 David Dormino, you are now in London with the anything to say sculptors. You said in your message that this is the most hostile location. Why did you leave this one to last? Because we tried to bring the statue here during these last eight years and we didn't receive any permission. So finally we have it and we are in an amazing place. Of course we are you know in not a good situation because Julian is very soon so this is one of the last opportunity we have to protest and you know for to support him. What are you going to do with the sculptures now? We continue the journey because people must be informed on this amazing story and you know sometimes art has the opportunity to show us the contradictions of our times and this is a very amazing story. Yes of course you know it will go on if he is taken to the United States right so maybe you could head over there. Yeah of course it will be hard because you know Tilly is in Europe we can do something but when we if we will arrive in America there is an ocean in between so it will be more hard. We have to create supporters in America and continue to push. So what do you think is one of the strongest, the strongest reason why Julian should not be extradited? You've been thinking about it? Because you know the only the public opinion is the only thing that can save Julian because the law has failed, the politicians have failed and he defined the secret power of the world is the enemy number one so it's a political prisoner. So you think that Britain has been completely complicit? Do you think Britain has been complicit in its persecution? Everybody is complicit. Everybody of us because until we don't stand on that chair and we take a position we are complicit. Good afternoon and welcome to Parliament Square. My name is John Rhys and we don't extradite the sandwich campaign. This is the sixth time that we have attempted to bring this magnificent anything to stay statue out to London. We tried to bring it to London squares, we tried to bring it to churches, we were refused every single time and so we decided to do the only thing left open to us and that was to have a public demonstration in Parliament Square in defence of Julian Assange and we're very pleased to have the anything to say statue here as our platform today. So this is a very very urgent moment. This is really the 11th hour for Julian Assange in the British court system. So you will hear this many times this afternoon. Please whatever you have done so far to help this campaign to defend the free press please do more now. Now is exactly the right moment to pull out every single stop to stop Julian Assange being extradited to the United States and put on trial for crimes which he did not commit and for being a journalist. That cannot stand please redouble your campaigning efforts. The first person that I've got here to speak to today is an MP who stood by Julian Assange from the beginning. He's the only MP to have got in to Belmarsh to see Julian Assange. Please welcome Labour MP John McGorrell. First of all, can we thank the artists who are with us who created this formation. Thank you very much. He says more eloquently in statue form what most of us can say. As I said I'm John Acton. I'm a Labour MP but I'm the Secretary of the National Union of Journalists Parliamentary Group. So our job is to speak up for journalists in Parliament and we speak up for journalists who've been abused in prison and sometimes have lost their lives performing their role in democratic and undemocratic societies which is to expose the truth and to hold politicians to account for their decisions. Julian Assange is a journalist. He undertook yes a perilous mission but it was a mission that had to happen which was to expose the truth about the war crimes that were taking place often in our name in Iraq and elsewhere and for standing up for the truth for exposing the truth. As any true journalist would he's been imprisoned year after year. Only a couple of miles away from us in Belmarsh now is the longest serving political prisoner that there is in this country. We now know more about the role of the state in this country too thanks to the work of another journalist called Stefania Massimi. She has been absolutely dogged of the last eight years in pursuing the truth about how Julian was treated in this country and in particular the role of the Crown Prosecution Service. We now know more as a result of those freedom of information requests about how much collusion there was between the Crown Prosecution Service here and the Swedish authorities to secure Julian's extradition to America and we know the risk to his life if he's extradited. We'll continue to expose that but I believe it brings shame upon this country for the role it has played in the persecution of a journalist who simply wants it to do what journalists should do is report the truth. That's why in this coming few this coming period now exactly as John Rees has said this is absolutely critical now. We do all that we can to prevent the extradition grabbing more importantly we demand the freedom of Julian Assange. Julian Assange imprisonment and persecution brings eternal shame on this country and we need to continue expose it and stand in solidarity. So I I think all of us here today let's recommit ourselves to this campaign freedom for Julian Assange, protection of journalists and yes all those who speak the truth. Solidarity. Thank you for your support and now I'd like to welcome the person who sculpted these magnificent statues, the Italian sculpture Davide Domino. Please give him a huge welcome for all the work that he started on. Sometimes it's the statue that speaks. This is a perfect place. It's here, it's here, a militant garrison is here. Heart cannot change the world but it has the capacity to give us a different vision to show us the contradiction of our time and see the world with new eyes. This sculpture is intended to be a weapon of critique of mass construction. There is a moment when the sand becomes a beauty and this is the proof. The next speaker that I want to introduce you to is a fantastic MP. She's a hard time staying in MP. We're all incredibly glad that she is and she's been a supporter of Julian Assange since the very beginning. Please welcome to the stage the MP for the Labour Party, Absana Begum. As John said, I'm Absana Begum and I'm the Labour MP for the constituency of Poplar and Lifehouse, a proud East London constituency that stood in its hundreds and thousands opposing the Iraq war to defend our freedom of speech and we all have the right to know. Edward, Chelsea and Julian did that for us. They made their moves in spite of becoming visible, in spite of becoming threatened, judged and jailed. They chose courage. There will be those that call them traitors but for me I know they will go down in history as a being among the greatest of truth-tellers in modern history. Choosing public-case places commemorates and led us to war. This woman is here today outside and in Parliament Square and outside Parliament because in Parliament inside and outside Parliament as well as you can see here there are many statues and there are many portraits just commemorating all of that and the late Tony Ben when he reflected on the statues and memorials that exist inside Parliament said when he and Jeremy Corbyn went and put the puck up for Emily Wilde and Davidson, he reflected and he said that this place doesn't actually commemorate and mark those who fought for truth and those who fought for democracy. If one walks around this place one sees statues of people not one of whom who believe in democracy, votes for women or anything else we have to be sure that we are a workshop not a museum. So as we stand here let's pay homage to these three whistleblowers who said no to war, who said no to the lies that took us and led us to war and who said no to the intrusion into private life that helps perpetuate war as well. Manning Assange and Snowden accepted their loss of freedom they've paid such a huge price so that we could have the truth and I think we won't really free until they are all free we are not free until Julian Assange is free to raise the fight and awareness of the campaign Julian once said one of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice may we be among the truth tellers and may we be among those in history who expose injustice thank you solidarity. Thank you speaker I just want to make this announcement and I want you to carry this away to whichever organisations you're in touch with or your family because there will soon be a date given by the court to bring Julian Assange's final appeal before them we may not have much time when that happens but when it happens it's extraordinarily important that there is the most massive demonstration so far in support of Julian Assange outside the court on that day so please do link up with the DEA website and with our Twitter feed and Facebook and look out for that announcement and when it comes please be able to respond and to mobilise on an unprecedented scale. Now my next speaker is Stella Assange she leads the introduction to you but she has fought relentlessly and with such courage that I ask you please to give her an enormous welcome here. I see such a wonderful turnout where are we at well we're really at the end game now the fight is on this is my message yes the legal avenues have narrowed dramatically but we were ready for this right we know what kind of battle we're fighting a political battle a fight against injustice where people speaking out witnessing this this injustice and giving it a name is what will stop it this statue here today has this message anything to say these three men are every man they witnessed injustice and they spoke up and we need to speak up just like they did definitely because that's what makes us human yes by gagging them by imprisoning them by punishing them they're punishing all of us they told us what we needed to know about injustice being carried out in our name against us Julian depends on each and every one of you and every person you can speak to to implant them to move them into understanding what's at stake and what's at stake is democracy itself yes the case against Julian goes to the heart the fundamentals of what it means to live in an open democratic society where we can challenge authority where we can speak up whether we're right or wrong we have to be able to speak to refine our ideas to be able to be challenged and just because there are people in positions of authority they're abusing their authority they're abusing the legislation they're abusing the surveillance tools that have been developed over the last decade or so and they're abusing the coercive powers of the state physical and digital to prevent you from speaking out you're losing our rights Julian's case is caught up in a trajectory in which we are all losing our rights and the right to freedom of speech is at the center of all all our democratic rights it underpins everything we will lose all our rights if we lose the freedom of speech and Julian's case is the most righteous case of freedom of speech today in our generation in this century we have to free him his life depends on it but all our lives our lives and our liberties also depend on it thank you free Julian Assange I think the microphone actually being joined here it's most impervious um but I just want to say a word or two about journalism because there are really only two types of journalism there's the type the prints the corporate handouts and government press releases and there's a type of journalism that prints what they don't want you to know now Julian Assange is in trouble because he's the kind of journalist that prints what you need to know but they don't want you to know and it's a special pleasure now to introduce a journalist who does exactly the same thing please welcome to the platform back to Amy so I have a confession to make um like a lot of journalists when Julian first arrived in the scene I didn't like him um among other things he had cool hair he was skinny uh he even did fashion week here in London I think at one point uh and along other things he was breaking all these huge stories and really just to get down to it I was jealous uh when we were admitted um we're in London so I might as well quote Shakespeare you know be aware of the green on like monster and guff mocked the meat it feeds on and all that we journalists were jealous Julian Assange and I didn't have a good reason for being jealous I mean so I invented one and the reason I invented was I didn't like the idea of radical transparency I thought this is a responsible how can you just dump all these secrets on people they have to be filtered out by responsible people and I thought I thought of myself as a free thinker at the time and I was so brainwashed that I forgot as a lot of people forget that secrets do not belong to governments secrets don't belong to governments information all this information belongs to us governments govern at the consent of the government if they want to keep secrets they have to do it with our permission yes now I'm an American there's a lot of I know there are some Americans here there are a lot of people from the UK here we have a lot of secrets right now yes why is that we're building skyscrapers and huge underground complexes because we don't have a place to keep all of it why is that Julian answered that question I want to quote from an essay essay he wrote your authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom truth and self-realization plans which assist authoritarian rule wants discovered induce resistance hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers now translate that in a brief way the worst the government is the more secrets there are and we have a lot of secrets now Julian Assange is a brutal irony about this he became famous at a time when particularly America but a lot of the western governments were building a vast secret state to deal with what they call the threat of foreign terrorism they built a complex of secret prisons programs of extraordinary rendition of all the terrible things that we learned about in part because of I am large part because of WikiLeaks today the awful thing about what's happening with Julian Assange is that governments are openly being repressive they openly want to put this man in jail for 175 years now why are they doing that most of the charges have to do with the espionage act what is the espionage act will it contains offenses like conspiracy to obtain national defense information what is national defense information well as it happens mine asks about this it's basically anything they say it is so what is conspiracy to obtain national defense information there's another word for that too it's journalism they want to put him in jail for 175 years for practicing journalism if this were Andre Sakharov or Nelson Mandela every human rights organization in the world will be appalled at this they would call this the worst human rights defense of our generation but because the west is doing this we get silence from our media that is inexcusable the last thing I'll say is if you're okay with this happening to Julian Assange you better be okay with it happening to a whole lot of other people because that's going to be the reality in about 10 minutes if they get away with doing this that's why it's so important to rally now to prevent this hap from happening preventing his extradition preventing his imprisonment in the United States once they get away with this the floodgates will be open and this will become a common occurrence there will be no more speeches in parks it will just be something that happens every day and people won't even notice anymore if we want to prevent that from happening we have to act now let this happen for Julian Assange thank you very much I think the closest possible association between the material that Julian Assange released and the anti-war movement when I went down to report at the frontline club on the initial revelations of the Afghan war logs it was because I was one of the five members of the stop the war coalition in this country it's for that reason that one of the most commonly seen interviews with Julian Assange is the one where he's just stepped off the platform by a stop the war coalition demonstration in Trafalgar Square and for that day to this the anti-war movement in this country has stood solidly with Julian Assange and for that reason it's my pleasure to welcome a speaker from the stop the war coalition Shabir Akka thank you thank you all for being out here today the imprisonment and the torture of Julian Assange is an absolute crime his treatment shows us with absolute clarity that we do not live in a democratic society we do not have a free press the message from the state is that if you dare expose their crimes if you dare to oppose their narrative they will bring down their full weight against you and how much clearer can it be when the man who exposed this government's butchering of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq is languishing in prison facing extradition in 175 years in an American cell while the man who was responsible for the butchering of those people the mass murder or war criminal Tony Blair only walks free but he was rewarding with a knighthood he continues to expand his empire by advising dictators and murderers and how to carry out their crimes at the moment it is no surprise that this government is pushing so hard to extradite Julian Assange while they are also at simultaneously passing laws to restrict our ability to protest to restrict our ability to strike to give the police and to stay even more powers against us and at the same time they are pushing for mass escalation of a war that threatens to expand and that threatens the lives of millions and millions of more people so we have an absolute duty when they try to stop us to protest to protest even more when they to make sure that we mobilize and stop their warmongering even in the case of Julian Assange it is not something that will be decided in a vacuum in the courts the courts of public opinion matters the pressure that we build on the streets matters and that's why we need to keep turning out in bigger numbers for Julian Assange we need to turn out in bigger numbers to oppose the war in Ukraine and we need to turn out in bigger numbers to stop this authoritarian government from removing our hard-won democratic rights and civil liberties so i just want to make one plug which is that on the 8th of july the stop the war coalition has a national day of action against the war in Ukraine calling for peace please if you're not already a member of stop the war join it come out on the streets and let's make the case against war let's defend Julian Assange let's build on his legacy see you all in the streets so let's do as Kristen Hart, the editor-in-chief of wikileaks to come to the platform to explain to us exactly where we are now in this struggle and what we need to do next Kristen being here today i want to talk a little bit about words and lawyers english is not my first language so i'm fascinated about the use of language and words and how it is abused and used in the battle against justice 13 years ago when i started working with julian preparing the lease of the collateral murder video i'm sure that all of you have seen it struck me that they used the word engagement in a certain context no for me engagement was something that had a pleasant connotation this was the use the word that used when people got together and decided to tie the knot as i think you call it until death to the unpart but in the vocabulary of the american military engagement yes it does have to do with death but it means fatal killing that is the engagement that the lawyers in pentagon came up with when they drew up the rules the rules of engagement and those were the rules the lawyers drew up and the helicopter pilots were thinking about when they asked for permission to engage to open fire to assassinate matazer tomal an innocent civilian who came upon the scene to save the life of an injured man side sma word for Reuters permission to engage they asked give us permission to engage before the open fire and straight 30 millimeter hollow bullets upon the vehicle were inside for the two children saeed and sma were only saved because their father threw his body over them and shielded them in front of the car think about these lawyers who are sitting draw it and pop these documents finding new meanings to these words engagement it's killing and think about the fact that julian is being indicted for publishing these rules of engagement you are not even allowed or supposed to see the rules they play by in the assassination games in wars they do not judge him for publishing the collateral material for one purpose only because they do not dare to have that shown in a courtroom at any point and you know why they use language we all know how the lawyers in pentacon and the department of justice drew up manuals on how the military put torture prisoners but of course they didn't call it torture much shall be called it so it sounds better enhanced interrogation techniques that's waterboarding 80 times 90 times electrocution hanging up on the hand until you are disjointed on the arms torture pure no enhanced interrogation techniques i want to draw up a little scene that we came to learn about in january this year when my Pompeo former cia director later secretary of state director of cia in 2017 and he was very hopeful that he could become the republican nominee with lecture next year so of course the public is a book he's a memoir his fond memoir from the halls of power when he was director of cia and later secretary of state and think about this he tells the story that just before christmas 2017 he sat in a cozy atmosphere with his family think about this atmosphere and the wife is preparing the dinner i guess the decoration the christmas tea is up the gifts on the floor and he tells that he was sitting browsing through and reading the manual on extra traditional killings shame that's the christmas that the Pompeo wanted and liked most and why is this relevant yes because we now know that in the same period because of brave journalists who did deep investigation there were plans being drawn up to assassinate julian assaults to kill him or assassinate him in the equatorial embassy a real plan that was introduced in the white house and we further know this because two brave witnesses were protected a vicious statement that they knew about this plan and poisoning was being discussed that was what Pompeo was conducting just before christmas 2017 when had the cia possibly not going to hear about all this in the court of law in the extra nation hearing and the high court why because on 6 of january justice swift as he is named he still is just as swift decided after almost nine months of deliberation to spit out three and a half page of his ruling that he's on no reason for julian assaults to have an appeal in high court no ruling at all he complained about the mass of paperwork and documents that he was tested to go through 200 pages too long it's about a man's life that's the defense documents it should have been less i see nothing there the story about the plan to kidnap and kill julian assaults now it's just a journalistic story it's based on 30 named and unnamed sources published in yahoo news written by three prominent domestic journalists now it's just some speculation by a journalist the protective witnesses who knew that there was a plan to poison julian assaults now not worthy of being heard in the high court in london sad justice swift and on and on he went in the three and a half pages he didn't both went easy he didn't bother that document you shouldn't read it he clarifies for us that the entire judicial process in this country is a facade and his injustice persecution looked like it's justice but it's not and the more steps we take in the poor chair in london the more obvious it to be comes and justice swift he doesn't even spend much effort in trying to clothe the real fact of the matter that he had already decided to take a politicized opinion before he even booked the 200 documents and i doubt that he read through the entire thing he was probably reading the memoirs by the great bike baiot at the time craig murray wrote an excellent piece the holiday please read him and support him he is very good and he reminded people how fascism and nazism crept into the german psyche in the 30s and there was no shortedness of lawyers and scholars legal scholars to write up the justification for the wrongdoing and at the nuremberg trial there was no shortage of documents probably more than 200 as a defense document oh listen it's all in the laws it's just being passed on laws and these legal swimmers they said i was in the right and we got the orders to do it it's called the nuremberg defense it was dismissed at the nuremberg trial when it comes to these heinous acts you have to be accountable no matter what the lawyers have drawn up no matter what the process is and that is what we are going to be having in mind we are going to hold these people account every individual if not history to justice people and they will be spat on the sons and daughters and granddaughters and grandsons there will be a shame of the legacy of those individuals in the court in the entire bloody corrupt system who took part in this persecution the most running out of time we need to save a man's life we need to take journalism we need to act now and we can't stay silent we need to scream out from the top of our voice no extradition three minutes to midnight in this case there is a crucial and possibly final court case on the horizon when the announcement comes on the date of that case please be ready christin raffensen we have heard a lot about radical transparency today in one speech about americans being brainwashed into thinking julian had just dubbed information now those of us who were in the courtroom we heard of the ingenious way that julian had invented using a dictionary for example finding words that weren't in the dictionary they were proper names so can you tell us something about redaction because it seems to me that this is so important well i mean i it's it's shocking that these evidence that you are mentioning which is it's so much goes against this propaganda narrative which being held up we are not allowed possibly to present it to a high court because it's a it's a huge of course argument in favor of julian i can tell you and i testified to that that after 20 years in the mainstream media often handling uh leak material and uh and uh sensitive issues i have never experienced us solid diligence in handling material and sensitivity in handling that material as in the case of julian when we were working on this 2010 2011 uh publications trade links that julian and the team went to in in order to save car every sensitivity we went further actually in some instances in that process that the mainstream media that we were cooperating with we redacted more than the new york times people there was absolutely no dumping of material careful journalistic sensible curation of the material before it was presented to the public both when it came to the avagant warlock the iraq warlock and the diplomatic cables especially so this propaganda voice that's been hammered on on for 13 years now and echoed in the mainstream media is totally without any foundation and it's so easy to do something if people would listen to present them with the evidence of it and it's in the core documents that julian is now trying to present in his appeal but possibly will not be heard in the case of the state department cables didn't julian also contact the united states government and request their help for redactions and what happened there was there were there were more than one approaches and attempts to involve the state department offer to create an alliance at the outset and in the summer of 2011 when of course through the betrayal of two guardian journalists and other former insiders and wickelings the materia was exposed then of course steps were taken to warn the state department and offered to assist in reacting to the possible scenario that was not answered and bear in mind when it came to the diplomatic cable as has been testified to in the court in london the primary publisher of the material in the end of the full unreducted material was not wickelings it was an american entity krypton and even mr young the founder as krypton has offered to me because he knows that he will can take on a fight on the first amendment basis the protection that is now being fiddled with in the public discourse that julian will be denied so that message alone to journalists of core in australia and all around the world should be enough to wait a minute so you're going to have a separate rule for american journalists called the first amendment production but anybody else who reports on their issues exposes their corruption their war crimes is fully exposed that should send shock waves and i don't think people realize what kind of a horrible scenario could emerge from that well it's exactly as stella said in her talk last night it's a war between accountability and impunity and what you're talking about somewhat ensures impunity of course we have so many stories reflecting that you just imagine now we have only the torture program of the cia expose who has been held accountable for that not a single person only person who went to jail because it's the whistleblower who exposed it don't care that is the twisted world we now live in and exemplifies what we are dealing and what people need to realize that we need to change to change the scale and actually fight for against this impunity for these heinous acts so can i ask you a practical question so we were awaiting for julian to appear in front of those two judges do we have any idea of how soon that could happen and after that they judge negatively how soon it would be before he could possibly be extradited well this is the issue we have no idea and this is part of the psychological warfare and torture against julia to have this constant uncertainty on all steps of the case that have been no indication of when that could happen it could be a moral that they announce that in a week's time there's going to be in the court they can wait and wait and wait but it could be before the entire thing could be over in the brilliant before summer recess on july 31st before end of the next month we simply don't know and there's anybody's case and you have you cannot rely on any president in the court histories here because all these presidents are not avoid when it comes to julia there is a julian's exemption on the way that judicia has been handling his case from day one day one well exposed the fact it's nothing to do with the law it's persecution as i said in my talk is cloaked in this judicial uh fake curtain it's a potemkin curtains of a legal process that we are witnessing here and that has been exposed in the process in the courts here well in the appeal um the case of lori love was brought up and uh justice bernette drew a distinction between julian and love because love was suffering from a physical condition as well shouldn't that medical assessment because of the the assurances only were only given on the basis of a mental health condition now since julian that was the very day julian had his stroke by the way shouldn't that be the medical grounds be reviewed and view that the fact there is no uh doctor even in adc there's no doctor permanently on staff and it would be a very complicated procedure well of course i have absolutely certain that the lawyers are looking into that but you have to pass the hurdles to actually be heard in the court yes that is the problem what kind of justice is that that you don't have actually a possibility to raise these arguments but there's one more appearance can't it be stated that that distinction that bernette made no longer applies well as much as you can squeeze in the half hour that they have allocated for the total process yes so that means the bench gets 15 minutes is that right that is what we are we are we are of course in the need to extend that are you gonna assume they're gonna have 15 minutes to argue for his life is that the justice we're gonna see here i would not be surprised but of course there would be a demand to extend that i want to ask you about the end game here that we seem to be in i know it's a political case a popular support for him that's really crucial but there is a legal process at least in name it's a legal process if what role could the european court of human rights play and how would that work out because i'm hearing that they would have to get a either a judge here or the department of ministry of justice to issue the injunction it doesn't come directly from that would give them time to lose the papers yeah is that what you were afraid of well i for one thing you know when i read the justice swift's document with his daughter doesn't take you long and you can read between the lines what kind of how to miss totally dismissive is he doesn't even try to hide the fact that he i mean he came to that conclusion before he heard any argument before he read a single document i'm absolutely certain of that it sort of reeks of that and still took eleven months well nine months i think it's it's in september uh and and and his name is ironically justice swift well but that's part of the the psychological torture against julia and the stalling process on every every every step of the way now we of course have now this this this possibility with justice swift has actually narrowed to present the case for two judges and a renewed application for appeal with astonishingly a swift can narrow the scope of the documents that are presented to 20 pages and actually only gives half an hour to present the case which which at least from the outset when i read it it sounds like that's for both parties so i'm i'm saying are you are you gonna give me 15 minutes to to actually fight for his life it's absurd so i'm not too hopeful for that outcome what of course the lawyers for julians are ready to immediately petition to the the strusper court to take his case on and issue a request to stay the extradition based on so-called rule 39 uh that could be within hours uh and until now the british government has abided by the rule but there's a lot of controversy and the and the the conservatives here in in in this house are furious that the strusper court was interfering in the deportation of refugees to ronda so there's a huge opposition to that and i fear that they will either not wait for the the signal from strusper you know request to stay if it comes because it only takes an hour to drive to the airport from belmau's prison or they will ignore strusper court and find some legal justification that saying it's it's not an order it's just a request so we're in the right to do so and by the way this is interference with our sovereignty and all that uh bs that is being presented constantly and was the basis of the brexit and for the basis of them uh totally shattering international institutions the other nations uh and mechanisms that have saved lives that have been destroyed in the julian julians process the working group of arbitrary attention which was ignored the uh the the special repertoire and torture that was totally ignored can you imagine they've undermined the international system this fragile system with our human rights globally is based on this is the intensity of the fight that we are fighting it's on all fronts and nothing is spared so i do fear that the the european court of human rights will not get a chance to intervene or will be ignored dismissed if they do even though it's legally binding and they haven't given us legislation i think to get out of that i have i have i spoke about the laws and the the the the legal scholars i've seen an oxford scholar in this country right and you could just imagine what kind of a party affiliation he has his his his legal scholarly opinion that you can actually ignore rule 39 but still be a part of the treaty what i'm really afraid of is that uh even if the european court of human rights decides to intervene and and issues are requests in order to stay there tradition it will be ignored here uh and they will find some legal justification to say that yes we will abide by the treaty in generally for a while at least because there's so much in the balance there i mean the good friday agreement peace in northern ireland is basically hanging on that uh that that human rights really so that's the only reason why they haven't dismissed it entirely so far but they will find some legal scholar and i've actually seen papers explaining that yes you can decide not to abide by rules of line but still be a part of the treaty so this is what i i call you know what i'm afraid of this is how fascism creeps up up on you with good help of of lawyers there's always enough lawyers who are willing and able to create this this this fancy paperwork or take part in court proceedings creating the justification and the facade of legality and i mean i'm i'm afraid to come to that but for that uh to happen or stopping that to happen of course we need a universal outcry on outrage especially among the european leaders who have cowardly and shamefully stayed silent when not even supporting the prime minister australia and the opposition leaders how is it that that we have to go to latin american presidents to get full support from country after country after country issue statement and takes the issue up with the bightons uh himself personally half a billion people in these countries that i visited in the last few months in latin america were totally on board and understand the gravity because that's in their living memory they know what they're dealing with you know you don't have to convince anybody in latin america about you know kidnapping killing plans of the cia uh-huh i mean that's right that's why involvement of of the department of justice in in in in in a corrupt court proceedings like they did against lula now it is well established that the prosilium president was unjust it was was was basically thrown in jail on cooktop charges and the department of justice u.s. did have a hand in in that process in the petro brokers etc etc so they understand and i i am i'm so frustrated that we are not getting these voices on the top political level in europe because that's where the levers could be and uh i thought it we would we would be already there with the bipartisan support in australia with you know that strong statements made by albanese and it was almost shattering when he was came over the coronation week until london and said very diplomatically i am frustrated well we all know when diplomats speak what that means that is uh that is strong words uh so other world leaders that actually do care about president need to support him as well so what are we dealing with we're trying to save an individual man's life and and and the american government is even ready to sacrifice or upset relations with their most important important partner in the pacific which is now a member of this little cozy nato expansion over to the pacific in the orcus alliance that is remarkable but that should be a wake up call to people this is where we are it is about julian yes as an individual but it's about underlying principles that are mistaken this is the line of the sand for so many things so many things thank you christian everything's going to ask and set everything so that's difficult moment um i feel like by the dawn the honest you know and i'm not i'm not a naive and i'm not despondent i'm not i i feel like the stakes are so high right now and that people really need to pull together and fight for julian because we can really win this um we can also but i whether we win depends on on public health awareness on people calling this by i think this case is extremely unpopular in the united states and the way to stop that would be to end it somehow um and i'm not i'm not you know in a position to uh to dictate how they should end it the question is that really needs to be free needs to be free now and um he hasn't done anything wrong so swearing those things um will be gearing up not to you know they've been talking about it for a long time there's a think tank um in uh in oxford it's kind of laid out all the arguments why um they shouldn't defy it so it's that's why it's so political because it basically whether the government can get away with it or not depends on the climate and um you know on all positions on the ground it's not really about the court so obviously i've written a lot about julian assange over the years i've been very disappointed in colleagues in the media who have abandoned him i mean i remember when reporters from all the big papers were partners and celebrating him and now they've decided that he's the bad guy and they're gonna let this happen and uh i'm just totally appalled and i thought you know we have a responsibility to speak out of it so that's why i'm here and i you know just want to help like as much as i can so you know the guardian guardian news in england of course yes yeah so you know they have the big students big scoop about um collateral murder or yeah and also the one uh about the cia you get the ball seven ball seven yeah no he's got all this you know that that's one of the reasons why journalists don't like assange honestly he's because they're i mean i'm gonna say this but they're jealous he's got more scoops than all of the best uh reporters in the world combined right and they don't like that so they decide that he's not a journalist or not a publisher or any of those things but um you know the reality is he was incredibly successful what he did they there's just resentment in the business about even in just terms of the cheer volume of material he's managed to right release so exactly exactly and and not only that the the reasoning they really didn't like that it they really didn't like the idea that people were entitled to information about it being filtered first you know and um you know i'm gonna say this even i didn't like that at first and i didn't i didn't think it through until much later you know what was it that made you uneasy what was it that made you uneasy at first well i thought oh this is responsible journalism you know you have to sort out the information that you know it could hurt people that could be you know names that could get people in trouble blah blah blah but the reason they conditioned you to think that way is because the they want you to to believe that information doesn't belong to people right it belongs to government that it has to be filtered out by the responsible folks but it's our information it belongs to us they don't have a right to keep it from us and he was right about that and i was wrong about that yeah and in the end you did they did actually go through quite a lengthy process of redaction didn't they they went they actually did get to a lengthy process of redaction they did yes originally yeah in the in those original partnerships yeah yeah and look i i think that was a good concession on his part right i think that was smart um but eventually it just became too much you know they they they decided they couldn't bear to have this much stuff coming out and i would love to know the whole story about how how that turned happened because they they got all the big newspapers all the big media companies uh to you know to turn their backs on them and it was it was very successful it's sad really yeah if you had if you could make one point to the UK government about his case against extradition what would that be i'm going to say this in the speech but if this were Andre Sakura for Nelson Mandela would we be it would the government of the United Kingdom extraditing a figure like that to the Soviet Union or to the South African government for you know this heinous kind of punishment of course not this is a massive international health human rights violation and UK government's going to be complicit in it and they will be for all history and they're making a huge mistake you know for the for the expediency of a temporary relationship it's just it's so irresponsible and stupid you know so thank you thank you thank you what brings you here today we're campaigning for the release and all extradition proceedings against Julian Assange to be halted all he did was to build details of US war crimes to the wider public and it's under a right to know we have a right to freedom of information what would you say get to choose one key aspect of his defense against extradition what would that be i would say his mental health his physical health for real would you like to say a few words about what brings you here today just my disgust really my disgust and being English basically oh well being a citizen that allows this to happen it's disgusting right it's tax money we're political prisoners in this country we're killing people we're killing a hero basically Julian Assange doing a lot of good for the world and he kind of stopped a couple of wars and that's why he's in there and it is really disgusting that these swines for one of the better word in parliament get away with that i don't know i don't know how we're going to stop it revolution maybe is a bit extreme but build a guillotine play but we're going to need them you can say one thing to the British government about this this case what would you say we're free Julian Assange and the judges are just corrupt they're political they're not independent of the of the politicians they're doing what the politicians want can you tell me what's for you here today admiration for a hero Julian Assange who speaks the truth reveals war crimes of corruption and is now paying the price for it but you will make a little bit of a contribution to standing up to say this is not right we've got to stand up and say no that's what you could say any aspect of the case to the UK government it's the most important part of Julian's case would you say most important part of his defense against that condition he's got there's no charge to answer he hasn't broken any rules any laws really i mean he's told the truth with evidence um they it's just a totally political set up to shut him up and send a chilling message to other journalists you don't report on the crimes we're doing you know so i don't think he's got a case to answer actually it's just contrived crap Nelson Mandela and you know various other voices of freedom if they had anything to say today i think it's clear what they would be saying you know that you know that it's completely injustice and it's important that the truth be known to the people you know it's the public domain these are public servants what they are getting up to and our name should be known to us you know whereas we are private citizens and we are the ones whose life should be kept that way you but it would seem to be the other way around there are mountaineers mass surveillance operations on us and they've just announced the EU Brussels announced a couple of days ago that they're going to make it lawful to spy on journalists you know to install spyware on their phones and computers in order to find out where the sources are right you know whereas the previous sort of word on that was that journalists had protected freedoms and the right to protect their sources and things but now we've done a complete vote class on that and they're now saying that you know and it all stems from the assigned case like you know that these sort of things were unheard of until they went after assigned you know and we've been saying it ever since you know first they came for assigned and you know it's obvious that that was just a precedent for what they were planning into it the slippery slope is getting pretty steep now isn't it yeah yeah yeah and you can't roll out as well the overreach of the american government you know sand has never been new at the united states uh we have been committed to crime there but they don't like what he's saying about them and uh they're reaching into this country and trying to extract them out you know that's it again it's a first it's a precedent uh and the the implications for that you know for you know the future going forward it's basically saying if you say anything against the US government that we don't like no matter who you are we'll get you who's going to who's going to stand up and reveal the truth anymore if that's the circumstances they find themselves in so it's yeah um it's in so many levels important so it's really important to be here today and you know let these people know that we're not finished with this we still have something to say and we want them to listen the more people we can get to join us and saying that the more chance of success we have yeah it's okay thanks thank you very much thank you too yeah it's a pleasure okay yeah it's consortium news yeah support consortium news i read it all the time i'm so happy to get some news and she can help to keep it going to perform miracles today's landscape of news telling the performance