Julian Assange must be freed


Julian Assange has been imprisoned for 1656 days

Message from Stella Assange

Julian is reaching the end of the road in the British courts. He is now into his fifth year of imprisonment without conviction in Britain’s notorious Belmarsh prison. On the third of July, he spent his fifth birthday in a small isolated cell.

On June 6th, a single High Court judge rejected Julian’s application for permission to appeal. That means that the British appeal court will not have the opportunity to argue why he should not be extradited to the senior judiciary of the UK, and if that decision is confirmed in coming weeks or months by a panel of two separate High Court judges, Julian will not be able to appeal to the Supreme Court either and the Home Office will initiate his extradition. Julian will attempt to apply to the European Court of a Human Rights, but that avenue is neither automatic nor assured.

The British Courts still have the opportunity to reverse course and do the right thing. The case is clear cut, this is a political persecution, Julian is the victim of a vengeful prosecution instigated by the same authorities that were plotting to kidnap and murder him. The charges are a fit up, because he cannot invoke a public interest defence. He is being used as a deterrent to bully reporters and citizens not to challenge corruption and abuse.

Those who wish to silence and imprison Julian for the rest of his life have contempt for what he stands for —our right to speak and know the truth and the agency of well-informed people to achieve reform and accountability.

Julian needs each and everyone of us to stand by him and push back. If you are a UK resident, come to the courts on the day of the public hearing, sign this public petition to the House of Commons to call on the current Home Secretary to take all measures and block the extradition to the United States. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-the-house-of-commons

If the US and UK want to hold the moral and political high ground on freedom of expression, dropping the case and letting Julian come home is the only way to achieve it.

Join the fight and stand up for Julian. Don’t stop until he is free and back home with us.

This show of solidarity keeps Julian’s spirits strong as he fights an epic battle for his life and for the future of our freedoms.

If you wish to donate to Julian’s defence: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/assangeappeal/

You can donate to UK campaign: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/free-assange

You can also set up a regular donation.

Thank you!

 Stella Assange

Get Ready for Day X

Julian Assange is facing his last chance to stop extradition in a UK court. The Royal Courts of Justice have not released a date yet but we have to be ready to protest.

Place: Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Time: 9am BST

A POEM FOR JULIAN

                      Jericho

On a scraggy patch of land we stake our claim –

this country’s ours, not terrain of the owners –

and string up banners, raise placards that name

a wrong so grievous it has shown us

that the courts of justice are courts of disgrace

with judges so corrupt they take their cue

from whispered briefings designed to erase

all sense of fairness – take a bow, yes you,

Emma Arbuthnot, Vanessa Baraitser,

bewigged and wooden, reeling off your lines,

automatons, the bosses’ howitzer

without a flicker of what’s warm or kind

for the man, distressed, who’s in the dock,

ten times superior to you, fighter for peace

who dared reveal just how the trigger’s cocked

to take out inconvenient souls as they may please –

those troops in thrall to Washington’s command

who’ve trashed Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq,

caused conflagrations, massacres – Assange

alone has cast a light on that:

how in the Middle East (and elsewhere) lives

have been deemed worthless, mere impediments

to looting land, oil, treasure, and the cries

of those who wish to blossom meet indifference

which is why we’re here, Julian, outside the walls,

concrete and drab, that hold you in

and try to imprison the ideas that call

out to humanity, look beneath the skin

of warmongers whose murderous strategy

lies grotesque and exposed, arrayed in blood.

The lights turn red – we leaflet, dash to see

if motorists will share in our disgust

at the outrage perpetrated yards from where they pass.

They sound their horns; the criminals’ names we shout –

Blair, Cameron, Patel and Johnson for a start.

And look: the walls are cardboard – push them now!                                                

Pete Godfrey