New Zealanders For Julian Assange

N.B. This page is for the archive . It is where we were until Wednesday the 25th o June 2024.

Where we are and what we can ACTUALLY do.

Julian Assange remains arbitrarily detained as he has been now for 1,865 days ( since the 11th of April 2019 ) in London's Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison under conditions deemed by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to be 'psychological torture' which is prohibited under Section 134 of the U.K.'s Criminal Justice Act which gives effect to Article 5 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Arbitrary Detention is prohibited under the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State to State Relations which was signed by the governments of the U.K. , the U.S., Australia, New Zealand - and about 50 other nations in February 2021.

If you're not happy about Julian suffering another 6 months of psychological torture arbitrarily locked up in Belmarsh, please copy paste and send this message to his gaolers.

Remember what they did to Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing.
You can write an actual snail mail letter to Julian , - here's what you need to do.

21st of May 2024 : Kristinn Hrafnsson - Wikileaks Editor-In-Chief interviewed about the High Court's decision
by Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand's Nine To Noon program.
Alan Preston wrote to Radio New Zealand to thank them and to ask that they keep reporting on and investigating this pivotal case.
20th of May 2024 : Royal Court of Justice - judges grant leave to appeal on all charges.
Watch the whole 9 hour LIVE STREAM from outside the court here.
Haka4Assange. see this page for more on how to participate.
3rd of May 2024 World Press Freedom Day : Request to New Zealand Media to report on Assange
( which was ignored )

22nd of March 2024.
The latest decision by the High Court judges was to give the U.S. 3 weeks ( until Friday the 12th of April 2024 )to provide assurances that Julian Assange will be guaranteed a fair trial if extradited .
This very limited time frame ( unless you're sitting by yourself in a 2x3 metre cell ) - requires that we act with utmost urgency .

9th of April 2024.
Given that our requests to the Minister of Foreign Affairs were ignored, New Zealanders For Julian Assange have sent a letter to all New Zealand's Members of Parliament and major media organisations requesting that the New Zealand Parliament acts with URGENCY to lodge a diplomatic protest with the governments of the U.K. and the U.S. about non-compliance with international agreements and laws and other irregularities and concerns about the implications this case has for democratic governance. ( see the link above to read it )
To amplify this call , please read/copy/edit and paste this e-mail to your Member of Parliament ( and others')
and to our media organisations and journalists.

17th of April 2024.
The U.S. Government (not the court) provide the 'assurances' the U.K. was asking for.

18th of April 2024 . Watch this interview with Julian's brother Gabriel Shipton for the latest and this 2 hour discussion with supporters and press freedom activists on Consortium News.

Please go to the 'New Zealanders Can Do This page for links to pro-forma letters and for e-mail addresses
Pressure must ALSO be applied to the Minister of Justice and the U.K. Prosecutor to force compliance thereby affecting the first of our goals: - to get Julian OUT of Belmarsh.

Definitely watch creator of Aotearoa 4 Assange Matt Ó Branáin's excellent 20 minute synopsis following the London High Court Application for Appeal Hearing with analysis of the context and implications of the case.

Go to see The Trust Fall which is currently screening at cinemas throughout New Zealand.
Wednesday 10th of April 2024

N.B. Our URL 'www.newzealandersforjulianassnge.org.nz was taken down by our provider, despite our being paid up til the 4th of November 2024 - but as you can see , we're still up and running here on the free Google Sites platform on https://sites.google.com/view/newzealandersforjulianassange/home
If you're on facebook, please join our 542 other members on the New Zealanders For Julian Assange group but be aware that we are probably shadow-banned as our posts are getting virtually zero interaction so be sure to check in to see our posts and links which we refresh every day.

The Trust Fall

A 2 hour crowd-sourced documentary written and directed by Kym Staton of Films For Change ( Australia ) is currently ( March 2024 ) being screened at cinemas throughout New Zealand, Australia and the U.K. To find out where you can see it - and to request a screening at your local cinema, please go to :
https://www.thetrustfall.org/

Matt Ó Branáin's ( Aotearoa 4 Assange ) SUBSTANTIAL encapsulation of the case of the persecution of Julian Assange.

Please share this with as many of our elected representatives, media organizations and journalists as possible.

Matt Ó Branáin's ( Aotearoa 4 Assange ) extended talk from outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London following the Application to Appeal Hearings on the 20-22nd of March 2024.

20th September 2018, World Ethical Data Forum broadcast an interview with Julian Assange, the founder and former Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks.

Stella Assange imploring us to write to the United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland at the Department of Justice to ask that they respect Resolution 934 - "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange."

2024-03- 27 (most recently updated)
Request to Rt Hon Winston Peters to Lodge a Diplomatic Protest to the U.S. and U.K.
20240125 Article by Rose Dixon on New Zealanders Forr Julian Assange pubished in the Northern Advocate.
New Zealanders for Julian Assange is an informal community (453 members on our facebook group ) concerned about the ongoing illegal arbitrary detention and psychological torture of award-winning Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange who has been locked up in solitary confinement in London's Belmarsh Maximum Security now for 1740 days.
Please check out some of the pages and links to learn more about this - also , if you're on facebook please join us on the New Zealanders For Julian Assange group
and watch the documentary Ithaka about Julian's father's campaign to save Julian.
Another documentary about this case , The Trust Fall is being released through cinemas in Australia and New Zealand now ( February 2024 )

Read the e-mail sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hon Nanaia Mahuta
requesting that a diplomatic protest be made to the British High Commission about how this case breaches the 2021 Agreement Against Arbitrary Detention in State To State Relations and Section 134 of the U.K. Criminal Justice Act. ( 2023-08-08 ) .
( N.B. No action was taken by the Minister - an earlier response indicated a lack of awareness of these aspects ). ( 24th of November 2023 ).

Investigative journalist Nicky Hager gave a talk about Julian Assange at the Earthbeat Festival 80kms north west of Auckland on Saturday the 25th of March 2023 .

The current situation (5th of February 2024 ): Julian Assange remains arbitrarily detained in a windowless cell the size of your bathroom in solitary isolation in Belmarsh Prison where he has now been held for 1761 days (4 years, 9 months, ) since the 11th of April 2019.

If you're feeling motivated to do something that might contribute to bringing about Julian's release, please have a look at some of the things New Zealanders can do.

20221206 : Petition : :Free Julian Assange, before it's too late.

Sign to STOP the USA Extradition

The largest petition in history with over 750,000 signatures has been presented to the International Criminal Court (The Hague). This is also the largest petition in history to have been successfully Tabled (accepted into Parliament) in both houses of the Australian Parliament, to United States President Joe Biden and to the British Prime Minister Rishi Sumak.

20221010 - Julian Assange diagnosed with Covid 19 and confined to solitary confinement 24 hours per day.

This message was sent to His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh on Saturday the 15th of October 2022.

2022-10-08 Hands Around UK Parliament for Julian Assange :
George Galloway promoting it. 5,000 + supporters encircled British Parliament at Westminster ( with similar actions taking place around the world ) .
( N.B. No mention by New Zealand media )

U.K. Home Office Secretary the Right Honorable Priti Patel announced her decision on Friday the 17th of June 2022 that the extradition of Julian Assange can proceed but his legal team have just filed an appeal with the High Court . Whether the Judges will hear the appeal is presently under consideration. We wrote to her prior to this decision.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNJZRvnfwKs&ab_channel=TheProject
All main political parties in the United Kingdom are calling for immediate passage in Parliament of new measures to fight "state threats," which would restrict press freedom and threaten civil liberties and are also seeking to 'override the power of the European Human Rights Court' to make their government untouchable.
These moves set dangerous new precedents.
"Biggest overhaul of State Threats legislation for a generation".

2022-07-03 Julian Assange's 51st Birthday: Picnic from 12 p.m. Sunday in Auckland at the Albert Park band rotunda.
2022-06-26: Ithaka - a documentary about the journey undertaken by Julian Assange's father and brother - John and Gabriel Shipton to get him released from Belmarsh Prison. Was first screened to an audience of about 50 people at The Civic in Auckland on Sunday the 26th of June 2022 which was followed by an hour with John Shipton and director Ben Lawrence answering questions via Zoom.
A second screening is being shown at the Embassy , Wellington from 6.30 on Thursday the 30th of June 2022. (Click those links to buy tickets and listen to the following interview ). There will also be Virtual Screenings from Friday the 1st till Sunday the 10th of July.
2022-05-22 - 11.24 a.m. Radio New Zealand's Jim Moira interview with Julian's father John Shipton (audio) about the documentary 'Ithaka'

2022-05-18 UK Home Secretary Priti Patel was due to announce decision whether to extradite Assange ( Here's a letter you might like to send to convince her of the wisdom of NOT doing this).

2022-05-03 World Press Freedom Day. went unreported by New Zealand media.
POTUS Joe Biden's speech in support of free speech and the importance of the free press at the Whitehouse Correspondents' Dinner. War is Peace, Love is Hate. Doublespeak, Doubleplusungood ! 1984 all over again.

2022-04-20 . The London Magistrate's Court handed down its order that Julian Assange can be extradited to the U.S.A. to the Home Secretary Rt Hon. Priti Patel who was to announce her decision on the 18th of May 2022.
2022-03-14 Amnesty International says : UK: Refusal by Supreme Court to grant Assange right to appeal is “a blow for justice”
2022-02-07 : AssangeDAO ( Distributed Autonomous Organisation) raised US$54 million by auction PAK's digital clock 'Censored' counting the days Julian Assange has been in Belmarsh - as an NFT ( Non-Fungible-Token ) to fund the legal battle against his extradition. ( This significant and interesting development was not reported on NZ Media).
2022-03-25 : Wedding at Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh . The marriage of Julian Assange and Stella Moris . ( went unreported by New Zealand media ).
2022-01-24 The High Court in London agreed that there is a case of public interest that should be tested in the Supreme Court but they refused saying there was no point in law that needed to be clarified.
The United Nations Special Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has deemed that Julian Assange's detention is arbitrary.
2021-09-20 the UK government reaffirmed its commitment to the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State to State Relations ( but is obstinately refusing to abide by it in this case.

What's happening next ?

( YouTube) 20220518 : Julian Assange's Wife, Stella, On His Last-Ditch Legal Bid To The UK
What you can do :

If you're on facebook,please join us for updates on New Zealanders for Julian Assange.
Please copy/paste/edit this plea to the Rt Hon. Priti Patel - or use the e-mail (or actual postal address) to write your own concerns ( the 17th of May,2022 deadline seems to have been arbitrarily extended ) .
Please copy and send this letter to the UK Minister of Justice reminding him of his responsibilities to the international community and this request to New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to lodge a diplomatic protest to the U.K. government with regard to this refusal to abide by The Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State To State Relations.

Also, you could sign this petition being run by Reporters Without Borders.
You can actually e-mail Julian Assange in Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison using www.emailaprisoner.com ( which involves setting up an account with $ credit - not easy ) or write him an actual letter ( Go to www.writejulian.com for his actual address and their rules ) .
See the drop down tabs along the top of this page for more

New Zealand's mainstream media continue to be extremely reticent on this case (it's their profession and their role to protect our democracy that are at stake ) and until recently had not done any of their own reporting on it or investigations into the evidence published by Wikileaks ( what they have been using comes prepared through Associated Press and Reuters).
Welcome exceptions have been :
2020 October ( with a recent addendum ) an interview with Nicky Hager by veteran peace activists Louis and Martin Griffiths on Christchurch's access radio Plains FM's Earthwise program. ( Nicky has not been approached by mainstream media re Assange or Wikileaks ).
And by Radio New Zealand :
2020-10-19: Nights program, Bryan Crump interviewing Marcus Strom, the president of the Media section at the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance in Australia.
on Saturday Mornings program, Kim Hill interviewing :
2021-04-24 Julian's lawyer Jennifer Robinson

2021-11-06 Daniel Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers)
2022-02-12 UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Nils Melzer .

To find out what this is all about,check out the Get Informed tab (on the dropdown on your phone).

To find out what you can do to help - go to Get Active - pro-forma letters and links to addresses .

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing."

Join our group on Facebook : New Zealanders For Julian Assange

Radio Free Assange FM - 24 /7

NB - You'll notice that some of the videos we've linked to about this case have been taken down from YouTube or are 'not available in your country'. We suspect we/mention of 'Julian Assange' may be 'shadow-banned' on facebook.