Contact your elected representatives
2021-10-03 Sunday.
N.B. for the full - links embedded e-mail which includes the invitation cover message and the e-mail to send to elected representatives and journalists, click here.
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Kia ora !
Please spend a few minutes to copy- paste>send the following ( feel free to edit or add your own words ) message to our elected representatives to request action on the case of Julian Assange by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Rt Hon. Winston Peters.
( and please send this message on to others who may be concerned ) .
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Subject : Please request action re Julian Assange by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Rt Hon. Winston Peters
Dear ( elected representative's name here ).
Kia ora.
As an elected Member of Parliament, the case of Julian Assange should be of concern to you as it has grave implications for the freedom of journalists in their ability to hold power to account, their expectation to be able to seek, receive and hold information and to expect adherence to the rule of law and to international treaties and conventions from not only our own government and from the governments of our trading partners but from the international community in general.
Award-winning Australian journalist Julian Assange has spent more than 1761 days in arbitrary detention in solitary confinement in London's Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison awaiting his extradition hearing on the 20-22nd of Octob 2021 in their 2nd attempt to extradite him on 17 espionage-related charges for having published evidence of U.S. military forces having committed breaches of the Geneva Convention during their invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United Nations Human Rights Council have deemed that Julian Assange must be guaranteed freedom of movement ,that he has a right to compensation and their Special Rapporteur on Torture , Prof. Nils Melzer has determined that this ongoing arbitrary detention in solitary confinement by the British authorities amounts to torture.
29th of September 2021 The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe General Rapporteur has just expressed serious concern at reports that US officials discussed assassinating Julian Assange as reported by Yahoo! News - who former CIA Chief Mike Pompeo is now calling for the prosecution of.
In February 2021 , our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hon. Nanaia Mahuta responded to our request that action on Assange be taken stating that :
"Aotearoa New Zealand is a strong proponent of the international rules based system.
Aotearoa New Zealand and the international community both have an interest in seeing the human rights of detainees protected,
and their cases handled in accordance with the rule of law and relevant international conventions.
The New Zealand Government has not taken a position on Mr Assange’s current judicial proceedings or his detention.
These are matters for Mr Assange and his legal representatives to resolve with the relevant authorities. "
"
Clearly we can see ( and the non-binding declarations by the United Nations experts confirm) that this case is NOT being handled in accordance with the rule of law or with the relevant international conventions and therefore it is incumbant on the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to deliver diplomatic protests to the governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom stating that the ongoing arbitrary detention and torture of Julian Assange must end immediately as it raises serious issues of international law, for the future of press freedom and to call for a full investigation into the dysfunction in their system that has allowed this 'intimidation and reprisal' to occur - and to commence with investigations into the evidence of breaches of the Geneva Conventions by U.S. and British military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Naku noa na ( your name )
( Contact Address)
( Date )
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Central Government
Links to downloadable ( xlsx , pdf, csv formats ) lists of all current Members of Parliament and to Ministers of the New Zealand Government can be found on the New Zealand Parliamentary website's Contact an MP page.
Local and Regional Government
Links to the current lists of 1600 Councillors on all of New Zealand's 78 Local Territorial , Regional and Unitary Authorities can be found on the Ratepayers and Residents' Website on each of the District/City Council pages under the Locate Your Group menu.
Links to other communities of interest in New Zealand can be found on the Activist Resource website.
For Journalists : https://speak-up-for-assange.org/journalists-speak-up-for-julian-assange/
