Mark Freeman
Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gathered at Parliament grounds in Wellington on Saturday and called for his extradition to the United States to be stopped.
The protest, attended by 35 people, was held in solidarity with an event in London, where supporters formed a human chain from the British parliament building across the River Thames. Estimates of the crowd number in London varied widely, with mainstream media claiming “hundreds” and “about a thousand,” and supporters claiming 7000 and more than 10,000. The British protest was attended by former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and comedian and social commentator Russell Brand.
Mr Assange has been in a maximum-security prison for 3½ years and is appealing the decision of the British High Court to allow the United States to extradite him from the United Kingdom. If extradited, he will face espionage charges for publishing classified documents and could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.
Free Assange NZ coordinator Alex Hills acknowledges that Mr Assange is a controversial figure. Many people in the freedom movement have believed the false allegations that he is a CIA agent, a Russian spy or a rapist, she says.
But Ms Hills says the more important issue is not who he is—it’s the threat to freedom of the press if a journalist is allowed to be extradited.
“It’s about our children—a precedent being set that means our children will never have a chance to have a voice. We can already see the results of not having a voice in 2020, 2022, if we didn’t before.”
If Mr Assange is extradited, he won’t get a fair trial, Ms Hills says. “If you’ve dealt with classified information, they don’t give you a defence.”
- https://www.foxnews.com/politics/julian-assange-supporters-protest-against-us-extradition-in-london-dc-crucial-that-we-fight
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/08/chai-o08.html
- https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/assange-supporters-form-human-chain-uk-parliament-2022-10-08/
- https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3195313/supporters-wikileaks-julian-assange-form-human-chain-around-uk
- https://www.archyde.com/a-human-chain-around-parliament-for-assange/
