The number of partcipants in our Friday 9 April weekly vigil for Julian Assange in front of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station, due other to commitments by some members of the group, was somewhat down - only 5 this week rather the 9 or 11 we had come to typically expect at our previous weekly vigils. Five people weren't enough to share around the arduous work of holding up my large 4.8mx1.7m banner [1] in addition to making speeches, handing out literature and engaging in discussion with interested members of the public, so the banner was left unfurled.

In spite of this the public responded particularly well, with a large proportion being interested enough to accept one or more of our printed leaflets. Whilst a sizable proportion of the public, who were passing through that street corner in front of the railway station, were still not concerned one way or the other, about Julian Assange, the number who expressed support for him vastly outnumbered those who showed their hostility. Many thanked us for our efforts and a sizeable number told me that they would be coming to Sunday's commemoration of the second anniversary of the British Government's illegal arrest and imprisonment of Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison at 4:00pm on 11 April 2019 at the British Consulate at 90 Lyons Road, roughly 1.6km to the Northe-East.

Fanny gave a speech, but (yet again!) I was not able to figure out, fast enough to record Fanny's speech, how to use the video recording feature of my mobile phone, so Fanny's speech was not recorded. However, Anita was subsequently able to work out how to use that video recording feature and so my own subsequent speech was recorded. Later today (Saturday 10 April, I will upload that recording of my speech to YouTube and embed it in a more complete article about that vigil on https://candobetter.net/.

In time, in order to achieve our goal of forcing the Australian government to act effectively to achieve Julian Assange's freedom, we need to, and anticipate getting, far greater numbers to other planned events for Julian Assange. Such events include protests such as our planned commemoration of the second anniversary of Julian Assange's imprisonment. In the short-term future, to begin with, it should be possible to build protests numbering in the order of several hundred - enough to at least begin to make a few more politicians take notice.

So, if you have time, please attend the 4pm Sunday protest at the British Consulate.

Footnote[s]

[1] That banner has impressed members of the Melboune public on foot, or in cars. It has also, amangst others, impressed Denver Free Assange (@DNVFreeFA). So far, two members of the group each own one umbrell stand. Without those 2 umbrella stands, it would have been necessary for three people, at any one time to hold up the banner. Because it is such hard work to hold up my 4.8mx1.7m canvas banner for our vigils of duration of 2 hours or longer, a minimum of 5 or 6 people were needed to share the work around. It would have been very dificult for us to accomplish the other necssary tasks

[2] The commemoration of this second anniversary will by held at 4pm outside the Melbourne British Consulate at 90 Collins Street, roughly 1.6 km North-East of Flinders Street Station.