In the early hours of Thursday 16 February, the last day on which the House of Representatives, the lower house of Australia's two houses of Parliament, is to sit until the next sitting begins on Monday 6 March, I have been individually emailing members of the House with my Open Letter entitled "Lift Parliament's gag on discussion about Julian Assange - an Open Letter to members of the Julian Assange Parliamentary Support Group".
From 6:30PM on Good Friday, last Friday 2 April 2021, Anita Brice, myself and other Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange held their weekly vigil in front of Flinders Street Station. This vigil is the central part of Anita Brice's (see Lorine Anita Brice's Twitter page @LorineBrice) campaign for Julian Assange which she has organised since April 2020.
Each Friday since then they have turned up with placards and printed literature to inform members of the public about Julian Assange.
Also, at considerable trouble and expense, I created a large (4.8mx1.7m) banner which is pictured to the left. [3] This banner has attracted some interest from overseas supporters of Julian Assange, including from the Denver Free Assange group as well as from many members of the Melbourne public including passing motorists. [4]
Other members of our group have also begun to give speeches, and have spoken well, as occurred on Friday 26 March when we marched to the Melbourne British to protest against that government's criminal treatment of Julian Assange.
At our Good Friday vigil, I spoke for 6:30 minutes. My speech was recorded and embedded below.
James Sinnamon demands the Australian government act to end the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange
Your presence needed at next Friday's vigil for Julian Assange
If we are ever to succeed in our campaign to free Julian Assange, we need much larger crowds, here in Melbourne, other Australian cities and overseas. If you can make it to next Friday's vigil at 6:30pm, please be there. You can help us hold up our large banners, distribute leaflets, talk to passsers-by or make speeches.
Footnotes
[1] The PDF file for the double-sided A5 flyer is here.
[2] The PDF file which can be printed on two sides of an A4 sheet, is here, please be warned, printing in colour, rather than in back and white can cost a lot more.
[3] From an artist friend, Sheila Newman, who is also an editor of this site, candobetter.net, and an author of books as well as articles for this site, I received indispensable help in creating this banner.
[4] Unfortunately, because our numbers were fewer on the Good Friday public holiday, there was not a sufficient number people to put in the necessary effort hold up our large banner for the two hour vigil.
[5] Even on some subsequent occasions when my own presentation and delivery was not as good, I believe I still succeeded in arousing more interest and support from members of the public than we would have, had nobody spoken. I would like to aspire to speak as well as Mairéad Farrell, Irish member of the European Parliament as shown, below, in her speech of 5 March 2021:
End the illegal detention and torture of this Australian hero.
Why won't the Australian government act to get Julian Assange out of the Belmarsh hellhole?
By its stated intention to imprison the visionary Australian journalist and publisher, Julian Assange, for 175 years, the United States government has confirmed the criminality and malevolance of those who are truly in charge of it. State officials, including Hillary Clinton, have also been recorded talking openly about assassinating Assange.
Because mainstream media now only reports what the US government tells it, the world needs the Wikileaks news service to reveal the truth behind the United States' and its allies' wars, over the last three decades and beyond. Wikileaks has protected the identities and the ability of people in the military, government spy agencies, government bureacracy, or private corporations, to get vital information out to all of us about repeated dangerous and criminal acts of states towards ordinary people.
The United States' deep state has been trying since 2010 to get its hands on Julian to punish him for revealing its war-crimes to the world, and for refusing to reveal his sources. The US wants firstly to prevent Julian Assange from resuming his own work for Wikileaks, and secondly, to set a precedent that would allow the US henceforth to kidnap any other journalist, whose reporting would reveal to us facts about other invasions of, and meddling in the affairs of countries throughout much of the world - in countries like Venezula, Cuba, Bolivia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iran - that the US wants to keep hidden from us.
Julian Assange is not even an American. He is an Australian citizen. He has committed no crime - he has only been found guilty of the misdemeanour - skipping bail in 2012 to seek asylum in the London Ecuadorian embassy after the Swedish prosecutors had sought to extradite him for questioning over allegations of sexual assault by two Swedish women.
When the Swedish government refused to give Julian a guarantee that they would not allow the US to extradite him, he decided that the request for questioning could only be a ploy on behalf of the US. So, Julian skipped bail' and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. For thus acting to thwart US attempts to illegally kidnap him from Swedish soil 8 years ago, UK Judge Vanessa Barraitser sentenced Julian Assange to imprisonment alongside convicted terrorists and murderers in Belmarsh Prison for 50 weeks - the absolute maximum offence for the misdemeanour of skipping bail.
Even after Julian had served that outrageous sentence, Barraitser further extended his detention to allow more time for the US prosecutors to prepare their 'case' for extradition, which, after weeks of further kangaroo court proceedings, was denied to the US, whilst all the prosecution's smears against Julian were still upheld.
In spite of this unexpected ruling, Barraitser refused to release Julian. He is expected to spend many months in degrading conditions behind bars whilst various appeals by the US against her rulng are heard.
What you can do
Attend the Melbourne for Wikileaks (@melbourne4wiki Twitter page) vigil for Julian Assange at Flinders St. Station every Friday at 6:30pm.
In the early hours of Thursday 16 February, the last day on which the House of Representatives, the lower house of Australia's two houses of Parliament, is to sit until the next sitting begins on Monday 6 March, I have been individually emailing members of the House with my Open Letter entitled "Lift Parliament's gag on discussion about Julian Assange - an Open Letter to members of the Julian Assange Parliamentary Support Group".
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