in that conflict zone and when I traveled to Baghdad prior to the release it struck me and that I hadn't thought of of actually the fact this is a residential neighborhood Al Amin in southeast Baghdad is just a residential neighborhood where people were trying under difficult difficult circumstances ago about their normal daily life it was only war zone for the US military for them it was their neighborhood their home now I think this video had a lasting impact and will do so the lines that were given out which I'm sure Dean will talk about later where of course revealed the day after the incident on 12th of July in 2007 the US military gave what a statement and made no mention of civilians except the two Reuters journalists who killed Namir Nora Veem and Saeed Suma there is no mention any other civilians Matasar Tomal and his two neighbors and of course there is no mention of the two children they were all they are all accepted the two Reuters journalists were called enemy combatants now this has changed the way we see the Iraq war and will forever be there it has had political impact as well it is one of the reason I am certain that the Iraqi government later decided that we they would not give impunity to all US soldiers in Iraq which ultimately led to the removal of the US troops from Iraq so it it has changed our perspective and will do so in the future John Kristen thank you very very much for for that and Dean Yates was the subject of that article in the in the Guardian that I mentioned Dean congratulations on on stepping forward and making that publicity happen of course we all understand that the video when you see it is is a devastating thing to watch it must have been more so for you because it was your staff that were involved in it as bureau chief in Baghdad for Reuters just tell us a little bit about how you saw that and what and what it's made you think about those events since yeah thank you John so I was actually first shown the first three minutes of that video about two weeks after Namir and say we're killed in an off-the-record briefing by two US generals in the green zone in Baghdad we we had been demanding that the US obviously investigate this this attack and up to that point it had been our our view something for our witnesses have been telling us that there was no firefight taking place when Namir and say it had been killed and so I went with her with my boss at the time into the green zone and two US generals gave us a sort of a briefing if you like that's strictly off the record which meant that we could not report what we were told and we were told that we were given a sense of what had been happening we were shown photographs we were shown other materials and then right at the end was shown three minutes of this video and the tape was stopped right at the moment the helicopter was opening fire the first time and it was just for me it was shock at seeing the moment that my stuff were were being killed basically hadn't this was I know I did that this was going to be shown to me and I went away from that briefing and for years I had this image in my head of this yeah I just could not get this out of my mind and then Reuters tried very hard to get that tape made repeated efforts to get that tape from the Pentagon because we asked the generals for it they wouldn't give it to us they said you had to go through freedom of information request the Freedom of Information Act to get the tape and they refused they stalled Stonewall basically and and so but because the briefing was off the record we couldn't report it and we decided that we would stick by that agreement even though a year later on the first anniversary of Namir and so it's death I actually proposed breaking that agreement because I felt enough time had lapsed and but my editors said no we have to abide by the agreement we made with the US military and I said fine and then fast forward to April 5th and Julian releases the tape I was actually in Tasmania where I am now where I live I was up in a national park here in Tasmania with my family we were up just hiking no comms whatsoever no phone no communications access I didn't even know about the video until April 7th two days later and when I we came down out of this national park and there it was all in a big newspaper article and at first I just could not get my head around was this the same video that I was shown a small portion of was this was say it's still alive was he trying to get up was he wounded and was this was this this attack on the minivan and it all just it was all just very very hard for me to comprehend and when it finally went when my brain finally processed what was going on I realized that they had cheated us that as the bureau chief of Reuters I had dealt with the US military in good faith I'd I felt that we had as foreign journalists as foreign media in Iraq we had worked after this after this attack we had tried to work very hard with the US military to make it safer for journalists in Iraq for the foreign media and I will organize meetings with the US military and foreign media so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen again and all the time that was going on they were sitting on this video and to me it just showed this obsession with secrecy and when the tape was released by Julian I just I just the deceit of that to sit with us and talk about journalist safety to our faces in Baghdad and at the same time be sitting on this tape where's the honor in that and personally for me I really uh it it affected me mentally very deeply the whole the whole thing affected me mentally two of my staff were killed on my watch I held myself responsible in in various ways I for not speaking up at the time when the video was released for not speaking up about the my organization's response at the time Reuters was not was not good enough it wasn't strong enough and I became suicidal in 2016 as a result of all this was admitted to a psychiatric ward two weeks later about three admissions to a psych ward since it's taken it's taken me a long time to to work through this and make peace with Namia and Sayed and with myself now's the time to speak up Dean thank you very much for sharing that with us and I think you should be assured that your testimony is adding materially to the to the case for freeing Julian and to our understanding of how the military operates in a occupation of another country so please accept our thanks for participating today and for the work you're doing. Just to say that there's thousands of people watching this broadcast welcome to you all just to let you know if you want to ask questions to the panel which I'm sure many of you will there's a Q&A function and a chat function on Zoom if that's how you're watching and if you're watching on other platforms please do feel free to use the comment section to ask questions our tech team are watching those platforms and will feed them through to me so that I can get at least some of them over to our our guests in the course of the hour but moving on Jen Robinson has been the legal representative for Julian Assange since there was a Julian Assange case and Jen I'd like to ask you what are the impacts for this kind of revelation and for the original collateral murder revelation inside the case as it now exists for extradition? Sure well first thank you John and thanks everyone for participating in this seminar today. First I want to talk a little bit about the collateral murder publication just to give a little bit of context about why it is important in the context of the extradition case and the US indictment for Julian Assange because really for me and this is a when collateral murder was published I wasn't yet representing Julian it was before I became his lawyer but as a lawyer working in the human rights and accountability space this video was striking for so many reasons and for me the collateral murder publication epitomizes what I talk about when we talk about principled leaking and the importance of leaking not just for free speech but for human rights accountability but also this publication and what's happening within Julian's case epitomizes the danger of the Assange indictment and what this means in terms of both the ability of the media to report on war crimes and human rights abuse but also the ability of the human rights community to have access to this kind of information and so first let's talk about collateral murder publication when we talk about collateral murder with everybody thinks of this video and the video is of course entitled on murder but the publication itself for WikiLeaks also involved associated documents the Iraq rules of engagement those rules of engagement which are the rules the US military ought to comply by which were in play WikiLeaks published those rules of engagements which were published just before and after the video now why was that important in terms of that publication I think it's important to think back and we've heard from Dean the very powerful personal narrative of someone who knew these people who look at these two journalists who were killed but we're talking about the killing of two journalists and civilians in the context of a conflict in circumstances where the military had refused to release not only refused to release the video under freedom of information laws or at Reuters requests but in response to an investigation about the killing found that the US had complied with its own rules of engagement and it was not in breach of the laws of conflict that was the context in which Chelsea Manning the source for these publications as she said in her own testimony before her case in the United States went specifically to look for this video and for the rules of engagement and I want to read you what she said about that at the time this is from her this is her testimony from February 2013 I saved a copy of the video on my workstation I searched for it and found the rules of engagement the rules of engagement annexes a flowchart from the 2007 time period I placed the video on rules for engagement on my personal laptop I planned on providing this to the Reuters office in London to assist them in preventing events such as this in the future I hope that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members this is the context in which this material came to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks published this specifically because the United States was lying about what happened to these journalists and to these civilians and this was evidence of what commentators now unanimously say was a war crime now I think it's really important to remember why that's important for the human rights community and what's happened to each of the people who have been involved in that release Chelsea Manning spent years in prison and was subjected to unlawful treatment arbitrary and unlawful treatment she's been in prison since because of the Trump administration for refusing to give further evidence in the WikiLeaks grand jury Julian Assange faces life in prison those responsible have not been investigated and now we're seeing sanctions from the Trump administration at the ICC to to sanction those who are participating in accountability activities for crimes like these in Afghanistan now a lot of the media that you've heard this week and this gets to your point John about how this how this release is important in the terms of the prosecution and extradition of Julian Assange the indictment there's been a lot of coverage this week about how the collateral murder video isn't mentioned in the indictment and that's correct but of course we talk about the collateral murder publication both the video and the rules of engagement a number of the counts of this superseding indictment which I encourage people to read absolutely cover the rules of engagement that were published by WikiLeaks alongside this video without which we couldn't understand what was of course we have a very visceral human reaction to watching that video but from a legal point of view we couldn't understand the context of the United States lie about what had taken place in that video and the fact that they hadn't complied with their own rules of engagement had WikiLeaks not published those alongside the video now the the indictment itself covers obtaining receiving and the willful communication of those rules of engagement it is it relates to counts one four eight eleven and fourteen so to say that collateral murder is not part of the indictment and is not something that he's being sought for prosecution is not correct the fact the video itself is not mentioned in the indictment the publication is absolutely covered by the indictment so when looking at a situation where a journalist and an editor as well as the source are both being prosecuted for having released information that informed our understanding about war crimes and that's why this is such an important part of the case against Jen thank you very much that was absolutely crystal clear so that's very useful to have that information out there um of course if you want to know more about this campaign and about the campaign not to extradite Julian Assange go to the don't extradite Assange campaign website or Facebook or Twitter and there'll be a lot of that information that you can use there now to my final guest and it's a great pleasure to have Sami Ramadani here to to comment Sami is from the group Iraqi Democrats he's an academic in this country he's an exile from Saddam Hussein's Iraq and an anti-war activist and I have to say if you want to know anything about Iraq or indeed about the politics of the wider Middle East you'd be very well advised to make Sami Ramadani your first point of call he's written extensively in opposition to the Iraq to the Iraq occupation and invasion and Sami I'd like to turn to you now and ask you um what the collateral mode of video has meant to Iraqis uh thank you John um really to say it in brief it meant a great deal not only at the personal emotional level of Iraqis in general who were languishing under occupation but also within the context of the invasion and occupation of Iraq I think it can be regarded as a seminal point a a landmark in attempts to expose US-led war crimes in Iraq so it acquired immediately a significant historical importance because up to then uh what Iraqis and their millions were telling the world that we are being bombed and killed and tortured and so on um went largely unreported and when this video was released somehow all that uh attempt to cover up if you like US war crimes in Iraq started collapsing I compare it to uh two events one event which was outside of Iraq of course and it was the Vietnam War when Seymour Hirsch released evidence of the use of napalm against civilians in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and one could remember that horrific photo of the Vietnamese children fleeing having been just been napalm by by US forces obviously the Vietnam War was the big news and it was televised much more widely than the Iraq War was ever televised in terms of the war crimes of the US forces but that was a seminal event and then within the Iraq context we had the WikiLeaks and the Julian Assange effort to release that video and we had the release by US soldiers of the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison so as far as Iraq is concerned these two exposures the torture of Iraqi prisoners and the pictures that the US soldiers themselves released and the WikiLeaks release of the collateral murder video I think can be regarded as two very important events in terms of exposing war crimes in Iraq and the Iraqi people all adept great debt to WikiLeaks and to Julian for what they did I think Dean described partly I mean and emotionally in a way what the US were doing to journalists in Iraq as well John there were tens if not scores of Iraqi journalists who were being killed kidnapped disappeared in Iraq during the war and before the release of the of this video the question of the US deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq whether foreign or Iraqi was hidden and in fact the US occupiers were accusing Iraqi resistance and patriots of killing and kidnapping journalists who were exposing war crimes in Iraq a totally obscene allegation what was happening was the US so-called learned the lesson from the Vietnam War and tried to target journalists and these two journalists who were killed as we saw in the collateral murder video were symbolic of the tens of others scores of other journalists who were killed in Iraq trying to do their duty to do honestly their job they were not the so-called embedded journalists if you remember that phrase the US embedding these so-called journalists within their occupation forces so and I really do regard the current imprisonment of Julian as an act similar to the US occupation forces trying to silence journalists in Iraq exposing their crimes they have literally in my view in effect kidnapped Julian put him in jail punished him as the UN report showed they have in effect tortured him this is reflective of US and and British authorities attitude because Britain was also part of the occupation of Iraq and the and the war crimes committed against the Iraqi people what they are doing to Julian is sending also a message to all journalists in the world if you expose our crimes we will threaten you we will do what we're doing to Julian to you so it is of utmost importance that people across the world that journalists with a an iota of conscience should be defending Julian trying to to do their best to expose what's happening to him and to get him free releasing Julian from jail is an essential human right act that must be upheld and supported by journalists all over the world and I salute Julian again and tell him that we we will be indebted to him Sammy thanks very much for that now we're going to move into the Q&A part of the discussion now but just as we do that I want to answer a couple of points I've already come up from people looking in Drea Drea has asked the question how is Assange doing is he getting to see his child and partner and Caroline Brains said Stella Morris that's Julian's partner tells us that Mr Assange now is a radio it's a small but nevertheless important development for helping his well-being now those those aspects aren't the the subject of today's discussion but they will be the subject of a major documentary going out on the 60 minutes program in Australia this evening and we will be providing a link to that documentary which is about Julian's relationship with his partner and his children and about the way in which his imprisonment is endangering his family and it will include Stella Morris's plea to Scott Morrison the Australian Prime Minister to aid the campaign for his release so that whole aspect of Julian's life at the moment will be the subject of that major documentary and if you go to the Drea website or to the Drea Twitter feed or Facebook you'll see the links to that in the course of this evening and tomorrow and tomorrow morning so many of you I'm sure will want to look at that but back to the subject of of today's discussion and I want to go back to Dean a moment because Dean I think one of the most powerful things that's come out of your testimony and one of the most powerful things of what you had to say in your introduction was the way in which you attempted to interact with the US military and once you were shown a kind of selected part of that of that video and I guess from their point of view that was quite a clever thing to do because what were they saying you've seen it or you've seen part of it and and the fact that you said that you had to begin to think about whether or not this was the same video quite a deliberately manipulative thing to do to a journalist really wouldn't you say? Well I actually wonder if that whole thing was choreographed to be to be blunt because I do wonder if it was if it was set up that way right no information is given before the briefing no details are given before the briefing arrive at the Republican palace in in the green zone sit down given a verbal account of what had been happening shown some photographs you know taking some time then my my colleague and I we get into a debate with the the two generals about the rules of engagement about why why on earth these two helicopters open fire on this group when when there was no when you know about definitions of hostile intent and all this sort of thing and and then right at the end shown a small a very small portion of this video I just wonder how much thought went into that process because I went away from that briefing with those images etched into my head in particular the image of me appearing around that corner etched into my head and yeah that's I don't know what else I can say except I long wanted about that for years was where we set up. Thanks Dean. Jen there's a question here from Corinne Henry which perhaps you're best capable of dealing with it says shouldn't Julian be treated as a political prisoner by the UK justice system shouldn't he and what what would that mean look I do think that Julian ought to be considered a political prisoner if we think about the political nature of the offences for which he's being charged which is part of the legal challenge in the extradition case and I think this this this publication is a perfect example of that this is someone who who Julian and his work in everything all of his mission statements about wiki leaks has spoken about the need for truth and accountability and that if uh his great quote um which I often cite when I talk about his case is if like he says if lies can start a war then perhaps the truth can stop them and these releases both collateral murder and the broader Iraq releases as we heard from Sammy was and Kristen both were essential in um the Iraqi parliament deciding to withdraw immunity from US troops and so really Julian set out with it with an aim in mind which you know he talks about the goal that the goal is justice the method is transparency and unfortunately we haven't seen justice for these crimes yet but what we have seen is certainly a raising of awareness and the end of a war and an occupation because of what Julian did now this is the very material for which he's now in prison faces life in prison in the United States for having taken the brave and principled decision to publish this material so is it right that he be considered a political prisoner I think so would that make his treatment any different in the British legal system is a completely separate question so really um obviously we have ongoing concerns about his ongoing detention we don't think that it's proportionate or necessary um his bail application that was made by his extradition team what failed and we think unjustly well I think unjustly so so I really hope that we'll see a change in approach and that uh at some point you know this challenge will be will be successful because it is a dangerous dangerous precedent not just for for Julian and for WikiLeaks but for journalists and editors everywhere uh that we see a a source and and the publisher being treated in the way that Julian's being treated thanks Jen and I should just correct myself I said I think I said that the 60 minutes program will be airing tonight but it's actually Sunday night and it's available globally and of course as I said we'll be writing links on the DEA website and social media as well um moving on it's a question I want to ask both to Kristen and to and to Sammy but to you uh first uh Kristen um the collateral murder video was was shocking um partly because although it was a single incident people read it as being in some way typical of the way in which the occupation was being conducted by uh US forces how many other collateral murder videos do you think could have been made in that period how widespread was that kind of abuse of the rules of engagement it was very widespread and uh the fact of the matter of course that later in the year in 2010 in October the the military field documents from the US military from Iraq were released by WikiLeaks the Iraq warlocks which in writing uh you know draw attention to similar events even involving the same sort of the crew that was involved in the collateral murder incident uh the the call sign a crazy horse but all the incidents are where the total callousness was seen in in disregard for civilian life uh and I want to mention actually that after the collateral murder release we had uh US military personnel uh previous soldiers in Iraq actually stepping forward who have basically testified about how uh there was no total disregard for civilian life individuals like the brave former soldier Ethan McCord who uh who actually saved the children wounded children from the minivan uh and their testimony was was was brought forth because of the collateral murder video um it they testified that that their commanders actually told them that if there was an open fire somewhere they should indiscriminately shoot 360 degrees and and kill anyone without any regard whether it was a civilian woman or child and the Iraq warlocks have so many examples of cases where where women and children and innocent civilians were shot at checkpoint because they didn't slow down too quickly before entering etc etc there is one there is one hurrying report actually about an Apache helicopter that that when you read it after seeing the collateral murder you can visualize it more it was a an incident where the gunship was uh attacking a truck full of men with arms and the the truck stopped and the the the man threw down their weapons and indicated surrender to the helicopter and you can read about this in a warlock and the crew actually was not didn't know how to respond to that there were no troops on the ground there so they radioed back to headquarters and asked for instructions and the reply came back that well we have to actually confer with the lawyers and meanwhile the the Apache helicopter was hovering above with this man surrendering below them and after a while the reply came back the lawyers have looked into this and you cannot technically surrender to an aircraft so open fire so when you when you when you read this account and after having seen the collateral murder video you can just visualize the horror and the total disregard for for civilian life and there's another incident that i want to draw attention to here which actually is connected to the collateral murder but did not get a lot of attention because it was not in the originally cut video and maybe we can play that part a little later on i assemble across this when i was in Baghdad the story because an old man came to me and started to talk about the bombing of his house and it took me a while to understand that this happened a couple of hours after the collateral murder incident and he said that his wife and daughter had been killed and actually five people had been killed in that incident and we actually have a video of that which we don't know exactly the context what happened prior but on that video you see from the helicopter video you see the the crew observing two men with guns entering into a building that was the old man's building it was five families living in a building and the decision is taken to to send a hellfire missile and obliterate the entire building and killing five men inside and one man actually a pedestrian walking past the building and i'll draw you if we can play it in a second i want to draw your attention to the the fact that before they open fire on that house a civilian just walks is walking past and they did not cease they go ahead and send the hellfire missile straight into the into the building uh i hope you can watch this yeah we're seeing it now christen okay let me just come to sami ramagani now i mean i guess to um not to put words into christen's mouth but i guess the the summary version of that is that the collateral murder video was indeed emblematic of the behavior of the american troops during the occupation um is that your take yes it's emblematic and its importance is that it uh it blew the case open for the world to witness with evidence with concrete evidence that was not allowed to to appear so it was one incident and probably in the context of the immense crimes they committed against the iraqi people was a very small incident but it was emblematic it revealed the wider truth about what the iraqi people were were saying remember 13 years of sanctions from 1990 to 2003 invasion on occupation of iraq half a million iraqi children were killed according to the united nations and madeline all bright former u.s secretary of state said that was a price worth paying and then the war comes the invasion comes over a million iraqis are killed and this is uh almost hidden from the world public so it's an important these this wiki leaks murder collateral murder video is important because it reveals it's a snapshot a small little snapshot of the war they wanted to hide and the war they wanted to hide was a war against the iraqi people in general they committed mass murder on a large scale they used depleted uranium munition it's still poisoning the land and waters of iraq the war hasn't finished it's not history the impact of what they did in iraq is continuing depleted uranium secondly the use of other chemical weapons they used white phosphorus on the people of eluja when they bombarded that city to crush it in 2004 and they denied using white phosphorus i accused in an article in the guardian directly the bbc of lying about that their journalist paul wood i named in the guardian that he lied to the british public when he said white phosphorus was not used that he attended he was an embedded journalist then he attended all the us commanders meetings on daily basis witnessed all the battles in fallujah he did not see it okay a year later who revealed it us soldiers us soldiers revealed the use of white phosphorus in fallujah iraqis were saying it iraqi doctors they're saying look there is a chemical which penetrates the skin and goes to the bone burning people alive we've never seen anything like it the media wouldn't report it but once the soldiers revealed it it became a worldwide event so the wiki leaks collateral murder video has this significance it unmasks the veil they want to put on on their crimes in iraq and their crimes are massive over a million iraqis they they killed in the process and they want to punish julian for what he did exposing a little bit of that crime and they want to teach all journalists a lesson and this must be opposed it must he is definitely a political prisoner in my opinion because there is no reason whatsoever even if they want to to push the case for extradition why isn't why is he in jail why isn't he allowed to go out meet with his solicitors to defend himself this is what political prison imprisonment looks like is when they prevent you from defending yourself from standing up and saying look this is what i did and this is what they want to do to me in the united states i might they might even kill me there and and the release of the video of of the death of floyd george is also falls within the same context that police crimes or racist crimes and other crimes by the state in the s is hidden from the public and there are people citizen journalists if you like who are exposing some of these crimes and they are being targeted as well nowadays to prevent them from filming and so on so the defense of julian is to defend free speech to defend his human rights and we must uphold that uh dean um in terms of the impact of of collateral murder and i suppose of the work of wikileaks more generally how do you think that shaped journalists response to these kind of events are they more skeptical more critical and more aware that uh that you know they might be played by the authorities than perhaps they would have been beforehand good question john um gosh i i honestly look i i i honestly it's it's very hard for me to say because i i stopped um iraq was my last active assignment i then went into being a an editor and and actually most recently i was i was trying to create a mental health and uh well-being program at reuters for three years before leaving reuters so i just can't say for sure but i think uh what it what it did show for journalists and what it should show for journalists is that you've got a question absolutely everything that you you that governments tell you that uh you and you just need to scrutinize everything and i think in this era what what shocks me um having been a journalist for 25 years is just the willingness of governments to lie the way they do these days without any regard for the truth whatsoever and it it's something that i've never come across this sort of thing before and i think it's just it's horrifying i think it's equally horrifying to me uh to to see how many journalists are still willing to be lied to and that has to has to stop i mean it has to be a learning curve we i started my career just a few weeks after the the beginning of the golf war and we we and we we had the incubator story and justifying the the the event there we have had since all the lies lied that that took a few years to expose many years but it should be about time to that journalist actually decided to uh that the u.s. military and u.s. government is not a credible source when it comes to their own action in in wars and invasions that should be pretty obvious indeed and uh i mean many would say i think that during the covid crisis um the extent of government lying as as bled from foreign affairs into domestic affairs and some of the figures for the skepticism which the general public now have towards the press are pretty i've been pretty shocking released in the last in the last week or so um gen there's a there's a direct question here for you from Conrad Zoey and he says it's quite simple really um what do you think uh that the Australian government should do to support julian and ultimately to bring him home look we've been reaching out to the Australian government for almost a decade now on this case what the Australian government needs to do is to exercise diplomatic protection over julian as an Australian citizen it is not enough for scott morrison to say well he's had just as much or more consular assistance than any other person any other Australian that is not what this case needs this is a case of unprecedented nature this is a case which threatens free speech around the world an Australian faces life in prison for having published information not just the collateral murder evidence of war crimes but published information for which he's won the war clear award for most outstanding contribution to journalism Australia's Pulitzer prize and the sydney peace prize for what is revealed about the horrors of war so this is not any other case it is for the Australian government and certainly the nature of our relationship with the united states is such that if we are such a great ally then why can we not raise a question like this about the treatment of an Australian citizen if the Australian government were to firstly get involved and to raise this with washington then i believe the Australian government could definitely bring him home but they have so far refused to do so and it's up to the Australian public to ask questions of our representatives in Australia what nothing will happen unless the electorate makes it happen and i really hope that more Australians will start writing to their MPs and protesting about this Australian government's failure to failure to act thanks Jen there's a question here from boys uh boys to frank says democracy can only function with a free press is the real problem that the way our press is owned and controlled today it's in the hands of too few and the owners tend to fund park parties who end up in government um well it's a broad question but dean what's your view of it oh i think that's absolutely right um you've only got to look at the corporate the corporatization of global media and and what chilling impact i think that has had on on many many media outlets uh the independent press is shrinking corporate media barons they cut they slash they burn private equity that owns media cut slash burn and i think it's uh it's just made journalism a very precarious occupation uh and it's um it's led to a lot of influence uh being sort of infiltrating into into newsrooms as well and look at look at the look at the way the Murdoch press presents news in its opinion pieces its opinion pages for example as well i think that's not that's not mainstream journalism at all so i i think there's a there's there's a lot of big issues there christen it's an interesting moment as far as that's concerned though isn't it because i mean that it's a it's a strong point about the general nature of the press uh i guess that makes it all the more essential to to get behind those journalists who do manage and some do to kind of break through the wall and get the story out there it's extremely important and uh there are always brave journalists who are willing to take risks as well as there are brave whistleblowers who are willing to take risks and and get the truth out uh the fight for Julian Assange is about his life i mean he faces life imprisonment and it's it's absolutely horrible to have witnessed how he has been treated in the last decade now because i consider him a friend but it is much more than a fight for Julian Assange and his life it is in my opinion a fight for press the future of the free press as was pointed out earlier if if Julian Assange is actually United States it will be the most serious blow to press freedom in latter times certainly in my lifetime and i hate to think what happens if that goes ahead it just it will be total darkness i mean and so it's so important not just for all journalists in the world to rally behind it's this struggle to to fight against his tradition uh but every civilian that cares about the the health of democracy there's a there's a good question here sami says how can people how can the people responsible for the war crimes evidenced in the collateral murder video be held to account um i mean holding holding us troops to account in iraq was always a near to impossible task wasn't it absolutely i mean one of the things they did was make sure that they don't get held to account in in iraq and one of the big things they do with successive iraqi governments since the occupation is put that red line condition that you do not touch iraq us personnel troops or contractors and so on you do not pursue them in iraqi courts you do not touch them you in fact they even impose some conditions that you don't release iraqis who might have targeted us forces because they jailed thousands of those of those accusing them of all manner of of harming us presence in iraq so they put in enormous pressure and they still do to this day iraqi parliament only a few months ago decided to ask the us troops to leave iraq and they are refusing they threaten to freeze iraq's billions of dollars worth of money deposited in the us federal bank they threatened militarily to hit iraqi targets they threaten specific iraqi media journalists you name it that they should not campaign for the total shutting down of us bases in iraq and asking their troops to leave and to talk about australia really australia was one of the countries that joined in the in the iraq war and perhaps in not defending julian or trying to at least give a hand to releasing them the australian government's also defending its track record as a state in its involvement in the iraq war and that's unfortunate but but you know julian is one of those very brave journalists along with with pilger and others and i'm sure jan is also one of those brave australians who want to contribute to unmasking unmasking these crimes and the us gets away with it constantly so to your answer to your question we have a big problem worldwide they commit all manner of crimes they killed three million vietnamese according to mac namara they ex defense secretary of the united states they killed three million vietnamese over a million iraqis um koreans um lebanese you name it that been at it libya supporting terrorist groups and and syria and so on and they seem to be getting away literally constantly with murder because the way the world order is is designed is dominated by by the united states or there will be a united nation's congress security council veto and so on so justice is not being done and what do they do they go and kidnap julian because he revealed some of their crimes so that it's a sad situation but it is also truthful and just one quick point about control of the media by corporations very true 80 percent of the british media is is owned well print media is owned by five individuals how could that be called a democratic freedom of speech situation these corporations control the media but in itself is a reflection of the control of the corporations over the entire economy and our livelihoods in a sense the big corporations control that and eventually they would control the media as well and they have done it so there is there is a complex situation here which people have to become aware of that we are ruled by the big corporations and our politicians are somehow listening more to the corporations than to the people and we have this disconnect and the state gradually just represents these big corporations trampling upon freedom of speech upon the media freedoms etc okay thanks very much sami now we're right up against the clock here we're nearly on the hour so i just want to get my other three panelists to have a last word on some of these on some of these issues i want to come to you first gen it's often said about especially about highly political court cases like this that they're only partly decided perhaps only half decided by what happens in the courtroom and i don't want to talk you get you to talk yourself out of a job but for the rest of us who aren't lawyers can't contribute in that way setting the political framework setting the political atmosphere in which a trial takes place is as important as what happens in the courtroom isn't it look i am a lawyer who believes that law must be seen in its context and that actually the political action of social movements does have a material impact on on the way that political decisions are made about the law and certainly on raising public awareness this case is and has always been incredibly political whether we look at the fact that the trump administration decided to take this prosecution and the context in which they decided to indict julien and to seek his extradition these are all political choices the australian government's failure to take action to protect julien that is a political choice and so politics absolutely plays into this case and i think it's really important that people continue to raise awareness continue to raise this with their members of parliament continue to protest because we have to continually show that this is not okay and continually hold our government the australian government to account the british government to account and the u.s government to account about what this case is about dean um it's been fantastic to hear your voice um and uh and to hear the issues that you brought to this debate and any thoughts about what you'd like to see going forward uh willow guy i agree totally with what christin said i i think this this is a critical moment in in history uh this case because what is at stake is is is government accountability and transparency freedom of the press freedom of whistleblowers to exercise to use their conscience and therefore i would agree with what jen said i would urge australians to get behind this campaign to bring julien to australia because so much is at stake i i just think we we have to it's just that important um to do so christin um the second part of the expedition hearing is due on the 7th of september so we're not that far away now what would be your request to people watching um for what they can do about this they have to become active in in the campaign and do everything in their power to uh to support julien i mean there are many ways to do that urge him to to go to the defend a sounds website uh and don't actually have a sounds website to get information of how to take part i just want to make a final note on on the duty of us journalists and julien of course is a member of that community we have a duty to register history and truthfully and bear witness we probably were not able to push forth yet the the justice in the form of holding those accountable who committed the war crimes in iraq but there is a form of justice in getting the truth out and and the clutter murder video and the other information that was released by wikileads is a form of justice for namir nurildin for saeed smar for uh salam atasar tomal the the driver of the minivan uh his two children that i met him about that saeed and doha and his his widow it is the beginning let's hope that we will live a time where those who commit heinous crimes like this will be held accountable and it is essential we get julien a sounds out of his situation to his freedom to actually take part in that fight thank you very much that was christin harvinson wrapping that up sammy ramadani uh jen robinson dean yates thank you all very much you don't have to take my word for it there have been hundreds of people watching uh elis walner said excellent marco penner said thanks to all you are real heroes too a fantastic discussion um but it's not the end of the matter by any means uh no matter how little you can do do it if it's sharing this on social media do that if you can donate money please do send the da the money we can make good use of it if it's uh campaigning by writing to your mp you can go to the da website and there's a pro forma an automatic letter that you just a couple of clicks and you will have lobbied your mp over this there are 35 000 people who signed the petition online please do that uh there is a model motion which my union the national union of journalists has passed and which is now going through trades councils and trade union branches all around the country please do use that go to your family to your friends to your workmates to your trade union branch to your church or your mosque and raise this question uh with them it's too important uh to stay silent thank you all for watching and please do look out for future broadcasts from the don't extradite assange 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