Christine Assange
November 2018
Christine Assange has made a desperate appeal to have her award-winning journalist son Julian Assange released from 8 years of political asylum.
Julian is under imminent threat of being extradited to the United States.
Truth is enemy to power that is based on lies. All it takes is for good people to just keep on doing nothing.
Please take a moment to listen, read the transcript (below) and to follow up on some of the actions Christine suggests you could take :
Transcription of video
Title: From the #Unity4J Emergency Meeting
URGENT Message from Christine Assange
Full stream: https://youtu.be/aYPOvBw611w
Excerpt: #Unity4J Exclusive: Christine Assange Makes
Emergency Appeal
Excerpt only video: https://youtu.be/5nxigIRUkcU
Length: This speech only (7:52)
Speaker: Christine Assange
Date of event: 3 November 2018 (Interview pre-recorded 12 hours prior)
Transcript of Christine Assange's appeal.
This is not a drill. This is an emergency.
The life of my son, journalist Julian Assange, is in immediate and critical danger. I thank you all for being here and listening to a mother’s plea to ask your help to save him.
Despite Julian being a multi-award winning journalist, much loved and respected, for courageously exposing serious high-level crimes and corruption in the public interest, he is right now alone, sick, in pain, silenced in solitary confinement, cut off from all contact, and being tortured in the heart of London. The modern day cage for political prisoners is no longer the Tower of London. It is the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Here are the facts: Julian has been detained nearly 8 years without charge. That’s right - without charge. For the past 6 years, the UK government has refused his request for access to basic health needs: fresh air, exercise, sunshine for vitamin D and access to proper medical and dental care. As a result, his health has seriously deteriorated and his examining doctors warn these detention conditions are life threatening. The slow and cruel assassination is taking place before our very eyes in the embassy in London.
In 2016, after an in-depth investigation, the United Nations ruled that Julian’s legal and human rights had been violated on multiple occasions, that he’s been illegally detained since 2010, and they ordered his immediate release, safe passage, and compensation. The UK government refused to abide by the UN decision.
The US government has stated Julian’s arrest is a priority. They want to get around the US journalist protections under their First Amendment by charging him with espionage. They will stop at nothing to do it.
#Unity4J Emergency Meeting (Live 3 Nov 2018) Christine Assange – Urgent Message ................................................................................................................................................... Page 1
.As a result to the US bearing down on Ecuador, his asylum is now under immediate threat. The US pressure on Ecuador’s new President resulted in Julian being placed into strict and severe solitary confinement for the last seven months, deprived of any contact with his family and friends. Only his lawyers could see him.
Two weeks ago things became substantially worse. The former President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who rightfully gave Julian political asylum from US threats against his life and liberty, publicly warned that when US Vice-President Mike Pence recently visited Ecuador, a deal was done to hand Julian over to the US. He stated that because of the political cost of expelling Julian from their embassy was too high, the plan was to break him down mentally.
A new, impossible, inhumane set of rules and protocols was implemented at the embassy to torture him to such a point that he will break and be forced to leave.
At the same time, a member of the Ecuadorian government repeatedly tried to cancel his Ecuadorian citizenship so he can be extradited directly to the US.
While his lawyers challenged this latest violation of his human rights under the Ecuadorian constitution, their government lawyer has warned Julian that even his very testimony describing his suffering could be in breach of their new protocol and grounds for embassy expulsion.
They have denied him visits from his lawyers for four days before the next hearing on Monday, jeopardizing the preparation of his case and further increasing his isolation, anxiety, and stress. They are setting my son up to give them an excuse to send him over to the US where he will face a show trial.
Over the past 8 years, he has had no proper legal process. It has been unfair at every turn, with much perversion of justice. There is no reason to consider that this would change in the future. The US WikiLeaks Grand Jury producing the extradition warrant is held in secret, has four prosecutors but no defense and no judge. The UK-US extradition treaty allows for the UK to extradite Julian to the US without prima facie case.
Once in the US, the National Defense Authorization Act allows for indefinite detention without trial. Julian could very well be held in Guantanamo Bay and tortured, sentenced to 45 years in maximum-security prison, or face the death penalty.
My son is in critical danger because of a brutal political persecution by the bullies in power whose crimes and corruption he has courageously exposed when he was Editor- in-Chief of WikiLeaks. The same corrupt entities who in government “tut tut” about bullying, fake news, and human rights - these same bullies are bullying my son to death.
It would appear that courageous, truthful, multi-award winning journalism is now life- threatening. The legal channels have been subverted and are therefore unlikely to save him. Because this is a transnational political persecution by a savage superpower in collusion with its allies, saving Julian will require the outrage of the people of the world.
I’m asking you to make noise. A big noise. And to keep making a noise until my son is free. We need to make our protest against this brutality deafening.
#Unity4J Emergency Meeting (Live 3 Nov 2018) ..................Christine Assange – Urgent Message Page 2
.• I call on all you journalists to stand up now, because he is your colleague and you are next.
• I call on all you politicians who say you entered parliament to serve the people to stand up now.
• I call on all you activists who support human rights, refugees, the environment, and are against war to stand up now because WikiLeaks has served the causes you fight for and Julian is now suffering for it, alongside of you.
• I call on all citizens who value freedom, democracy and a fair legal process to put aside your political differences and unite and stand up now.
Most of us don’t have the courage of our whistleblowers, or the journalists like Julian Assange who publish them so that we may be informed and warned about the abuses of power. But we can stand up en masse and protect them.
Throughout history when abuses of power became too much for the people to bear, they united and stood up and stopped them. This is a moment when we must say: “No, this is enough. We the people will not stand by and watch this brave journalist die.”
#Unity4J Emergency Meeting (Live 3 Nov 2018)
......... Christine Assange – Urgent Message .........g