 Good evening everyone except Roger. Good morning Roger. Good morning It's amazing that you you were able to make some time to to have a conversation tonight about Julien Assange and the last few days I On Monday a UK judge blocked the US request to extradite Julien Assange The the legal basis of the ruling is that extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental harm Funnily enough today the same judge denied Julien Assange bail. I Guess UK prison Incredibly much better than the newest ones that's even though Found a quote by Nils Melza the UN special reporter on torture Who said that Julien Assange was showing all symptoms associated with prolonged exposure to psychological torture? That's when he visited him in jail in 2019 so a year ago But so we're here tonight to to sort of ask the question what does this means the last the last decisions for Julien Assange himself, but but more more than that for journalism investigative journalism and And I guess democracy in general So once again, I'm very happy to welcome you all tonight. I'm very happy to have Stefania Maruzzi with us She joined us at the last minute, but I thought it was very important to have Stefania on tonight Stefania has been She's an investigative journalist. She's been working for the major Italian daily El Fatto quotidiano and she's worked on all WikiLeaks secret documents since it started For the last five years. She's been fighting for a freedom of information act Battle to defend the right of the press to obtain the full documentation On Julien Assange and WikiLeaks to actually reconstruct the case Factually, so Stefania, it's amazing to have you here with us tonight You are gonna have to go I think in about 20-25 minutes. So I will let you speak first You were you follow the trial the court proceedings on Monday and Wednesday As someone who's followed very closely the WikiLeaks in a way story for many years What'd you take out the last few days? So Frank, thank you for this invitation for this panel with great people. So let me tell you that I was quite upset Throughout the all these Hearing extradition healing from the very beginning you have to realize that in the last 11 years I have published all the very same Documents and regulations all of them for the last 11 years and I was never put in prison I was never arrested. I was never tortured and I was always respected and And so I cannot See what they have been doing for the last 10 last decade On Julian Assange and I feel the duty to speak out so because I've been there from the very beginning And I feel like the drone and the saved by Primo Levi where you witness talented journalists who reveal exceptionally important information in the public interest Which has allowed to reveal torture which has allowed to reveal the pressures on for example an Italian politicians to block extradition of CIA agents Involving the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omari Milan He was kidnapped in the middle of the day in Milan. I see if he was a teenager child Chile and so I mean I cannot I cannot accept how he has been Treated you have to realize first of all that in the last 10 years I met the last time I met Julian Assange as a free man was the 28th September 2010 so in the last 10 years I have always worked with him for my newspaper Confined on the house arrest Confined in the embassy without an hour outdoors. I mean we we give an hour outdoors to the mafia killer So kill children I mean and in the British Prison of Belmarsh. So for me It's a so you know, it's a so I cannot stay silent about this treatment and this Sentence is terrible. I mean on the one end. We are relieved because he's Extradition appear now Denied but it was denied only on the basis of his physical mental health and all the problems and all the arguments about The fact that it was absolutely right publishing revealing war crimes and torture were basically all rejected and the political persecutions argument by the Julian Assange defense was completely rejected and Everything was rejected apart from these health condition, which can be easily bypassed by the US because they can offer At the next appeal they can say well, we will offer you some guarantees He will be treated fairly. We would not put under very oppressive conditions. He will not be put in AD Florence with El Chapo and they can get easily around the The Sentence so they can easily win the appeal So I'm really really terrified about this sentence and I'm really upset to remain in prison of course And for you Stefania as an investigative journalist yourself that has taken some risk in publishing the WikiLeaks leaks Could this set a very dangerous precedent for future with her blowers or investigative journalist as well Absolutely, if you read the sentence, I mean, I have read the sentence the Varney sub-rights Judgment is absolutely dangerous because She makes clear that Some of the activities the publications activities goes Go well behind journalism investigative journalism. She calls Responsible journalism, what does it mean responsible journalism I mean if it is not Responsible to publish documents which reveal war crimes torture in a democracy. I don't know what I mean I don't know what's a responsible journalism. I mean you have to realize what these documents reveal I have been on those documents for the last decade. They allow to reveal 15,000 that civilian death in Iraq previously unaccounted for they allowed to reveal the pressures on the authorities to To grant impunity to the CIA Agents which can who kidnapped people torture rape them in the extraordinary rendition They allowed to really collateral murder They allowed to reveal the all the crimes both from the Taliban and from the US troops and coalition troops in Afghanistan I mean, if this is not proper great journalism, I'm not sure what what you can call journalism You know this sentence is devastating this case is devastating. That's why I'm so I mean I'm so intense about this case. We cannot lose this case We cannot lose this case if we lose this case It's the end of journalism exposing war crimes and torturing a democracy. I mean And and I want to ask you a last question before going to the rest of the panel Julien Assange, I mean mainstream media has pretty much ignore ignore his plea for the last few years only You know very few articles appear on the main in the mainstream media Most of the others were on like independent or alternative price. So what that this case also says or tells us about corporate mainstream media Look, I want to provide you a fact. This is not my opinion. This is a fact In the last 10 years he has Remained arbitrary detained and this is not my opinion is the UN Bod in charge of establishing who is arbitrary detained and the UN working group on arbitrary detention Which established Julien Assange has been arbitrarily detained since 2010 in the last 10 years He has remained arbitrarily detained not a single journalist has tried to get the documents and Look for the truth for the fact as we are supposed to do. So he took an Italian journalist completely alone I Pain from my own pocket because no one wanted to read this. So you have a Hundreds of journalists covering the case. We have seen dozens of journalists in these days covering the hearing None of them have tried to get the documents and see look Let me look what's going on in London because this man has remained arbitrary detain since 2010 is Confined in an embassy. I think this is a dramatic failure of journalism and had we not have these timid absent Newspapers and media he would have been in a different situation Had the media and be aggressive had they been vocal about their situation about his treatment We are free. We got scoops from WikiLeaks. We got dozens of revelations We are safe. We are completely safe. No one arrested us and He he has gone through hell. I mean we wish with some solidarity with with some property That figure the journalism this case would have been completely different Thanks a lot, Stefania Yanis, I want you to come to you. You have spoken to Julian a few times over the years a lot of Emphasis has been put on his psychological and mental health Could you tell us about I mean the last time you spoke to him in the last time you saw him or About the conditions in which he was detained and he's and he's period or his mental health But thanks Frank. The last time I visited him at Belmarsh was in February And and that's where I did actually witness the conditions Not his cell, of course, I didn't get to sell but I don't need to see his cell because you know, I looked at everything the surrounding his surroundings and It was very easy to extrapolate from that And to use the fact that for 23 hours a day 23 hours a day. He is incarcerated in solitary confinement Frank if I were For a year 23 hours a day in this room of mine, which is not the cell in Belmarsh prison I'm telling you that I would have flipped. I would have topped myself. I don't think I would have managed to survive the way he does That doesn't mean he's surviving well when I Sat down with him by the way, I was not allowed to touch him But nevertheless the moment I saw him I went over to the other side and hugged him and you know 405 prison officers started moving towards me as if I had committed a crime against humanity, but anyway We sat down and a torrent of Argumentation came out of Julian. You could see he was frail His eyes were moving left and right left and right. You know typical effects of incarceration of Sensory deprivation but his mind was trying to squeeze into a minute material in impressive material intellectual material political arguments and analysis that would have taken You know more people a much longer space of time during which to articulate and at some point I said to him I'm so glad that that you're so lucid because you know, we are all worried about your state of mind and he said well do be worried because For the 23 hours a day I spend in the cell Most of it. I'm struggling not to lose it to keep it together and I can tell you that I'm not doing very well It's only one. I know that I'm going to meet someone It doesn't happen very often or pick up the phone and talk to somebody that you know all this anxiety all this huge angst To remain with it. That's the expression he used is focused and It feels as if once I go through this because he doesn't have long to speak to people then immediately after that He's facing an abyss He's staring into an abyss so After that I had the great Privilege of receiving phone calls from him from pay phones. He was allowed occasionally to To pick up the phone the last time I've made some notes So that I can share them with you and everyone the last time we spoke was on July the 13th. He called me from my pay phone and He said hi, this is Julian from Belmarsh. I thought okay sat down where I wherever I was in the middle of no, I don't remember what and He went straight to it because he knew he had nine minutes ten minutes max max and he said Yes, I wanted a spec a perspective on world developments out there as you can imagine I have none here So I went straight into the kind of thing that I was thinking at that moment I was not prepared for anything like that So I told him that in my estimation, you know 2020 was an important year because the world of money decoupled from capitalism you see the financial markets are doing magnificently whereas capitalism is going down the drain and Immediately he came back to me was saying then he says this proves that governments and central banks Can keep corporations afloat even when they said next to nothing at the marketplace. These are his precise words, right? and Then he asked me he said Yan Yan is how important is consumption to capitalism, you know, what percent he wanted numbers What percentage of GDP is it at stake? When people actually consume and so how to what extent that we need that's capitalism require people to buy stuff so You know, I tried to answer with some numbers, but then I home. They know what matters that, you know, capitalism doesn't really need Workers except that Robots that replace workers cannot buy the stuff that their robots produce and then there is a realization problem Without workers to exploit So that they can keep some of the value they produce in order to buy the stuff that they're producing then it goes So I've you know said that and then immediately he said I very much fear he said the answer this is going to benefit Trump and people like Trump because they know how to feed off anger The anger of the multitudes towards the educated upper middle-class elites that own the machines So he was completely with it. And so we talked about socialism for the oligarchy and austerity for the many and And then he said, yeah, this is the problem with Bolsonaro and you know, the the ultra right that unlike the left unlike us They know how to form a coalition between rich people and the disconnected working class and as he was Telling me that, you know what most of the prison officers here in Belmarsh support Trump not even Boris Johnson or Farage But Trump Donald Trump in but That sounds at that point the line went click And he died, but let me just friend since I have the floor just to conclude Let's be clear the reason why he's there is I think best expressed by my Mike Pompeo You know Trump's first CIA director and even to this day secretary of state He said that Remember he described the WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence service And you know what he's exactly right. That's what WikiLeaks is It's a non-state hostile Intelligence service precisely that which every newspaper Every radio station every television station ought to be but is not. This is what the BBC should be This is what you know The great newspapers should be Non-state hostile intelligence services, but they're not and the reason why He's in there because they're trying to kill him. It is really very simple It they're not You know doing things that may have as a repercussion his death They're doing things that Are designed to have as their repercussion that he's death. He Poses problems for them now Because there is a movement now because thankfully a lot of people who were Scorning those of us who were supporting Julian during the dark ages of 2014 2015 2016 now Have somehow been mobilized And they're coming out in support of Julian. That's a good thing. Welcome back to them Shame on them for not being here all the time, but you know doesn't matter All is forgotten. Welcome back But let us not forget that what is now happening is war criminals are trying to kill the body and the soul of Julian Assange And it is our job to create a movement that will make their life difficult to such an extent that they will say Let him live Let's save his life before we do anything else Thanks. Thanks, Yanis Brian um I actually wanted to talk to you about this. Um, I mean Yanis touched upon in upon it in the last few minutes of his of his speech, but They want to make an example out of Julian Assange, right? I want I want to want you to have your views on this and also because we all we spoke about it a few days ago as well In your opinion What is really what this case is really about? What is the Julian Assange case really about? And your mic is is off Thank you. Um, thank you and thank you both Yanis and Stefania. I I'm very moved by what both of you said um Julian is a threat Because he exposes an illusion that we are generally being Told to support and that illusion is that we live in a democracy so the Fundamental concept of democracy is that people make decisions about their future and about the state that they live in And the fundamental assumption of democracy is that people have the information on which to make those decisions So clearly for democracy to work. We have to have good information Otherwise we'll make bad decisions but When people do give us good information as Julian did With wiki leaks Then that actually becomes a problem because that information reveals what is actually going on Particularly in the military sector in his case And that is not something that anybody wants to know about That is not a story that they want to be told Now, why is that such a sensitive story? It's not only because of human rights violations Though of course that's a part of it No country wants to be accused of those But it's it's really because it chips away at One of the most fundamental engines of capitalism, which is the military industrial complex And you will have noticed that the other day, um america Unilaterally, I think with only four congressmen objecting to it Or congresswomen. I think they were actually objecting to agreed to a A defense bill this this year a pentagon bill of Three quarters of a trillion dollars three quarters of a trillion dollars That is such a lot of money Um, and of course it's up from last year and it's up from the year before it keeps going up Now, what is that money actually for? Is it defending anybody against anything? No, it isn't actually There's very little military Engagement going on There's very little need for it We don't really have enemies of that kind if we really want to use the military well right now We would direct them towards dealing with the pandemic All of those military research laboratories that are making nerve gas and heat rays and Various kinds of bombs could be much better served working for To help us with something that we really need defending against Pandemics and so on But in fact, we have this huge machine That needs to be sustained The machine is so Completely ubiquitous particularly in america where every single state Has people who are working for military contractors Um, so for a congressman to say or a senator to say We don't want military spending at this level anymore is effectively for him to throw people out of their jobs And that's always the threat that the arms manufacturers use And their way of dealing with this is to make sure that any large weapons project Is has workers located in every state of the union Uh, typically they they will manage 48 or 49 states, you know, one state will make washers another one makes fuses another one makes Finns whatever is needed It's it's a well well oiled machine And when julian comes along and says Do you want to know what that money's spent on? Do you want to know what happens with all of those? Three quarters of a trillion dollars that go into this. This is what happens journalists get shot up and ordinary people get shot up And wedding parties in afghanistan get destroyed by drone attacks So this is really bad publicity for the whole Engine that's driving this thing and i think Singling out julian is a way of saying to journalists altogether look Just don't touch this subject. Okay It's too risky Really, you're getting in too deep here. Just stay away from it. So I Fully congratulate stafania for actually putting her finger into this pie It's it's a dangerous thing to do and uh, it obviously isn't a very financially rewarding thing to do otherwise either But um, congratulations for doing it. But anyway, that that's what I think is behind this Um, you know julian has come to represent um, at least in their eyes he's come to represent the awkward bastard who's going to keep asking questions and What's a real shame is that he hasn't come to represent to journalists in general the awkward bastard who's defending their job Because that's what he really is without julian doing what he's doing or or if julian finally is Effectively murdered for doing it That's a way of saying to all investigative journalists. Don't bother too risky And unfortunately so far they seem to be agreeing Thanks Thanks, brian stafania Correct me if i'm wrong, but you're gonna have to go in about five ten minutes, right? Yes, I can stay 15. Okay Yeah, I want I want you to ask you a question then because we I don't want to keep you for too long About journalism in general. We've spoken about investigative journalism the case of julian of wikileaks but I mean the attacks on journalists all around the world including in so-called democracies like france and belgium and italy Is is heavier and heavier every day, right? I mean in france if you if you see the last demonstration journalists are being targeted By the police. They're being, uh, brutalized by the police. They're being sent to court by the police in italy It's the same in belgium. It's the same so you can see That there is in a way a concerted Attack on journalists and journalism, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's more and more difficult. I mean, we are very poor So they know we don't have the resources And all the important media are in the hands of oligarchs Powerful people who are powerfully impressed. Let me tell you one thing to keep doing my work on wikileaks I had to leave my newspaper. I was working for lari publica for a major Italian daily lari publica. I had to live I had to choose Whether to keep working on wikileaks or whether to keep working for lari publica It was no longer possible to do my work there. I'm I'm afraid to say so but This is what happened. I'm afraid to say so, I mean it's uh This work is tremendously important. You know, it's Let me let me give you just an example what we were able to do. Thanks to this document Let me give you an example of proper journalism So let me give you this example I'm not sure if you realize that italy was the only counter in the world to get a final sentence for the cia Agents involved in these extraordinary rendition of a milan cleric abuomar So we were the only one able to get a final sentence for these 26 us nationals most almost all of them cia agents are formidable prosecutors who were able to Put them under trial in absencia and to get a final sentence But they never spent a single day in prison. Why? Because six justice ministers six justice minis that both progressive and Conservatives Refused to send the arrest warrant to the us So at the end of the day italy which was the only country to To do just to make justice about this case was condemned by the european court of human rights for granting them impunity Thanks to the documents the weak leaks documents We got evidence of us pressures on all single important italy and politicians Tell me don't send the arrest warrant Don't do it So without these documents it would have been Of course, we could imagine this kind of pressure But we could have never ever got these evidence So the only way to get this Evidence is thanks to these documents and that was a crucial piece of journalism Which without these documents We would would have been impossible. So let me let me tell you how upset i am that Basically julian after publishing these documents and never known freedom again Whereas the people from the work criminals like black water are out And the cia agents are Free as the air The black water work criminals have been pardoned. So how can you Accept these upside-down words? I mean you cannot accept if you are If you are a man or a person with an ethical Funds you cannot accept this so I cannot be silent about this treatment, you know That's why I want to win this case. I want to contribute as I can with my journalism to win this case Many many thanks again, uh, stefania and again as brian said Thanks for the work that you're doing. Um, I want you to come to you roger We we've spoken about julian me being made an example of um We've seen this for many years right even in wars etc. You you destroy A village my la in vietnam der yes in in palestine to show the other villagers Look, that's what's going to happen to you if you if you rebel Of torture for example, we know that torture is actually Not to get information of the one you torture. It's to say to the others Look what's going to happen if you do the same and we can talk about pre-emptive wars as well You know, it's about the neighboring countries. Look what we did to iraq You know shut your mouth up so What does this say julian's case whatever we've just talked about About the future of our democracies, and I know you're going to say about democracies, but You've got the floor Well, I think you talked about me lie of course Seymour hers who Who's who printed that story and published that story and brought that to our attention has since been largely sidelined The proper maganda machine went into high gear and he's now Seymour hers she's sort of regarded as a peripheral figure who's not to be taken seriously By the machine Not by me. I would always listen to what he said as I would always listen to robert fisk or any of the other people Who are out there doing real journalism about real stories um Yeah, it's interesting that you use you use the example of for instance the invasion of iraq being a warning to iran I suppose is what you say uh Okay, maybe maybe it is certainly julian the sun she's still that Magpie fluttering in the hedge used as an example to anybody else who might steal the machine's peasant eggs or whatever it is that they're concerned about keeping um And and he's still fluttering still alive. He's not quite yet a dead magpie in the hedge I did another I had another of these conversations this morning with them Sorry, that's my With uh consortium who had a webinar this morning and john posher was on it but also on it um i'm trying to remember his name He was called alexander somebody or other and he was a legal expert from london and he was he was fascinating I think it's worth bringing up what he said here now um He was very interesting talking about the appellate judges in the high court in london Who they might be and what because I said, you know, these guys will all be They'll all read the times of the telegraph or the financial times in the morning over their boiled eggs and and you know milky coffee and And they'll be very conservative and he agreed with all of that, but he said You mustn't run away with the idea That they're all venessa berets is who is clearly a foot soldier marching to orders They're not a lot of these judges are way better educated than she is when you read The judgment that she came out with on monday. She is clearly not a student of the law It looks as if it's written by somebody who knows nothing about being a jurist or writing a judgment at all She's a complete incompetent. So she's there specifically um as a mouthpiece for the You know, u.s. government officials who are sitting in the back of the court all the time telling her what to do and what to say and what to Whatever, but when this goes to appeal alexander was saying these will be Men who care about their reputations and about their attachment to the law another thing to remember about the appeal court is that You are not allowed to introduce any new evidence in an appeal It has to be based entirely upon the evidence that was given in the original hearing um Now she read out Most of the indictment it's almost word for word when she was giving her judgment on monday Why am I saying all this? because Because i'm listening to yanis and stefanie How are we going to keep this guy alive? Now i was somewhat encouraged by what alexander had to say in that he thinks that the appeal may happen within the next Six or seven months I in my worst fears was thinking a year two years blah blah blah blah um What else have i got to report because i'm going to do that rather than giving you pontificate about democracy You can do that frank. You're really good at that Okay, I don't mean that pontificating but talking about the things um I had something else to say about the judicial process which which Slips my mind now when it comes back to me. I'm going to put my hand up and I'm going to say excuse me Sir, but I've just remembered and I want to say so now I will Now shut up and let somebody else say something. Okay. I mean we have time anyway. Um after these sort of Yeah To to have a I know what it was I've just remembered what it was you didn't raise your finger Um, I but I said um, I had been talking about the choir You know I saying how do we do anything? How do we do anything? I was also most encouraged by yanis saying there has been a ground swell of opinion Within the ranks of those who were not with us in 2014 15 16 said but they are coming to be with us now So in in my language what yanis is saying is the choir is growing and as we all know There's no point in us preaching Not to the choir the choir is our only potential lifeline and if a lot of the choir are young Which I believe them to be then that certainly my job my job is to encourage them Encourage them to sing together encourage them to sing loud from the rooftops and to make an enormous noise because my friend in the legal um In the legal community in london tells me that whilst reading the The financial times and the times and the telegraph over breakfast They are also hearing the news and if the news is about this ground swell that yanis was talking about And it's about protest and it's about people in the streets and about stephanie writing articles and about you Organizing these webinars if that is the news that the judges are hearing When they appeal court the three of them get together they will Hear it absorb it Take note of it and think What should I do here To protect myself and the reputation that I enjoy that I am a servant of the law Before I am a servant of the state. That was the other Many thank roger and I think that's that's really one of what's I want to focus on when we have this organic discussion Stephanie do you have to go I can see you Okay, so that that's what I want to focus on and we were talking money with yanis before the live About us. I'm not going to call us the left or whatever but us Going on the offensive instead of being constantly sort of a reactionary Movement, I want to go to ken before that ken you I think it's important to remember how the wiki leaks Started, you know, chelsea manning when she downloaded classified documents from us military servers That exposed the u.s war machine u.s war crimes u.s atrocities u.s torture She actually first approached us mainstream newspapers And they passed so then she went to julienne and wiki leaks and they started Publishing publishing the the documents. So I mean the case of julienne is about investigative journalism but again, it's also about Corporate journalism and who Who owns the the media really? What's your take on this ken? um well, it's um It it's it's it's one of those cases that that clarifies the the role of the media doesn't it's both the press and the broadcasters um and I think it's been said before that there's a A collusion of of silence that doesn't need to be an active conspiracy They all understand the steps of the dance um We're going to keep quiet about this and the guardian did publish some material but then turned on julienne um, and it's um Typical with the with the liberal press. There's there's a degree of hypocrisy that They they they won't have a foot in both camps. They want to be both seen as the part of the responsible establishment They also want to speak truth to power But they're compromised on both fronts Um, and they're attacks on julienne Assange I think we're we're critical and undermining his presence as a as a journalist And being seen as a journalist and they're the scurrilous attacks on him for year after year failure to really campaign against the torture for 10 years and uh Finally there was like on a mealy maleditorial. I believe yesterday saying the case should be dropped But there's where is the blazing demand for the right of him to investigate journalism and and the um The leader of the n uj and michelle stadis street. I said I think said yesterday that the the judge gave no defense to to uh to the activities the normal activities that most investigative journalists uh undertake every day um And and it is absolutely an attack on the freedom of of of the press um But the freedom of the press is is something it's a bit like Calvinism and free will they have it so they choose not to exercise it and um, they by and large choose not to exercise it um and uh julienne's case clarifies that because if if it were really a press to Hold power to account. Well, they fail over and over and over again I mean, it's interesting where Remember some cases where investigative journalists have been heroes um the the watergate tapes You know and exposing nixon Obviously should be exposed but they're now um heroic figures called on to pontificate every time there's a an issue about Press freedom and investigative journal their will downs and and they they speak up um julien's put in prison um and what is What is so horrendous, I think too and and I hope it's behind the surge of um the movement that that's uh yannis talks about and and roger too is that This this there could not be a clearer case I'll shoot the messenger And let the scoundrel go free I mean he he you have people bush Blair Propagandists like Alistair Campbell Wheeled out on the BBC on news night. They have season tickets to the current affairs programs to tell us what to think They are responsible for what up to a million deaths four or five million people made homeless destruction of iraq um I mean the most atrocious war crimes in an illegal war an illegal war So every crime is a every activity is an illegal on account of that war crimes. They should be indicted the man who Tells us about these crimes Will if it's condemned to rot at the very least and there's in danger of Never seeing the light of day again Or of being executed and we know some politicians in the states have called for precisely that There could not be a more outrageous a more egregious example of the messenger being crucified and the The scoundrels the villains the criminals getting away with this. I mean Pinochet's release is paled by comparison I mean he only killed a few thousand These kill these are killed hundreds of thousands And the man who tells us the graphic details is is Suffers and and I think it's a huge test. I mean it's a huge test both for the press and the courts now if If if julien loses well, I say he loses his life and his liberty if the press and the courts if insist on this massive injustice and stay silent It's a stay nowhere for the rest of the rest of time Thanks again, um Stephanie I really don't want to kick you out, but I think we're gonna have to say bye to you soon, right? And I would be polite and you know, you're the only woman on the panel. So I want to Say goodbye to you in a proper way Um, so if you have to go, um, thanks a million again for accepting to come at such short notice And uh, thanks for the work you've been doing and hopefully you can continue doing it. Um, despite the the last few days Thank you, frank. Thank you Sorry, I said, thank you I just want to close with this one. So the work criminals, uh, the black water Work criminals are out julien ascending prison. He might die due to coveted or Whatever in prison we know what kind of places prisons are and finally the People who destroyed the entire nation are completely free as the air Whereas we are still speaking about the victims that never were as a result of the weak leaks publications because 10 years after publishing these documents We journalists have basically seen the u.s. Government in court Unable to provide a single example of a single person put in prison Died in jure due to this publication. So we are still basically discussing the victims that never were Without this discussing the millions of people who died or became refugees Due to these wars. This is tells you we live in a world of propaganda. We live in a real world of propaganda This is all I want to say about this case. So thank you for inviting me and thanks to these wonderful panelists Thanks, stephania by All right For for the rest of the of the panel. We now have about 15 maybe 20 minutes left We've been we've been talking about A movement, maybe the youth being more politicized than three decades ago Yannis talked about the fact that we had people that didn't say a word about julien assange a few months ago But that that are now coming and speaking out And I think obviously as a movement and if you want to as as activists if you want to build a movement You've got to focus on on small victories, right? Even though they can feel very tiny You've got you've got to you know embrace them to continue sort of Going on so so yanis. I wanted to ask you We spoke about this five minutes before the live about And again us the movement the left whatever Being on the offensive, uh, I can just give a brief example someone that I dearly respect and love Jeremy Corbyn when he was brutally attacked a brutally it was attacked and called an ntc might And and said he wanted the destruction of his rail and and all this I thought could have responded In a totally different way and I thought and that's the problem of the left that By being that defensive and by saying in a way. Oh, I didn't do that. Oh, I didn't do that He played totally in the end of the far right And as a movement we have to stop doing that, right? We have to Stop only responding to the attacks, but to be on the offensive ourselves What would you I know you agree Yannis because you've you've told me that just before so Well, it's not a very long time ago since The progressive international movement that With some of us started some time ago Roger was part of it. Ken was part of it Brian was part of it. We held what we call the Belmarsh tribunal inspired by A previous Incarnation where we gathered for precisely the the the purpose that you are articulating to turn the tables Instead of constantly defending Julian to start prosecuting The war criminals that are killing him as we speak And that is this is a process that we are we are continuing but You you affected you you have given me a great Pass for discussing The assassination That precedes the actual murder and that's the character assassination What you mentioned regarding Jeremy? Is precisely what I experienced in 2015 When suddenly I was actually warned this is this is something that I don't think any of you knows But I was in the White House in April of 2015 as a minister of finance of Greece And I would I just had a chat with Obama And as I was coming out a former student of a friend of mine Who worked as part of the White House approached me and he said minister can I have a word with you? We're sitting next to a toilet, you know And he said I I feel the the obligation to warn you That in 10 days there's going to be a character assassination against you Precisely 10 days later Every major newspaper financial Times Wall Street Journal the Times of London, you know el país All of them unleashed a torrent of abuse against me You're just complete fake news about me about what it was. I was saying I was there. I experienced that Why because that that was the moment when the the the will of the greek people had to be bent And you know we had to fold and by the facts had to get out of the way So they created essentially A narrative that made it impossible For any of my arguments or facts to emerge because suddenly became something about me This is exactly what they did with Jeremy And this is exactly what they did with julian and you know, they the establishment the deep state and so what called it Whatever you want the oligarchy They've become much much better at it than they used to be Because back in the 1960s and 1970s, you know, they they would they would accuse you of being a communist But I do accuse me of being a marxist. I am a marxist I mean, I'm not going to really suffer for that much if you accuse me of being a left winger, right? I am a left winger But now what they do is something far worse. They accuse you of something that really hurts you Calling somebody like us a racist a bigot an antisemite You know a rapist This is what really hurts because you know, if anybody calls me a rapist Today, right? Even if it's complete baloney Right, I feel as a feminist. I have the the need to give the woman implied or Involved somehow in this accusation The opportunity to speak against me Because this is what we left wingers do So this is what they do The character assassination of julian science. Okay is what that he was That he elected trump Single-handedly, right and that he was a rapist Now look, I don't want to get deeply into this but allow me to to do some reporting Right, and so I'm going to finish off With an account of a discussion I had with julian in the ecuadorian embassy in november 2017 It's no secret to the united states authority because As I found out recently actually watched the video that they taped of me Speaking to julian in the ecuadorian embassy as part of the court case that the spanish judge started Against the company employed to videotape me and julian having this conversation, right? So i'm only telling you that which the nsa already knows Okay, so he had actually sent me a message I was in athens and he said I need to speak to you Can you get on a plane and come to london? Which I did I did that a number of times and a number of issues But this is of interest to all of us, especially in the context of the character assassination of calling him a trumpist So, you know almost every discussion we had for years Was all about how to get him out, you know different ways and campaigns and so on the purpose of of which Just like what we do today is to save his life and get him out of there And he said to me, you know One of the republican senators came to visit me recently I thought oh my god, that's big news. Yeah a senator going into the ecuadorian embassy Along with somebody else And they offered me a pardon a presidential pardon from trump I said, okay on condition of Um that I reveal that the hillary clinton emails Over which trump had the problem at the time if you remember, right With a muller investigation and so on, uh did not come from the russians And I said, uh julian From what you've told me in the past You don't know where your information comes from. I mean wiki leaks is structured in such a way that it's double blind Right Nobody knows anything even julian does not know who is Sending the stuff to wiki leaks. This is the whole point of the design of the software He said yes, that's that's true But this person who actually gave me the emails the hillary clinton emails actually made himself Known to me Himself or herself. I'm not sure right And I said so what it's Can you confirm that it was not the russians? He said absolutely I said well Why don't you then? He said because that goes against the whole principle of wiki leaks Non-disclosure of sources. I said well, what if your source is okay With the idea of being disclosed He said well look firstly, it's very dangerous because if I get in touch with this person They they may find out that I got in touch with this person then therefore he might be fine found out He or she may be found out So I do not want to jeopardize that person But even if they gave me the okay to disclose that I got the emails from them It would be against the the principles of wiki leaks to do this So I said so what did you do? I said What did you say to the to the to the trump? Representative he said I told them to fuck off Now this is the man we're talking about right? I mean I you know I find julian infuriating many times, you know this I find most of my friends infuriating I find myself infuriating, you know, I clash with them with him, you know, this is what means to be friends, right? But he's a man of principle He had a chance of being pardoned by telling the truth But because that would mean disclosing His sources he didn't do it and I said, you know, you may be You know, you may end up in a supermax prisoner as a result of that He said yeah, I know and the worst thing he said to me is that Because I will have done the turn the trump the trump people down. There will be even more Determined to bring me down That was in november 2017. I have the video Thanks, thanks, yannis We we have like, you know a few minutes left and I'd like to uh To continue to talk about Being on the offensive. I mean yannis talked about character assassination I think the four of you Know exactly what it's about. Um, I mean ken and you've been called many names over the years broger as well brian as well uh, and and That's the thing. I remember brian you telling me a story about Um about israel palestine that Every time you sort of speak out on palestine No, maybe not every time but actually when you speak on palestine now and then you receive in 24 48 hours a torrent of females and messages And it's obviously organized, you know, when you mentioned at one point that was a few years ago You got like 4 000 messages or emails after you signed a petition or something. So And that's the way it works, right? We're talking about the troll the trolls on facebook on the internet But that's I mean the movement has to be financed somewhere. We know for example israel spends millions into fighting pro-palestinian or pro-justice activist, but um How can we react to that because I mean obviously it scares a lot of people What happened to you brian and we've had chat with other artists and And cultural personalities in the past where they said the first time I spoke out on on an issue like palestine or any other Not any other story like palestine The torrent of abuse was so high that It shut me up. I needed support and I needed you know, and I didn't get it and as a movement I guess that's what we need to do as well, right? Make sure people have you know, we've got their backs in a way Yes, I mean it seems to me that what we have to do is to make it Something that a journalist would want to talk about You know, we want to make it something that consolidates their reputation rather than destroys it And that's a sort of snowball that once it gets going you don't have to look after it that much anymore, but but at the moment I think the fact that journalists don't talk about this at all is partly because they aren't well informed and they have the propaganda campaign against julian In their minds, you know that he was a rapist that he Was acting in a morally Incorrect way that he was a threat to national security and so on so all of those things are in the back of people's minds And haven't been investigated or debugged properly But but the other thing is You know, who owns the press, you know, if you if you if you're a journalist and you want to keep your job Perhaps it does take some kind of courage to say To keep beating this drum, you know, stafania didn't say why she left la república, but I can imagine that what she was wanting to write about wasn't that popular there as an issue So we have to somehow get get it to be a thing among journalists that it's rather shameful not to be on Asante's side at the moment the best place to be from career point of view is not on his side We somehow want to turn that so that You know, just just as you will now see Rats jumping from the sinking trump ship in america and they'll suddenly appear on the other side Let's hope we can do that with some journalist rats as well Yeah, it's just total for consciousness, isn't it and it goes across um, it goes across politics um, and I mean the idea of capitalism is very strong even though it's collapsing The reality is it's weak, you know, yeah, this is said and It's a struggle for consciousness and and the problem we've got at the moment because of the pandemic because the mainstream media is close to us the broadcasters are state appointments governed by state appointments And uh, when they're when they're least confident they they are most So when they feel vulnerable or when they when the the deep state or whatever feels vulnerable Then then they then then you can't speak Um, and they're more censor is on the news and they are on the general current affairs programs They're more censor is on those and they are the more liberal documentaries and you're most free if you write fiction But there's a kind of graded censorship And it's to do with their with their confidence In that they can they there are no threat we are no threat to their power um, and uh Answer has always been mass demonstrations, you know, we go out on the streets and that's difficult now um, we have social media, but Uh, you know, it's beyond my pay grade that it's you know, others will know better How effective that is than I do I can barely turn the bloody thing on so it's it's um I think that's that's our problem is finding a Finding a substitute for being out on I mean if we weren't under the restrictions of the pandemic There would have been many many hundreds of people outside probably thousands outside the court yesterday, uh, the day before so it's um That's our problem. I'm sorry. I'm I'm not sure what the answer is, but um, as soon as we can get out on the street Then they have something to report Yeah Thanks, Ken. What's your solution roger? I was I was gonna say, uh, roger We've got like I've I've promised you guys and I've promised people we won't go over An hour, so I'll give you the last the final words roger. You were the last one to arrive on the panel Oh my god, I'm gonna be the last one to speak. I'm I'm I'm still sort of happily Amused and chuckling over the idea that ken can't turn his iphone And that's and and in consequence, but what I was thinking was in consequence This this actually frees him, you know, because my mind was full of the fact that almost everything Particularly in written drama that we ever see on tv nowadays is about The fact that the younger generation are slaves to their fucking iphone's they never speak to each other and actually I bet all of us know from our own experience that there is some awful truth In that general labelling of the whole generation that is not actually engaged I to I heart to heart shell to shell with their contemporaries They don't sit in the pub and talk about as far as we know But maybe that is changing. Maybe they maybe a few of them are resisting the temptation To sit in their bedroom playing video games their fucking life, you know from which is a huge temptation I've seen it. I've seen it in my own family naming no names, but I'm so so these these are like you know These are very very serious things that we have to confront also whirling around in my brain is the whole You know propaganda smearing anti-semi thing which I have been involved in because I've been smeared with all kinds of brushes I actually went to my iphone while we were listening to all this to look up a name And I found it with a date march the fifth 2019. I asked somebody who shall remain nameless Who was that fucking cia bloke that you brought round to my house to threaten me? Because they sent somebody to my house Uh, what to say now listen your your activism on behalf of the palestinians I don't you think it might be better if you toned everything down a bit. Wouldn't you rather be martin luther king than malcolm x? just Nudging me gently away from being a fucking loudmouth, you know And I sat and listened to all this stuff And eventually this guy said to me he he lent forward and he looked at me and he said I just wouldn't want to see anything happen to you. Roger. Oh god His name's jack divine. He now runs a hugely powerful Security business all over the world and he used to run one of the main desks in the cia Maybe the middle east desk in the cia when he was still working for the cia So there you go jack Good fucking luck mate, but you're not scaring me off I mean, it may sound stupid, but and they didn't actually kill me and they this was several years ago, so But yeah, exactly But it is it we do live in a strange world Which and but which is why it's been so nice for the last hour or whatever to sit and listen to you guys You know to be in to be with the voice of reason sitting in a room And but it still it leaves us though with With this problem sitting on our laps collectively all of us and with all the gore However, many of them we can join To the struggle is we have to for the sake of every man woman and child on earth We need to save julien asange from the machine But he's trying to grind him into minced meat Okay, so and we will We bloody well will he will go home to you know To his missus and his two kids and he will be rehabilitated and He will publish again That's the most important thing. We need him not just to be free Out of belmarsh. We need him to be doing his job We need wiki leaks to be up and running and doing the great work that he did when he was at the helm I'm not saying it's not probably not but obviously You know christin and the others at wiki leagues now A lot of their energy is having to be focused on this And selling t-shirts to try and get you know the cash and the wherewithal that's necessary To get him back so All we can do is go at our lines and leap into the fray even harder and take more risks and shout louder That's all I have to say here. Thanks. Thanks roger. That's I guess a very good way to to end this We will stop when it's over, right? That's That's the quote. I want you to you know last time very easy quote. I forgot now. I remember we'll stop when it's over Thanks. Thanks a million That was amazing. Thanks yanis. Thanks, brian. Thanks roger. Thanks ken um Thank you and Solidarity with julian Of course, and let's keep fighting. I mean again focusing on the positive. He hasn't been sent to the us so That's that's a small victory, but it's one that we should Think about thanks. Thanks again. Bye everyone. See you all. Bye. Bye