 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome. I'm Meroen Kilili. We are DM25, a radical political movement for Europe, and this is another live discussion with our coordinating team, featuring subversive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. And today we're looking at press freedom, and specifically at one of our original causes here at DM25, the fight for the release of Julian Assange. For newcomers, it's worth restating the key elements of Julian's story just quickly. He's a journalist who, over a decade ago via his media outlet, WikiLeaks, uncovered evidence of the crimes of the United States, among other countries. This included proof of the massacre of civilians by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq, of torture, of mass surveillance and of widespread corruption, of a web of secret power from the arms industry, to security agreements, to elections, and beyond. And for this brave act of investigative journalism, Julian, the father of two small boys, has been held without trial in a maximum security prison in the US, excuse me, in the UK, for almost five years. He has not seen the sun since he was incarcerated, and he's been confined to a cell for 23 out of every 24 hours. Now, Julian's final appeal is going on, as we speak, at London's High Court. If he loses, he'll almost certainly be extradited to the US to face 175 years in prison. This would have huge implications for human rights and for press freedom around the world, and it would tell anyone who wants to seriously probe the actions of the powerful better think again, because this is what could happen to you. Yet today, the radical transparency and subversive spirit of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have never been more needed. We're living in a dangerous moment, with a horrific war continuing in Ukraine, tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza being murdered, the far right on the rise, behind the scenes deals with fossil fuel companies suffocating our planet, everything we've been discussing in these live streams. But instead of a vibrant fourth estate, we have a largely compliant media, whose idea of challenging power is official say journalism and softball questions. So tonight, we're asking, what does Julian's case mean for the future of journalism, of democratic discourse, and of our understanding of what states and corporations do in the shadows? And how do these dynamics affect our ability to confront power and make informed decisions as a society? Our panel, including our own Janis Farrufakis, who will be with us shortly. And I'm very pleased to say Srećko Horvat, who's back, our old colleague and co-founder of DM25, together with our team of activist thinkers and doers, several of whom are attending Julian Assange protests right now and will be calling in from there. And you, you out there, if you've got thoughts, rants, comments, questions, anything you want to say, we'll put them to our panel, just put them in the YouTube chat. Thank you for attending tonight, all of you. Thank you for you out there who are listening and watching. Let's hand the floor over to Srećko. Floor is yours. Allow me to be personal at this very start, at this day, of the first day of the court proceedings at the court in London, because the personal is political and the political is personal. And it's very personal if you plan to kill my friend. And if you plan to kill the most courageous publisher of the 21st century, Julian Assange, then of course, again, it's political. And it will have dire consequences, not only on the freedom of press, not only on media, not only on whistleblowing, it will have dire consequences on democracy, or at least what is still left of democracy on this continent called Europe, but also what is still left of democracy in the United States. Because we have to say clearly, and I have been saying this for years, and DM 25 has been saying this for years, that Julian Assange is a political prisoner. Take Navalny and what happened the other day. Now, whatever I might think, or you might think of Navalny, it is a fact that he was killed by Putin. And in a similar way, it will be a fact that if Julian Assange dies in Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom, or if he dies at the Alexandria Prison in Virginia in the United States, he will be killed by Biden and by the UK government. And if you think this is an exaggeration, it was sufficient to look at the court proceedings today and to listen to what the lawyers of Julian Assange and his colleagues have said today. They have clearly and convincingly presented, not only today, but for years already now, evidence that the CIA and the US government planned to poison Julian Assange. Navalny was poisoned again to take this parallel, and then as you know, he ended up somewhere in the Arctic Circle in a penal colony and died there. Julian Assange was attempted to be poisoned by the CIA. He was attempted to be kidnapped by the CIA. This plan was presented to Donald Trump, and now he wants to be transferred into another penal colony for 175 years in prison, in Alexandria and a supermax prison, which would basically be a death sentence. So what's the difference? Vladimir Putin is killing his opposition, Joe Biden and the so-called West is killing their opposition. They are killing Julian Assange because what they want is to cover up their crimes, the crimes which were revealed by WikiLeaks, which were revealed about the atrocities which were committed by the United States government in Afghanistan in Iraq. And you know, he was charged by the Espionage Act, and it's really important to remind what the Espionage Act is. I mean, can you imagine we are in the 21st century and there's still a law from 1917, which is the year of the October Revolution, when the First World War is still taking place. And according to that law, they want to imprison a journalist, a publisher who is not even a citizen of the United States. And it's worth remembering especially today who were the others who were charged by the notorious Espionage Act for their activities. And they were all great Democrats. One of them Eugene Depps, the other one Emma Goldman, Alexander Bergman, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, the list in whose company Julian Assange is long. And he should be proud and we are proud of him to be in this company of courageous people who were charged by the Espionage Act. Also, Julian Assange is in the company of a tradition which lasts more than 2000 years. He's the company of Socrates, who was also poisoned, who was killed because telling the truth. And here I must say, you know, there is this famous quote by Julian Assange that if wars can be started by lies, peace can be achieved by truth. But I must say today that truth as such is not enough. What we have to do is to mobilize and organize and we have to fight. And that's why I would like to propose a little anecdote at the end of my speech. I'll stay here. And the anecdote comes from the ashes of the Third Reich. So one night in 1933, a man climbs the stage of a cabaret in Berlin and he raises his hands in a Nazi salute. And he starts by saying, hi, what is his name again? And as soon as he said this, the Gestapo rushed on the stage, took him out, and the guy ended up for 12 years in different concentration camps. Somehow he succeeded to survive. And after 12 years of concentration camps, he returns. The first thing he does, he goes to stage of the same cabaret in Berlin and he says, let me, he raises the hand again. The audience is perplexed. What's happening now? Because it was already a bit of denazification. And you know what he says? He says, anyway, let me continue where I was really interrupted. And I think this is a lesson for our struggle. Julian Assange is in one form or the other form already for 15 years caged. He didn't see the sun for more than a decade. It might last for years. But let us be like that man who was fighting the Nazis and making fun of them. Let us consider this as a rude interruption in our struggle and let us continue this struggle because today is just the first day. Tomorrow is the second day. But if it's decided that he will not be extradited, it might again take a long time. He's already almost for five years in prison. And what I see, what I feel is that actually the United States government would be the happiest if they just leave him in prison until the US elections are finished, if they silence him because they silenced him already. And that's why I think besides the great struggle of support which is happening in Europe, we should also focus on the United States. We should bring the struggle back to the United States because that's the place where this struggle will be decided. It's not the UK. It's not the court. It is the United States. And if Julian Assange is a political prisoner and he's a political prisoner, only politics can decide this case. Thank you very much for that, Srećko. And on the subject of the struggle, let's go now to Johannes Fair and Karin Dorego and Dushan Paević, our colleagues who are at a protest with hundreds of people in Berlin for Julian Assange. Johannes and Kru. Thank you, Meran. And thank you all for being with us tonight and also coming out in support of Julian Assange, like hundreds have done here in Berlin, like all of our members have done this week and these days across Europe. And I'm handing over the word firstly as we are here at the Free Assange protest and we have been all day in front of the US Embassy, in front of Brandenburger Tor, to demand Julian's freedom. Over to Dushan Paević, the DN25 campaign coordinator, visiting us from Montenegro. Thanks, Johannes. Yes, I want to say first of all that many things in life are complex and this is not one of them. This one is a simple thing. We need Julian Assange out and we need more criminal sin. It's that simple. So as Julian Assange said, the way to achieve justice is to expose injustice. We are here today and will be further on. We will try to mobilize more people and we need to stand up against this imperialistic act of silent murder. This is completely unacceptable and my heart and our hearts and our hands are all with Julian Assange. I will go back now to Karin Derigo. I am leading European elections candidate from Germany. Hi everybody. We are here today in Berlin because we want really to stand for Assange and to say this is the moment of truth because we want just freedom for him. He didn't deserve to be there as he just was doing his job. He wants to inform us. He wanted to tell the citizens what our government is doing and this has definitely the priority over everything else. Now it's going to be really a decisive moment and we will stand here until everything will be finished. Tomorrow we are also here in Berlin. So please share this message and free Julian Assange. Thank you. With these words, we give it back to all of you. We hope that you have a great stream that you come out to the protest in the next days and that, yeah, we work and organize as we are doing with DM25 and Meta25 until Julian Assange is free because if Julian is not free, we are all not free. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Johannes, Dushan and Karin. If any of you out there are near Berlin, then please, please do join the protest for Julian in Berlin and let's move to The Hague, where another protest is going on being attended by our policy coordinator Amir Kia'i. Amir. Thank you, everyone and we are indeed glad to be here in The Hague as well as this protest happening in Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands because this issue of Assange is really critical. We also note that's the imprisonment of Assange and the amount of being pressured putting onto him is a way of coercing the rest of the media and the rest of our journalists and editors. So importantly today and while we have some semblance of free media in our countries, our message must not just only reach authorities if you will and our campaigns mustn't only be put to the public to increase pressure but to editors and journalists that are largely remaining silent because his loss of freedom, women loss of freedom for journalists and to editors in the media who will no longer be able to speak truth to power and will remain complicit. So while they're still possible for them to act and organize, we're urging them to do so and we want more and more involvement of the media in defense of Assange and not be complicit in his slow death. Thank you, thank you for that Amir. Yannis, Yannis, who is yours? Well thank you, thank you too. It's wonderful to have you such a go back. You said everything I would have said. Thank you to Johannes, to Karen, to Dusan, to Amir for being on there on the ground. It's important to remember we're not a think tank, we're a movement and we need to be on the streets to move the streets, to be moved by the streets and Julian's case is a very good case in point. So because those of you whose form is said, everything that needs to be said about what is at stake and what people are doing on the street in order to defend our right to know and our right to pursue those who are pursuing the agents of truth, the honest force on me to play the role of a quasi-journalist just to remind our audience of what is at stake, of what exactly was happening in London today and tomorrow. So Julian's lawyers are appealing to the High Court in Britain and they're appealing what? This is the second appeal, the first appeal which was an appeal to grant Julian the right to argue his case in front of the High Court has been already rejected. So this is a second and final appeal, an appeal over the lost appeal. If that is turned down then the only flicker of hope that he will not be extradited is that the European Court of Human Rights is going to hear his case and overrule the British High Court. Now there is no guarantee that the European Court of Human Rights would even hear the case or even consider the case. There is a small possibility that European Court of Human Rights will step in. Moreover, even if it does, there is a very strong possibility that Britain will disregard the European Court of Human Rights because the present government in London and especially the governing majority of the Tory party of the Conservatives are going with the idea of removing the European Court of Human Rights from any kind of jurisdiction over the UK as part of Brexit. You will recall that the European Court of Human Rights is not part of the European Union, it's got nothing to do with the European Union, it's not the European Court, it's the European Court of Human Rights that belongs to the Council of Europe, which is much bigger than the EU. Britain has been a member from the beginning of the European Council and the European Court of Human Rights and remains so after Brexit. But because this government of Rishi Sunak wants to violate international law and to send asylum seekers to Rwanda without first processing their claims for asylum, they had already been discussing in London the possibility that the United Kingdom effectively severed its links with the European Court of Human Rights to sum up. If we lose this case tomorrow and the High Court does not grant Julian the right to appeal, then the European Court of Human Rights is a very unsafe proposition. First, they may not want to know and secondly, even if they want to hear the appeal and they decide in favour of Julian, there is a very strong possibility that London is simply going to, we don't care what you say, European Court of Human Rights. I'm mentioning this in order to make clear what kind of significance this court case has. Now, on the actual arguments that the Gerald and the other lawyers on behalf of our team are putting to the judges of the High Court, I've been monitoring what happened this morning. There were two main points of law that were being put forward by the legal team and they both concern violations of the treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States regarding extradition. The first is a clear one. It's a self-evident one. The extradition treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States clearly excludes from the extradition process anyone who is being persecuted for political reasons. Now, if anybody has ever been persecuted for political reasons, that's Julian Assange. The fact that they are masquerading this under the Espionage Act doesn't change the fact that Julian's persecution is fully and entirely political, because if it was a matter of the printing of this particular or the publication of these particular videos and texts and memoranda from within the military establishment of the United States, then they should have arrested everybody working for the New York Times and the Washington Post because they printed it actually. So why are they not pursuing them? And they are pursuing Julian because it was Julian who made available these. He didn't extract these bits of information, this data, these videos, these texts, these documents from anyone. He received them like the New York Times received them from Danielsburg back in the early 1970s. So it is clear that Julian has done nothing, nothing which is outside the remit of journalism and therefore his persecution is nothing but political because of the embarrassment that he caused to the United States government. So that's the first argument that our lawyers are putting to the high court judges. The second concerns the death sentence because the British have a policy of never ex-adviding to the United States anyone who's facing the death penalty. They have been murderers, convicted murderers, people who actually confessed to murder, who were not extradited to the United States, people who were clearly criminals and murderers whom the British authorities refused to extradite the United States on the basis that they were facing the death sentence in the United States, a sentence which the British constitution and written constitution but constitution nevertheless prohibits. Now the charges under the Espionage Act that have been laid against Julian clearly make it possible for him to be given a death sentence clearly. What the American authorities did in order to circumvent that problem is they have given a kind of a guarantee commitment to the British courts that he will not be condemned to death. He will not be given the death sentence. However, if you read the fine print it says unless he commits acts that warrant the death sentence. So this is the absurdity think of this. The United States security apparatus which as Sechko said before had planned and tried to implement his murder. So the people who planned and tried to implement his murder will be the ones that according to the British justices will be determining whether he has done something or he will do something that warrants them killing him. You only have to state this to realize the enormity of the hypocrisy and the toxicity of what is being discussed. Now of course even if they don't put him to the electric chair or inject him with some little dose of something. The crucial issue is that they will murder him anyway simply by throwing him into the high security supermax prison this particularly vicious form of solidary confinement. He's already in solidary confinement but the difference between the solidary confinement in Belmarsh and the one that he will face in the United States is night and day just black and white there is a huge difference. The supermax jail that he's going to be put into has been designed in order to destroy humans. So I mean if you put me in there I would have committed suicide there's no doubt about that within a few days I would find a way to kill myself and you have to remember that Julian has been incarcerated for 13 years the last five years in solidary confinement. Let us not forget also that he's on the spectrum of autism and the particular part of the spectrum of autism where sensory deprivation is a clear means of torturing torturing him in a way that it wouldn't be torturing me or you. Having said all that and to wind down it is not Julian who's on trial as we speak it is Britain's High Court and it is the High Court judges that are being tried by public opinion by history by morality by progressives around the world their decision will be signed whether they will be found guilty of gross violation of the principles justice and beach freedom of the press if they deny Julian the right to appeal and I would even prefer that even if they grant that right to appeal and they don't give you bail so that you can get out of that hellhole in Belmash prison which I visited a couple of times they will be issuing their own condemnation in the eyes of fair-minded truly liberal people in the United Kingdom and around the world and as such indicated who benefits really from Julian's slow murder from his continued incarceration yes of course it is the national security establishment in the United States has been very hard done by they've been very embarrassed by the revelations of the way they were killing people in Iraq in Afghanistan and all that but in the end the true beneficiaries of his incarceration and slow death are tyrants worldwide because you know what can you tell how can anyone who supports the liberal establishment in the United Kingdom over in the United States through the European Union accuse Putin of killing journalists Navalny whoever what Putin has to do is turn around and say yeah but you're killing a man who did nothing wrong except to tell the truth about your murder your murderous campaigns in reacting against every tyrant the world hides behind the fate of Julian Assange in order to justify their murderous deeds this is why as I said it is our duty to continue struggling and never to forget that even if he is released we must continue the struggle we must continue the struggle until the people who are today persecuting Julian end up in prison if these judges turn a blind eye to the facts of the case and do not grant him appeal they must be prosecuted until the end of the days we need to prosecute them and the war criminals that Julian has exposed because together they are complicit in large-scale murder and the murder of freedom of the press murder of freedom of expression dm25 has had the privilege of having Julian Assange as its founding co-founding members remember he was at the Fox Brunei on the 9th of February 2016 I think we should all feel very proud of that because let me remind you of something else today I'm very pleased to see that almost all progressives are coming out in support of Julian Assange not only progressives it was wonderful that last week in the Australian parliament where there was no single member of parliament a few years ago supporting Julian Assange last week there was a very large majority in the Australian parliament voting in favor of a petition of a motion to recommend to demand the release of Julian Assange but back in 2016 when you and I were dm25 we're not only backing Julian Assange but we had him there on the screen if you remember the Fox Brunei talking to us live from the Ecuadorian embassy back then there were many so-called progressives leftists so-called feminists who were taking us to task and demonizing us for letting Julian Assange for giving Julian Assange a podium an opening to present his case and presenting his views very few people between 2016 and 2020 dared say anything in favor of Julian's case I personally I'm not going to forget that they will always always carry that burden around the next because it just goes to show that the so-called left the so-called progressives when it mattered they dropped the ball I'm glad they're back on board I'm glad that Julian's case is now fashionable again but we dm25 never never never let the ball drop we'd never consider the political cost to us into a movement from continuing to support Julian Assange because we are principled it doesn't matter whether we lose or win it doesn't matter if we whether into nothing or succeed into changing the world people like Julian for us represent principled activism and that's what we are thank you thank you Janice a couple of quick comments from the chat Jason Mott says how Julian has endured 13 years is a miracle Helena Jennings asks is reporting facts a criminal act Jenny Ren asks if the judges to decide to extradite Julian what implications does this have for society at large in terms of public perceptions at the notion of justice something that Janice also touched on and a quick thought I just wanted to give you guys I mean Janice talked about the support for Julian and how that has wavered and is now coming back from the left but I also would like us to touch on perhaps the the supply of leaks the type of journalism that WikiLeaks and Julian embodied and why that doesn't seem to be out there very much anymore is that because what they're doing to Julian is setting such an example that people are afraid the journalists are afraid that activists are afraid to blow the whistle to come out and publish secrets of power or are there other reasons because with what's happening now in in Ukraine in Gaza some of the things I spoke about at the beginning of the of this call there should be emails flying everywhere from Zelensky's cabinet from Blinken from Netanyahu all these things should be should be out there and I'm quite amazed that as Junion said in an interview a couple of months ago it seems that it's very sad but it seems that nobody is stepping in to fill WikiLeaks' shoes. Julianna, Julianna Zieter from Germany, floor is yours. Well on what you said I I don't think that it's not out there I think that for example Gaza is a very good example that things are out there and that social media is kind of a bit filling in that too but it's not that organized like it was with WikiLeaks that it was one platform one side where you could go and see all the information now it's kind of yeah more decentralized but I think that people are doing it but at the same time I believe that journalists for sure got way more cautious with what they're putting out and how they're putting it out and speaking I wanted to talk about media briefly because I I read an article from the FA said today where the journalist was devastated that so not many people are out there for a search which I find very hypocritical to to a bring out that article on the first day of the hearing at not two weeks prior you know to help mobilize so and Slashko mentioned Navalny and Yanis also and I think there you can see a huge difference in media report reports about Navalny were never neutral never it was clear who is the hero it was clear what he did it was clear that he's the opposition that Russia and Putin is the bad guy with Assange all reports are neutral it's what he did who he is a lot of mention of WikiLeaks but never there is never a big uproar from the press about what's happening to him really so I think and I'm devastated that the media because he's one of them and he is from the same place they are working in which is the West that they are very cautious about even supporting him and I think it's also part of the problem why not even more people are mobilizing behind Assange I think it's great that there are so many organizations out there and progressive who are doing it but it could be way more people and I think that's kind of an issue of yeah of that fear but maybe also just cowardness in my opinion of the media yeah so much for me I have a question on the maybe somebody can answer maybe honest because I read that there is a possibility that he might might be able to go to Australia like is there a possibility that he might end up in Australia at the end of the story or is the support from Australia just like yeah just a minor thing which might not have a huge impact and of course my heart also goes out to Stella I had the opportunity to meet her a few times I think she's a very brave woman she's kind of imprisoned with him she has they have adorable children it's horrible to not be able to spend time with your father properly so also for me I hope Stella goes well through these days thank you Juliana um Janice maybe I can bring you back in quickly just to respond to Julian's question uh yes Juliana look the great well there's been a change in Australia the the change is that the previous Labour Prime Minister Julia Gillard when we were struggling to get some sign of support from her uh disgraced herself by saying that Julian was was getting what he deserved because he was a spy and because he was you know Karen whatever she was terrible terrible Julia Gillard the former Labour Prime Minister this Labour Prime Minister has come out in support of Julian and he even promised to pressurize Biden to end the persecution unfortunately if he did he did so in such a lukewarm way that it had no effect and one can say well what could he do well he could do a lot because you may have heard of the AUKUS Treaty the Australian UK United States Treaty which came into force or renegotiated about a year ago uh Australia committed to spend tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars on American nuclear submarines uh he could easily have slipped in a term a condition that you know we are going to do that but you first you have to drop the persecution of course no Australian politician no mainstream party Australian politician has the guts to do that okay having said that look uh i'll tell you what i my what my feeling is my estimation is by the to be extradited because uh he wants to satisfy the national security apparatus cabal he wants to throw him in he throw him in a supermax jail i don't know for how long and try him in a candidate court because i'm it's very important to know for everyone to know whether you are supporting julian or not supporting julian what that court case will look like in the united states it will be held behind closed doors number one number two now take get what i'm going to say now because the human mind has difficulty wrapping itself around what i'm about to say his lawyers not him his lawyers will not even be told what the charges are and what the evidence is did you get that not only is there going to be no open court case where you know under habeas corpus you have the right to hear what you're being charged with his lawyers will not hear what evidence there is to charge him the one judge no jury will hear directly from the cia and the nsa nsa i don't know who else what the evidence is and the judge who is selected by that apparatus is going to decide now put in courts are more fair than that and more liberal than that i close the penance so the idea is to put him through this process hold him in one of those disgusting cells in a supermax jail to crush him completely as if he's not crushed already to convict him so that he has the label of convicted criminal on his forehead and then the best we can hope is that they will then extradite him to australia to serve the rest of his turn 170 years but of course the australian government will bring him out on bail and he can stay at home but not be able to travel anywhere i think that is the best we can hope if he's extradited to the united states now two points if i may mention the first one is there's no guarantee that he'll survive this i don't know how long i would take and i really last time i saw him he was he'd faded substantially a few months ago and if he goes through the process of extradition the process of staying at supermax jail with complete oddory and deprivation sensory deprivation and he's put through this came the look i think we lost you for a second the ends it will be a major defeat for him the the hates the fact that he's he doesn't have not even united by some united states can look or in australia as a free man it's better than dying but he will consider it a defeat still we want him out in any way of all let's hope that we stop the extradition from taking place thank you janice i had some internet troubles there but we got we got most of it two comments from the chat tiago says this a supermax prison for a journalist i thought they were for the most dangerous criminals and jason says too few journalists have broken ranks to defend julian they too will be complicit in his fate ivana ivana nananovic from syria for us hello and thank you and just to connect to those last two comments and also what was said before regarding the bravery to support julian uh i think that the machine the media and the powers that be made a good job at the beginning of his journey and made the spins and implemented the stories which took away from what the truth is that he published what he received and uh the examples that him and chelsea manning who provided the documents are made now that's of course putting fear in in people that might blow the whistle but it's certainly no excuse for the journalists that should break their rank to stand for the truth uh i have a list of how is it possible srećko said at the beginning that we are in the 21st century and that they want to trial a man based on law from 1917 uh how is it even possible that this is happening in front of our eyes for 13 years and that we cannot do anything it's a lot that we can even speak about it as it was said previously um and i am proud that we never uh budget down uh in front of accusations and you know anything that you can throw out there from the rape accusations misogyny anti-semitism being uh mandling in us uh elections and so on and so on julian had it all and uh we proudly fought for it all i can say that to go to something that you asked at the beginning uh mehran how do we perceive the news how do we continue with trusting the media that is obviously serving us uh lies and propaganda and it is so obvious on on israel palestine example and juliana said it only thanks to social media we are seeing what's going on in gaza and that's why the reaction is so big this time i think i believe um so in a way there are these uncentralized independent potential whistleblowers on the other hand we can also witness how they are being silenced and threatened and killed in prison with the with the the same people being the judge and the jury so the question is with the system with the courts with the media being so corrupted how do we even um go forward of course julian should be free but he's he's struggle for the freedom of the speech and for the right for the information to be published should go on thank you thank you ivana you did you did maya from berlin thank you mehran so um i i have to agree with um ivana the state of our um media is absolutely terrible um especially here in germany i don't think that we can ascribe the whole problem to uh lack of uh whistleblowers we don't know if they're whistleblowers how would we know um i believe that also um outlets have become a lot a lot less likely to publish anything like when julian published his documents he had outlets in germany in us in france and so on that published his um documents and now our outlets are not even publishing like official information like the the icj uh the court day um the first day of of the court hearing was not published was basically ignored especially in in german media and um it's it's just a completely different playing field and we urgently need uh more independent media and to support independent media that might have the ability to become a place that whistleblowers could trust and could turn to um so basically looking at the bigger picture i believe that we will remember 2023 2024 as the years in which we learned that there is no international justice no freedom of press no human rights for anyone that the western establishment doesn't like but that doesn't mean that these ideas are a silly idealism the invention of principles like the freedom of the press like human rights and the idea that you could turn to an international court to get justice the invention of these ideas make our world a much better place than it was before and this was the first step the invention the second step was to instill a sense in people worldwide that these principles are universal and should be followed we also accomplished that i think it's widely widely accepted now the third step was to create international institutions we also did this step now the fourth step is the only step left is the four step which is to ensure that these institutions actually defend the principles that we need them to defend but that is a much much better than a situation than if we were still on step one so there's the fight now and i think that this year everyone knows that this is the fight because a lot of the smoke and mirrors are disappearing very fast and we're getting a clear picture so as Janne said absolutely the world is watching these british judges judges it's watching the icj it's watching the european court of human rights watching the journalists who are staying silent through this and we will find a way to remove them from office if they fail to do their duty thank you you did um while you had the floor and especially since you're a technical guru i have a question for you um i understand what you're saying that media today are deterred from publishing leaks that they may they may source but is there or how is the situation technically um in 2010 uh i think governments were perhaps a little a little behind in terms of their their encryption protecting their systems i think the hillary clinton email leak was it was a standard sort of phishing attack or some kind of hacking attack i'm surprised though that that hackers today are not more um you know more out there and and and able to able to access systems is it is it that they are deterred because they're nervous or is it that governments technically have actually caught up and what they've got in place are better protection better firewalls better technology than what people out there have to to penetrate them no the advantage is always with the the attacker um and especially when you have a large government agency where not just a handful of hack of a handful of it buffs have to be able to get into the system but say hundreds or thousands of people have to be able to log in in some way whether through a passport or sorry a password or another means it will always be possible the human is always the weakest link it will be possible to convince one of these people that you have a legitimate interest or you know to steal their key to steal their password to pretend that you're the the person in charge to depend to pretend that you're the it administrator and you have to give them a different password or so whatever that is always going to be easy and that is why i don't believe that anything that can be invented is going to change the equation very much it is like those park rangers in canada saying that they cannot invent trash cans that are safe from bears because the most intelligent bear is um more intelligent than the stupidest human visitor thank you for that you did um interesting defny defny delcada delcara based in france so was yours okay okay i just want to quickly very reiterate something uh that the the way in which uh the media the ruling classes have handled juliana sanchez case has i think a chilling effect in twofold one is the actual punishment so like saying to whistleblowers and those who publish whistleblowers look what can happen to you but i think there is a second layer that several speakers already touched upon is the the way the media classes have handled this in a way that they become silent and complacent and what does that send what message does that send to a young journalist in a newsroom for example what does that say first that to witness that prosecution persecution and second to see the so-called colleagues silence and even disdain about this subject what kind and add to that like how precarious journalism has come and the loss of funding and everything what does that do to the mind and will and determination of a young journalist in a newsroom or in a newspaper and and we see then we see what's happening in gaza and we say like how can the journalist class be so bad like how did we come here but this is how we come here and it's really as you did said we really need a reckoning because this is not okay and it's extremely dangerous for democracy or society and like anything we hold dear thanks thank you very much for that defney okay eric eric edmund our political director based in brussels for yours cheers mithun um just very quickly on the journalism front that we've been discussing essentially the problem here is private media right because when you have private media media that basically needs profit in order to function and to for journalists i get their paychecks at the end of the month you get one of two things you either get journalists who only pursue news that quote unquote sells um and therefore certain news topics and especially investigative journalism ends up suffering immensely and has been for the last few decades or you get journalists who cannot publish uh topics and opinions that go against the interests of the people whose control their paychecks at the end of the month in either case uh media run for profit in democracies are catastrophic because it means that citizens whose job it is to rule their own countries through elections and through uh choosing representatives cannot make informed decisions right i'm now dumbing it down extremely but this is really what it comes down to and the only thing that can fight this is independent media is media that is not run for profit it's financed directly by its readership and therefore has no strings attached it's the only thing that we can support and should support now uh on julien coming at the end of the hour i don't have something to say that hasn't already been said uh by by everybody who's spoken however i still because it's a topic so close to my heart i felt that he took to take the floor and i thought what i could possibly do is speak through somebody who can't speak right now and that's julien uh by reading out some of his in my opinion best quotes and by doing so reminding i think that julien's work julien's words all continue to have an effect through us pushing them and repeating them and not letting them go not letting his cause go until he's free once again to continue the the incredibly courageous work that that he's been doing for the past decades but until that happens i think one of the best things we can do is this and uh the first one is on journalism where he said what are the differences between mark zuckerberg and me i give private information on to corporations on corporations to you for free and i'm a villain zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he becomes man of the year on times magazine on war very prescient topic in later months nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been only a result of media lies the media could have stopped them had they searched deep enough if they hadn't reprinted government propaganda they could have stopped them and this and this speaks to the quality of the man he considered to be uh optimistic news the result that you know media could have stopped so julian and i think this is one of the reasons that had one of the things that have allowed him to to to remain with us after 13 years of torture essentially is an incurable optimist and i think we should all take strength from that because even if media aren't doing their job now there can still be a future in which they do and they must then he also said if wars can't be started by lies and this is one of his most famous quotes they can be stopped by truth and here are a couple of quotes that i think really shine through his character you have to start with the truth he said the truth is the only way that we can get anywhere because any decision making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion he also said one of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice and finally and i think in this quote also lies the reason why he was one of the co-founders of the m25 he said every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become party to the injustice however this is my temperament i enjoy creating systems on a grand scale and i enjoy helping people who are vulnerable and i enjoy crushing bastards so we should help julian continue crushing bastards even from the prison cell through our work and continue the fight until he's finally freed whether he gets freed now from belmarsh or from wherever he might end up after tomorrow the fight continues every day until julian the sound is free thank you eric well said and we're at the top of the hour so on that note we will leave you thank you to our panel thank you to you out there for your comments and if you would like to join dm25 and fight with us for the freedom of julian assange please go to dm25.org slash join you can become a member in a couple of minutes thank you again and see you at the same time same place to