Most recently updated on Sunday the 19th of January , 2025.
(for most recent news, head over to our facebook group @
https://www.facebook.com/groups/307582034267237
'The Trust Fall' by Films For Change is now available online.
2025-01-16 Rights Organizations Demand that outgoing US President Joe Biden PARDON ASSANGE
join the Pardon Julian Assange group on facebook
2025-01-15 long overdue response to OIA request to Radio New Zealand finally received.
2025-01-13
Listen: Judge threatens to break the UK's wall of secrecy around Assange's persecution
Read the Press Release we sent to all of New Zealand's major media organizations on 2024-10-03 which provides links to everything related to Julian Assange's address to a special hearing, organised by the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday the 1st of October 2024 which was followed the day after with a plenary debate with voting on several resolutions, based on a report by Thorhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC) that found in Julian's favour stating that the disproportionately severe charges brought against Julian by the U.S., as well as heavy penalties foreseen under the Espionage Act for engaging in acts of journalism, fall within the criteria set out in Resolution 1900 (2012:
“The definition of political prisoner”.
The resolution also calls for the following:
The U.S. to urgently reform the 1917 Espionage Act
The U.S. to conduct thorough, impartial, and transparent investigations into alleged war crimes and human rights violations disclosed by WikiLeaks and Mr Assange.
The U.K. to conduct an independent review of the treatment of Julian Assange . N.B. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Nils Melzer deemed that the conditions of Julian Assange's 14 years of ARBITRARY detention indeed amounted to 'psychological torture'.
All forms of torture are prohibited under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act ( U.K. ).
N.B. NONE OF THESE RESOLUTIONS ARE BINDING ON THE STATES INVOLVED and NO MEDIA ORGANISATIONS IN NEW ZEALAND REPORTED ON THIS HISTORIC OUTCOME.
For more info on the current situation, also Consortium News has just put up this 35 minute discussion
apart from all that....
Julian Assange is now a free man and is now living in Australia with his family
Thank you to all of you who have supported us in this extremely important case.
19th of July 2024.
The folks over at Melbourne 4 Assange have set up this form through which you can send message directly to Julian Assange.
https://www.action.assangecampaign.org.au/message-julian
N.B. Hitting the ENTER key sends your message - so don't !
To read the conditions that Julian Assange was forced to sign UNDER DURESS and for some insights into the machinations that lead to his being freed, click here.
24th of June 2024
Free after 1,902 days - 5 YEARS + arbitrarily detained in conditions deemed 'psychological torture' by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture .
Melbourne welcomes Assange home.
2024-07-12
Joe Lauria from Consortium News on WHY Julian Assange was released.
2024-07-11
The inside story of how Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was freed
ABC News In-depth - 2024-07-02
Did Julian Assange or the US government win the WikiLeaks Battle?
Newsmakers 2024-06-30
What next ?
A public Inquiry into to dysfunction in the checks and balances that allowed this travesty to continue - at all.
A pardon ?
Compensation?
Wikileaks ?
Investigations into the evidence made available through media?
A 'less worse' world ?
???
NZ Journalists should be ashamed at the way they betrayed Julian Assange
( Martyn Bradbury, The Daily Blog , 2nd of July 2024 )
A review of recent developments ( from Wikipedia )
Plea bargain and release
Superseding indictment as part of the plea bargain filed with the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
In 2022, the incoming Australian Labor government of Anthony Albanese indicated that it opposed the continued prosecution of Assange but intended to pursue quiet diplomacy to prevent it.[536] In July 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected the Australian government's position, saying that Assange faced serious charges.[537] On 14 August 2023, US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy flagged a potential plea deal for Assange,[538] shortly after meeting with a group of Australian parliamentarians pushing for Assange's return.[539] On 14 February 2024, the Australian House of Representatives passed a motion put forward by independent MP Andrew Wilkie calling for Assange's immediate release and return to Australia, by a vote of 86 to 42.[540] On 10 April 2024, president Biden said that the US was considering the Australian government's call for Assange's return.[541]
On 24 June 2024, a plea bargain was agreed, where Assange would plead guilty to one felony count of violating the Espionage Act in exchange for immediate release.[26] The agreement entailed the US Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking a sentence of 62 months, the time he had served in British prison while awaiting extradition; this allowed for Assange's immediate release from the UK to attend the plea hearing.[542] The plea bargain came one month after the U.K. High Court ruled Assange could bring a new appeal to his extradition on First Amendment grounds, which put pressure on the DOJ to finally complete a plea deal they had already been signalling their willingness for.[543] On the advice of their British lawyers, the U.S. attorneys believed they would lose the case, and this triggered a breakthrough in plea negotiations.[168][544]
After release from HM Prison Belmarsh on 24 June 2024, Assange immediately flew via charter flight – with the accompaniment of his legal representatives and Australia's high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Stephen Smith – to Saipan to attend the federal courthouse of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.[545] After arrival into Saipan on 26 June just before 8:00 am, Assange and Stephen Smith were joined by former Australian prime minister and current ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, as they entered the courthouse just prior to 9:00 am local time.[546]
At approximately 9:45 am local time, Assange pleaded guilty to a charge under the Espionage Act of 1917 of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.[547][25] Judge Ramona Villagomez Manglona accepted Assange's guilty plea and sentenced him as planned to 62 months time served.[548]
Assange and his group left the courthouse freely and returned to the charter flight for the final leg of the journey to Canberra.[27] As the plane arrived at 7:35 pm local time, Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, phoned Assange, becoming the first person in Australia to speak with him.[549] Soon after disembarking, Assange was greeted by his wife Stella Assange and father John Shipton.[550] Stella and Assange's legal representatives Jennifer Robinson and Barry Pollack held a press conference later that evening which was attended by numerous current Australian politicians.[551] Former senior Australian diplomat and international relations expert Ian Kemish described the consular assistance provided by Australia as being of a magnitude hard to compare to any previous case, even though the extraordinary consular assistance was slow to eventuate across multiple successive Australian governments.[552]
Assange was required by the Australian government to repay the costs of the charter flight for his transfer from the United Kingdom to Saipan and then to Australia as he was not permitted to fly on commercial airlines. The total amount requested by the Australian government for the charter flight stands at US$520,000.[553]
According to Charlie Savage of the New York Times, this marks the first time the US has charged a nongovernmental official with publishing secret documents. He and press freedom organizations warn that this could set a journalistic precedent for press freedom.[554][555][556] Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said that the plea deal "would avert the worst-case scenario for press freedom, but this deal contemplates that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day. It will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in this country but around the world."[557] Assange's agreement with the plea deal avoided the possibility of a ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States based on the case; according to Savage, such a ruling would be in favor of the prosecution and solidify the effect on journalism.[554]
To see what New Zealanders For Julian Assange had been doing until the 25th of June 2024, our home page has been archived here.
The URL ( www.newzealandersforjulianassange.org.nz ) for our website has been taken down by our provider
but ( you're reading it now ) is on the free New Google Sites platform here :
https://sites.google.com/view/newzealandersforjulianassange/home
We are still running our facebook group : New Zealanders For Julian Assange ( 584 members ) where we'll continue posting significant or relevant news and links. ( URL : https://www.facebook.com/groups/307582034267237)
Thursday the 3rd of July 2024
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