 Standing up for Julian Assange is a fight for our future because it's not just his life that's in the target hairs, the life of our democracy is also hanging in balance. The extradition of Julian Assange is a frontal assault on the bedrock foundations of our democracy. It's an attack on press freedom. It makes a mockery of our judicial system, and it's an assault on human rights. We implore Attorney General Garland and President Biden to drop this monstrous case now. Assange is being persecuted as a publisher for exposing war crimes corruption and torture committed by government in our name. Assange and WikiLeaks released materials such as the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the State Department cables and more. One of the best examples of which was the collateral murder video showing civilians and journalists mowed down by gunfire from a US helicopter, as if it was a video game. Relations like this are not just okay. They are essential in a democracy. If we want to hold unaccountable power in check. If we don't hold unaccountable power in check. It's not a democracy, which is why the press needs to be a watchdog like Julian Assange, not a lap dog, like the corporate media. These kinds of exposures that Assange made should be a routine practice of journalism, as in the case of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. That release was critical for ending the disastrous war in Vietnam in 1975, in the same way that the release of the Afghanistan papers in 2019, as opposed to the Afghan logs that Assange released these were the Afghanistan papers released much later, helped end the Afghanistan war a few years later, after decades of fraud and failure. We need that kind of watchdog journalism right now, as we are being plunged headlong into not one but two resurgent cold wars, including one that is glowing red hot right now in Ukraine. Using a boundless new source of revenue for war profiteers who sponsor government as we know it. A free press is the critical counterweight to the deadly militarism escalating before our very eyes right now, as nuclear threats are actually going off the charts. A big shout out to all the watchdog journalists who show up and cover Julian Assange, you are all heroes, and we need you more than ever. It is a dire threat to all journalists that the world's foremost publisher has been imprisoned for four years in a high security dungeon under espionage charges, having been convicted of no crime. He should be walking free today. I want to make a few points, especially on behalf of doctors for Assange, a group of over 300 doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists from over 35 countries who are concerned about the health of Julian Assange, and the health of our democracy. As doctors, we have an ethical obligation to denounce torture where we see it, and to seek to end the conditions in which that torture is occurring. That is why we have called for an end to the legal persecution of Julian Assange, since our founding three years ago, and why we again call for an end to extradition for once and for all now. The threats to Assange's health are the result of psychological torture as assessed by medical specialists in the field and the UN repertoire on torture at the time, Nils Melzer. Psychological torture is not torture light. It is a life threatening condition created by extraordinarily cruel, unusual and inhuman conditions. In this case, Julian Assange has been subjected to over 10 years of arbitrary detention, much of it in solitary, an endless stream of character which he has been unable to respond to because he's been locked up and basically in communicato, and an Orwellian legal persecution that has systematically violated the rule of law, violated due process, and has had little to no basis in fact. The agencies persecuting him have also blocked his legal defense by putting him in solitary where he was not allowed to meet with his lawyers. They also put him in a plastic box in the courtroom so that he could not also communicate with his lawyers at the critical time of his trial. They have surveilled him and his attorneys, they have ensnared him for extradition and targeted him for assassination by the CIA. Several of these factors, each alone would result in the case being thrown out. If it were a real court of law, which unfortunately it is not. Unfortunately, there appear to be at least three agencies of the US government involved, the Department of Justice conducting the lawless prosecution, the CIA spying on Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy and plotting to assassinate him. The FBI, who oversaw computer crimes in Iceland, committed by the notorious hacker Sabu, who was collaborating with the FBI at the time. In a plot to implicate Assange in computer crimes, and all of this was corroborated and indeed reported by the government of Iceland. The bottom line is that there are some very big guns generating psychological pressure equivalent to torture, which have been grinding down on Julian Assange's psychological and physical health for years. This generated not only the risk of suicide, but also the risk of physical illnesses like cardiovascular disease, which is known to increase under conditions of psychological stress. These concerns have been critical to the legal proceedings because extradition from the United Kingdom cannot take place if the life of the person extradited would be at risk. The judge in the lower court, the so called magistrate court in the UK denied the extradition to the United States on the basis of a very clear danger to Assange's life based on the risk of suicide under the brutal and barbaric conditions of US prisons. But upon appeal, the higher court accepted these ludicrous so called assurances from the Department of Justice that Julian Assange's psychological health would be protected while in prison for 175 years by sparing him from the most dehumanizing conditions that is the special administrative measures that basically treat you like a robot and have you in solitary 24 seven or solitary confinement itself. All the while, the Department of Justice was reserving the right to change their minds at any time, once they actually had Assange in their clutches. So they're providing these completely absurd assurances. And what was especially laughable is that while the Department of Justice was busy assuring the court that oh yes we will take very good care of Assange's psychological health we will treat him with kid gloves. They failed to recognize or to acknowledge that his physical health was actually crashing right before their very eyes when he actually had a mini stroke in the courtroom during the proceedings. The prosecution didn't even notice or they didn't acknowledge this was happening yet ironically here they are trying to assure the world that they are going to take very good care of Julian Assange's psychological health, if only we will entrust them with his life. This makes absolute mincemeat of the argument that Assange could be extradited without risking his life. These sham assurances were just the latest in a long stream of absurdities that make a complete mockery of the judicial system, in this case. These include the concocted Swedish allegations, the so-called rape allegations at the outset of the legal persecution. These then became a false premise, both for Assange's arrest in London, and for his bail jumping charge. He was eluding bail that was based on a completely concocted charge to start with. Another absurdity is the revelation that the key witness in this case against Assange, a person by the name of Siggy Thorodarsson, is actually a sociopath. That means someone who cannot tell the difference between the truth and lies, in other words an inveterate liar, with prior convictions himself for fraud, forgery, financial crimes, and child sexual abuse, and his testimony was later admitted to be fabricated. Yet there it is playing a major role in the entire extradition case. For all of these reasons, this case really should be viewed as a crime against democracy. Merrick Garland and President Biden need to get on the right side of history. They need to stop this assault on the foundations of our democracy, on press freedom, on judicial integrity, and human rights. Drop this case now, Free Julian Assange.