Manning, Assange, Snowden….but before the age of Wikileaks came brilliant electronics, communications and surveillance expert and whistleblower William Francis Roy who was killed at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia in March 1991.
On Friday 17th August, in response to the UK Government threats against the Ecuadorean Embassy and there refusal to allow Assange safe passage to Ecuador where he has been given political asylum, a protest was held at the UK Consulate in Melbourne. Three protestors entered the consulate and tried to talk to staff about the treatment of Assange. Staff hid from the protestors and Federal Police and local police entered the Consulate. One protestor was arrested when he tried to bring water to those inside the Consulate. The video's below give a good account of what happened on the day.
Why Asylum For Julian Assange Is Central To Today’s Politics: Torture and the American Character
By James Justice
Below are three key speeches in the evolving Assange extradition case, Ecuador's Foreign Minister granting Assange asylum, UK's Foreign Minister rejection of this claim and Julian Assange's speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy.
The first speech below is translation of the statement from the Ecuadorean Foreign Minister arguing the case for their right to grant Julian Assange asylum. At the end of this statement follows the UK Foreign Minister's statement suprisingly arguing their case against ensuring Julian Assange's safe passage and exposing an intention to apprehend and extradite Julian Assange (and in what goes against the UK's history and respect at all costs in adhering to the right to all forms of asylum despite their most recent statement). The last speech is by Julian Assange from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy on the 19th August 2012.
Source: Wikileaks.org Thursday 16th August, 3:00am UTC In a communication this morning to the government of Ecuador, the UK threatened to forcefully enter the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrest Julian Assange.
The UK claims the power to do so under the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987.
This claim is without basis.
By midnight, two hours prior to the time of this announcement, the embassy had been surrounded by police, in a menacing show of force.
Around 200 people turned out in the Melbourne rain to show solidarity for Julian Assange (1st July 2012) at a rally organized by Wikileaks Australian Citizens Alliance/ The crowd heard from a range of speakers including Greens MP Adam Bandt, SEP Melbourne by-election candidate Patrick O’Connor, Wikileaks co-founder
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke out today from the Ecuadorian embassy in London about the escalating assault on his democratic rights and why he had been compelled to seek political asylum in Ecuador.
Julian Assange is doing humanity a favour by exposing through the US Embassy Cables that “Oil motivates U.S.
The Socialist Equality Party will be holding public meetings in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth on Sunday, June 10, to defend WikiLeaks’ editor and Australian citizen Julian Assange. The British Supreme Court has rejected his appeal against attempts to extradite him to Sweden on dubious sexual assault allegations, for which he has not even been charged. The Swedish authorities are functioning as nothing more than a tool of the US Obama administration, which wants to force Assange to Sweden.
Gerry Georgatos
The compassionate left wing screams for social justice and argues for our governments and society's institutions to have a heart and help people from the bottom end up, and to desist with the proposition that they can achieve for the downtrodden by working from the top end of town and down.
The bona fide left wing is fractious and forever splintering and yet it calls out for groundswells of people power to coalesce in mass social movements which will give rise to cultural waves.
