Julian Assange, the most highly acclaimed journalist of our times, is nearing five years of imprisonment and torture in Belmarsh prison for publishing evidence of US government wrongdoing. Julian Assange’s case is at a critical juncture, as his final appeal against extradition to the United States will be on February 20th – 21st, where he faces 175 years.

If extradited to the US, he faces prolonged solitary confinement in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he will stand trial for “Espionage” for publishing information in the public interest under legislation that forbids a public interest defence. The jury pool in this area is composed overwhelmingly of individuals associated with the CIA, NSA, and other entities associated with the national security sector. The only fair outcome for a case that criminalises journalism is for it not to be brought in the first place. The effect of Julian Assange’s imprisonment is to chill press freedom around the world, and to encourage harassment, politically motivated cases and imprisonment of reporters and dissidents around the world.

Julian Assange’s campaign against extradition is supported by every human rights organisation of note including Amnesty international, Human rights watch, the ACLU, Reporters without borders, the NUJ, the IFJ and Pen International.

The exhibition, titled ‘The Assange Case: Awards and Rewards,’ is scheduled to take place during the plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg from the 6th to the 8th of February. The exhibit will showcase the numerous awards and honours Julian Assange has received, including Australia’s Walkley Foundation Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism and the German Konrad Wolf Prize.

The primary goal of this collection is to underscore the immense global significance and recognition of Julian Assange’s work. Stella Assange, Dominique Pradalie, President of the International Federation Of Journalists, and Günter Wallraff, the legendary German writer and journalist, as well as a lawyer for Mr Assange will be in attendance at the formal inauguration and the press conference on 6 February, 6.30pm at the Winston Churchill building Canal Area.  

The Free Assange campaign wholeheartedly welcomes the exhibition in Strasbourg to highlight the importance of Julian Assange’s case for the future of journalism as his case reaches its final stage in Britain. None of us are free, until Julian Assange is free.

Awards for journalism:  

•  Almudena Grandes Special Award for defending the right to information 2022
•  Amnesty International New Media Award 2009
•  Anticor Ethics Prize 2022
•  Audálio Dantas trophy for Indignation, Courage and Hope 2022
•  Austrian Journalist Association’s Dr. Karl Renner Solidarity Prize 2021
•  Big Brother Award Hero of Privacy 2012
•  Blanquerna Award for Best Communicator 2011
•  Brazillian Press Association Human Rights Award 2013
•  Danny Schechter Global Vision Award for Journalism & Activism 2019
•  European Parliament Sakharov Prize (Finalist) 2022
•  Free Dacia Award 2011
•  Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award 2020
•  Gavin MacFadyen Award 2019
•  Gavin MacFadyen Special Award 2023
•  Global Exchange Human Rights People’s Choice Award 2013
•  GUE/NGL Daphne Galizia Prize for Journalists, Whistleblowers And Defenders of the Right to Information Europe 2019
•  Günter Wallraff Prize for Investigative Journalism and Moral Courage 2022
•  International Piero Passetti Journalism Prize of the National Union of Italian Journalists 2011
•  Jose Couso Press Freedom Award 2011
•  Journalists Club of Mexico’s International Journalism Award 2019
•  Kazakhstan Union of Journalists Top Prize 2014
•  Konrad Wolf Prize 2023
•  Le Monde Person of the Year 2010
•  Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 2011
•  PEN Norway Ossietzky Prize 2023
•  Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction 2009
•  Sacco-Vanzetti Memorial Award 2021
•  Sam Adams Award for Integrity 2010
•  Stuttgart Peace Prize 2020
•  Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal 2011
•  The Dignity Commission’s Dignity Award 2019
•  The Economist New Media Award 2008
•  The Press Project: Person of the Year 2019
•  The Walkley Foundation Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism 2011
•  Time Person of the Year, People’s Choice 2010
•  Trinity College Dublin Historical Society Gold Medal for Outstanding contribution to public discourse 2023
•  Voltaire Award for Free Speech 2011
•  Weizenbaum Prize for Peace and Social Responsibility 2022
•  Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts 2013

A look back at key highlights from 2023 Part One

2023 was a year of unprecedented support and collective action.  

As we prepare for the new date for the public hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday, 20-21 February, here’s a look back at a year that saw a shift in public awareness surrounding my husband’s case. 

For part one of our look back at 2023, here are some key highlights from my online campaign.

My Social Media following grew from:

Twitter (@stella_assange): 125k to 174k followers
Instagram (@stellaassange): 7.5k to 37k followers
Tiktok (@stellaassange): 0 to 13.5k followers

In an effort to find different ways to raise awareness and create community, we expanded my campaign.

We launched a podcast, “A Conversation with Stella Assange”, and a Youtube channel.

Watch the first episodes with Chris Hedges, a conversation in two parts below: 

Part 1: The Self-Annihilation of Journalism: https://youtu.be/GOQ7XyEtwtU

Part 2: The Inhumanity of the Prison Industrial Complex: https://youtu.be/vNjWuVo-4iE

Or listen to it as a podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music and Deezer: https://open.spotify.com/show/4UcXPnqQaMDV4mcpGrRiQm

Look out for new episodes coming in 2024 with Craig Murray and Jeremy Corbyn.

We launched the Sunday Concerts for Assange YouTube series.

Watch the concerts here: https://www.youtube.com/@StellaAssange/streams

Are you a musician that would like to participate and help us spread awareness?  

Email us at [email protected].

We launched a store!

Wear Your Support. Show Your Support. Click here.

And we launched the Free Assange Emergency Toolkit and revamped it.

Check out the new Toolkit here.

The Free Assange Emergency Toolkit is now part of my new website, www.StellaAssange.com. 

It provides social media graphics and suggestions to make it easy to help us spread awareness as well as information on how to connect with your fellow supporter and any logistical details you need to show up to key protests.  

We need as many people as possible to gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on the Tuesday and Wednesday 20-21 February 2024. It will be constantly updated with new ways you can help so please keep checking back for tangible actions.

And, finally, we relaunched my Substack!

Thank you so much to my subscribers new and old.  

I truly believe that every protest brings Julian one step closer to freedom. Julian will be free if we work together to make it a reality. Thank you for joining me on this fight to free my husband.  

Look out for Part Two of key highlights from 2023 where we showcase the inspiring and tireless hard work from Free Assange activists from all over the world.

May 2024 bring peace, prosperity and freedom to Julian and to all the suffering people of the world.

National Press Club, 22 May 2023

It is a great pleasure to join you here today. I would like to thank the National Press Club for inviting me to speak here with you.

Since I touched down at the airport in Sydney I have been greeted with enormous warmth, and although it is my first time coming to Australia, I do not feel like a stranger to these shores. Julian’s stories have acquired a sharper resolution in my mind, and I can better understand why he misses home so much.

The truth is that I have mixed emotions about being here, because I always imagined my first visit to be with Julian and the children. I could not bring them because I am here to speak to you today and to join the rally in Sydney on Wednesday before I return to London.

My visit here was originally prompted by the official visit of President Biden and the Quad summit. After it was cancelled I decided to come anyway, I did not want to lose the opportunity to speak to you. Because we are now in the endgame. Julian needs his freedom urgently and Australia plays a crucial role in securing his release.

I recognise many faces in the room today who have played a crucial role in the fight for the freedom of my husband.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange, who have created a political environment in which support for Julian goes beyond party-political affiliation.

That show of unity has made it possible for the leadership to take a position. I wish to thank the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as well as the leader of the opposition Peter Dutton for putting that position on the record, that Julian should be released so that he can come home. Home to his family, home to Australia.

I want to thank the Australian press for keeping Julian’s case alive in the minds of the Australian public.

But above all I would like to thank the overwhelming dedication of the Australian people, who have brought about a sea change in awareness and solidarity for Julian’s plight. This unity in support for my husband is a source of enormous encouragement for our family. It nurtures Julian’s ability to continue on.

The reality is that to regain his freedom, Julian needs the support of his home country. This is a political case, and it needs a political solution.

–

I often am asked what Julian’s day-to-day is like, and what we talk about. Yes, we spend time talking about the intricacies of the legal arguments or the political developments that influence the case, but most of the time we talk about the past and about our future together.

His past, is here.

He tells our children how he would catch yabbies and go fishing for flathead and black fish in the Sandon river with his grandfather Warren.

Or how he reared a fledgling rainbow lorikeet when he lived on Magnetic Island when he was thirteen. He fed the lorikeet on mangos until it was strong enough to rejoin the wild.

He tells the children about Tilly, the chestnut coated mare which he would ride when he stayed in the Northern Rivers. Or how he surfed in Byron Bay as a teenager. He tells them about his beekeeping in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria.

That’s how I imagine Julian when he is free. Not behind the cold blue glare of a computer screen, but cycling through Melbourne like he used to, or feeling his bare feet sink into the cool sand, like I did yesterday on Bondi beach.

Today, Julian’s feet only ever feel the hard, dull, even cement on the prison floor. When he goes to the yard for exercise, there is no grass, no sand. Just the bitumen pavement surrounded by cameras and layers of razor wire overhead.

I can tell you exactly what Julian is doing right now. It is 3 a.m. in London. Julian is lying in his cell, probably awake and struggling to fall asleep. It’s where he spends twenty-two hours a day, every day.

Julian’s cell is about three by two meters. He uses some of his books to block out the unpleasant draft coming from the window in the cold winter nights. There are pictures on the walls. Pictures of the children, pictures of us, together. A large colourful poster of a nebula taken by NASA’s James Webb Telescope.

A chart showing the distance between London and European cities, so that he can make the distance to Brussels, Vienna and Lisbon, pacing up and down the length of his cell. He has warn out two pairs of sneakers walking the European continent in his cell.

He reads to keep his mind busy, to fight the crushing sense of isolation and of time wasting away.

He has spent 1502 days in a prison cell, with no end in sight, and no way of knowing how many days to count down to a release. Julian will be in that cell indefinitely unless he is released.

If Julian is extradited, he will be buried in the deepest, darkest hole of the US prison system, isolated forever. That is what is done to defendants in so-called national security cases, even before trial.

A 175 year sentence is a living death sentence. A prospect so desperate that the English court found that it would drive him to take his own life, rather than live forever in hell.

We must do everything we can to ensure that Julian never, ever, sets foot in a US prison. Extradition in this case is a matter of life and death.

–

Julian counts the days until our next visit.

When the children and I get to Belmarsh, usually on a weekend, we leave our belongings in a locker. We check in with the prison authorities in the visitor’s centre building, my finger print is scanned, and we get a stamp on the back of our hands. Then we head to the entrance of His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.

The only thing we are allowed to have in our hands is a V.O., or visitors’ order. It lists the people who are authorised to visit Julian on that day.

We stand in endless queues. Max, who recently turned four, used to call the prison, “the queue”. “When are we seeing daddy in the queue, mama?”. Now he is coming to better understand what a prison is, but not quite. When I travel he asks me, “when are you coming back from work prison mama?”.

Gabriel, who just turned six, knows it’s a prison. Prisons feature in his dreams and his nightmares. I tell him that his father is no ordinary prisoner, he is a hero, and millions of people around the world want him to come back home to us.

My finger prints are scanned three more times as we make our way through the airlocks. After the first airlock our shoes and jackets are put through an X-ray machine.

A prison officer scans us each in turn with a magnetic wand, front and back, and under our feet. Then a second prison officer pats us down, front and back, under our feet again. They check our hair, in our mouths and behind our ears. Then we go into a second airlock, which lets us out onto a cement yard.

We cross the yard and queue up once more to get into the interior building and a third airlock, after which we are let through to the dog search. We stand on a square, the children are told to stand still and be quiet while the dog jumps up to sniff us, front and back. Then, finally, we are through to the large visitor hall, where Julian is sitting at one of forty tables.

Julian sits on a red chair, opposite three blue chairs. A heavy table is between us. The children race to him shrieking gleefully, while the prison officer complains that the children should remain quietly by my side until my finger print has been scanned once more.

At the table, Julian and I are allowed to embrace hello and goodbye. I am allowed to hold his hand across the table. The children climb on him and he reads them stories.

All our children’s memories with their father are in this one large, echoey visitors’ hall—with the one exception of our wedding last year, which was in a bare room in a different building inside the prison. For an hour and a half, once or twice a week, we are together as a family.

–

There is now near universal recognition of the enormous implications that this case has for press freedom and the future of democracy.

For most people, Julian is a symbol. A symbol of staggering injustice, because he is in prison on trumped up charges for exposing the crimes of others. A symbol because he faces a bewildering 175 year sentence for publishing the truth. A symbol of a sophisticated form of state violence dressed up in complexity and indirection that not even Franz Kafka could have imagined.

For the press and the public Julian’s case is the most brutal attack on press freedom that the Western world has seen in the last 70 years. A foreign government is using the political offences in its statute books to indict a foreign national abroad, because of what he or she published in a different country.

Accurate, damning publications exposing their war crimes. If sovereignty is to mean anything, if jurisdiction is a proper legal and political reality, the case against Julian cannot be understood as anything other than an absurdity.

A stupifying decision of egregious overreach.

The case is the worst, and most enduring legacy of the Trump administration. It is not just outlandish but extremely pernicious.

Julian is being used as a deterrent to bully journalists into submission. The case against him sends the message that each of you in this room is fair game. It is a show of contempt for democratic accountability and of the rights of victims of government wrongdoing. For all the talk of press freedom as necessary in a democratic society, the case against Julian provides a gaping hole through which any country can legitimise the imprisonment of journalists and dissidents, including other Australian journalists. And use it they do.

Russia’s charges against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich mirror the charges the US has brought against Julian. Russia had not used the Espionage Act against a foreign journalist since 1987. For almost fourty years, Russia had expelled foreign journalists, but now it puts them on trial for “espionage”.

America’s case against Julian has created a new race to the bottom, a new normal, which makes it easier to get away with imprisoning journalists.

Enough is enough. There is no time left to lose. Julian needs to come home to us, home to all of us. Please help bring us back together. 

Thank you.

Yesterday Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF’s) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Operations and Campaigns Rebecca Vincent had a visit scheduled with Julian Assange inside Belmarsh prison but were denied access at the last minute.

Christophe Deloire, RSF Secretary-General, said: "We are deeply disappointed by the arbitrary decision of the Belmarsh Prison Governor to prevent us from visiting Julian Assange, despite following all relevant prison procedures and rules. Julian Assange has the right to receive visitors in prison, and we are legitimate to visit him as a press freedom NGO. We call for an urgent reversal of this decision and to be allowed visitation access without further delay."

Read DEA's press release about the event here: https://dontextraditeassange.com/post/representatives-of-reporters-without-borders-denied-access-to-visit-julian-assange-in-belmarsh-prison/

Last week III World Forum on Human Rights in Buenos Aires, Argentina concluded with a statement of support and calling for the freedom of the Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The statement was issued during the meeting and the manifesto was headed by the signatures of President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Baltasar Garzón said he felt "complete satisfaction with such significant support as that shown by the main leaders in the defense of Human Rights around the world."

The declaration ends with the statement: “We urge the US Department of Justice to drop all charges against Mr. Assange, appealing to the United States Constitution itself, the human rights standards recognized in International Law, as well as the most basic humanitarian questions, since the life of a journalist is in danger, and the freedom of the press and the right of access to the world's information are at risk.” 

Read the Public Statement Here: https://dontextraditeassange.com/post/iii-world-forum-on-human-rights-buenos-aires-argentina-2023/

The Times published a new interview with Stella Assange, wife of WikiLeaks founder. "Its completely absurd Julian's in prison at all...he did nothing but try to enforce international law. The longer every procedural step can be spun out, the more Assange’s health and stability will deteriorate and the stronger the deterrent effect on other journalists and whistleblowers.”

You can access the full article here: I married Julian Assange in prison. Now I’m fighting to free him

Beat The System  

a/political and WikiLeaks present: BEAT THE SYSTEM on 08 April at EartH Hackney as the closing event for the States of Violence exhibition at a/political. The night brings together artists and musicians to raise awareness around the importance of press freedom and to empower the public to create positive change.

DATE: 8th April at EARTH, Hackney
SHOW: Bugzy Malone, Eva Lazarus, Lowkey, Ngaio
AFTER PARTY: Dutchie x Who Knew, Fabio & Grooverider, Flowdan (Live), Gardna, My Nu Leng, Sherelle + Special Guests
VENUE: EartH Hackney, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd London N16 8BH


Tickets available via Earth website, DICE
TICKETS: https://link.dice.fm/N62138f43d16

Find out more here.

Mr Assange’s appeal to the European Court of Human Rights cannot be heard at this time, but comments from the judges confirm an application can be made again to Strasbourg in the future should Mr Assange be dissatisfied with the progress or outcome of his case before the British courts.

A panel of three European Court of Human Rights judges considered Mr Assange’s application. It ruled the application was inadmissible at this time because there are ongoing proceedings in the UK challenging the extradition on other points of law.

The panel further stated, however, that should Mr Assange “be dissatisfied in the future with the progress or outcome of the domestic procedures, it would be open to him to reintroduce his … complaint.”

The panel considered the application on 13 December 2022.

Mr Assange made the application to the European Court in July 2022 in order to comply with the Court’s requirement that applications should be submitted within 4 months of the last domestic decision. The application related to the legal arguments on which Mr Assange had succeeded at first instance in January 2021 when, after a full evidential hearing, a District Judge refused Mr Assange’s extradition and ordered his discharge. She did so on the basis that the extradition would expose Mr Assange, a person suffering from a long-standing and recurrent depressive disorder, and who has autism spectrum disorder, to the virtual certainty of mental deterioration, a high risk of suicide, and the likelihood of detention in conditions of extreme isolation that would be both cruel and inhuman.

The United States appealed the decision of the District Judge to the High Court. For the first time in the proceedings, “assurances” were offered by the United States, some of which purported to address conditions of detention and healthcare in US prisons. The High Court allowed the US appeal against the District Judge’s order for discharge on the basis of these conditional assurances. Amnesty International stated that:

“This is a travesty of justice. By allowing this appeal, the High Court has
chosen to accept the deeply flawed diplomatic assurances given by the US
that Assange would not be held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison. The fact that the US has reserved the right to change its mind at any time means that these assurances are not worth the paper they are written on."

Although the High Court granted a certificate for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, recognising that their judgment involved a point of law of public importance, upon application by Mr Assange, the Supreme Court did not allow a full appeal.

Dozens of press freedom organizations have expressed concern about the case. The UK’s National Union of Journalists issued a statement saying that “Seeking to prosecute Julian Assange for cultivating a source and encouraging that source to reveal further wrongdoing is an attack on the very process of journalism.”

Mr Assange’s application to appeal on eight other grounds, including those related to press freedom, is currently before the High Court.

Dear friends,

This month we are holding an exhibition at the a/political gallery in Kennington. 

The exhibition is called ‘States of Violence' and will bring together artists and creators whose work opposes government oppression, such as war, torture and surveillance.

Many close supporters of Julian are contributing such as; Ai Wei Wei, Dread Scott and the Vivienne Westwood Foundation.

On display is the largest physical publication of the top secret government cables, which have never been seen before in hardcopy.

There will also be a large public programme hosted by Lowkey as well as a live music event on 8th April.

Please come and show your support…

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/wikileaks-exhibition-london-freedom-speech-2257463

States of Violence is showing from March 24th until April the 8th at The Bacon Factory, 6 Stannery Street. Free entry!

Beat the system is a live music event in Hackney on the 8th of April.

See you there.

Join me and kids this Saturday as we turn the streets of Westminster into a Carnival to Free Julian! 

Our wrap-around-parliament action on October 8th was as huge success and a massive boost of energy and positivity for Julian and I.

The camaraderie and visual spectacle of that political protest inspired us to  continue to build our movement to free Julian with a mid-winter carnival.

This Saturday our Free Assange Night Carnival will breathe life, colour and music into the perennially cold and gloomy Westminster. We even have a 13ft tall Lady Justice puppet (https://onthewight.com/lady-justice-takes-london-13ft-new-carnival-puppet-joins-night-carnival-to-free-assange/). The Carnival's march through the City of Westminster will start at 4pm, from Lincoln's Inn to the Houses of Parliament.

Right after the carnival we will gather at the Emmanuel Centre for a rally with WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson, Ben Westwood, Richard Ratcliffe, Jeremy Corbyn.

This is a participative event so:

• Email us with suggested carnivalesque tracks to play on the PA system (keep it upbeat!).
• For inspiration for what to bring/wear for the carnival, scroll down for replies to my tweet: https://twitter.com/Stella_Assange/status/1621810324671266817

The extradition case against Julian and its protracted passage through the British court system is now widely perceived as an outrageous abuse and the potential 175 year sentence hanging over him if extradited to the United States a ludicrous act of vengeance.

Our movement to free Julian has made huge progress since October.

The five main publishing partners of WikiLeaks published a joint letter calling on US authorities to drop the case against him. The Australian Prime Minister is now openly declaring that Australia is engaging its allies to bring Julian's imprisonment to an end.

The rumour mill in the corridors of power is that winds are changing. Keeping Julian imprisoned is seen increasingly as politically costly.

Julian's freedom will come not from the royal courts but from the clamour of the streets. Once our movement to free him reaches a critical mass he will be freed. That is the nature of political cases. We must continue to build it together. On Saturday, bring friends, family and colleagues. Don't stop fighting, until he is free.

https://dontextraditeassange.com/post/night-carnival-for-assange/ 

Friends,

Thanks to you Saturday was a historic achievement.

Many of you will know that since Saturday, Julian has tested positive for COVID and is now in 24-hour lockdown in his Belmarsh prison cell until further notice. I have told him about the great success on Saturday and I am sending him pictures from the day to lift his spirits. He is profoundly moved by your massive show of support.

No-one knew for certain whether it would work, but the participation of each of you was essential to extend the chain and help make it a success. It is a metaphor of our movement, which we must continue to build stronger and longer and in which each of us are needed to achieve the goal of Julian's freedom.

We came together and in spite of the rail strike, the turnout exceeded our expectations. We needed 5,000 people to complete the circle. We achieved that, and much more. People were standing shoulder to shoulder and in some sections the pavement was crowded. Former British ambassador Craig Murray, who walked around the human chain when the siren went off, estimated numbers were 10,000-12,000. The images from the day speak for themselves.

There were those who had tried to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt to discourage us, but we persevered. We gave a clear and unified message that we are many, we are driven and we are determined. We will not stop until Julian is free.

It was a day of cooperation, solidarity and common purpose, and above all, palpable hope and humanity.

We will continue to build this movement to free Julian by planning more demos, and in the build-up to those, we will bring more talks and events locally. To help us plan these local events we need your help and input, please get in touch.

We are planning more screenings of the films Ithaka and Hacking Justice. Ithaka, about our family's struggle for Julian's freedom, will be showing at the Soho London Independent Film Festival (LIFF) in November. I will be at the screening of Ithaka at the Berlin Human Rights film festival on Thursday and Friday this week.

We need to spread the word about the injustice, cruelty and inhumanity that is keeping a publisher imprisoned on remand, year in and year out, in a high security prison in the middle of London.

We need to call out the farcical claim that what is unfolding is a legitimate legal process. What is unfolding is the opposite of that. It is a political persecution which is instrumentalising the British court system and exploiting extradition arrangements between the two countries. The so-called process itself is punitive, keeping Julian imprisoned year after year while he resists extradition to a US show trial and a grotesque 175 year sentence as punishment for having published the truth.

How can we even pretend that Julian could face a fair and equitable process when it is the country that plotted Julian's assassination that is demanding his extradition? How can anyone credibly argue that it is right for the country whose war crimes and torture Julian exposed in Iraq, Afganistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere to then bring criminal proceedings against him for having published the evidence of the crimes the US government committed? And how can anyone seriously contend that Julian faces a fair trial when US authorities have violated attorney-client privilege through their criminal operations targeting Julian's lawyers and recording their conversations?

Those who benefit from impunity for criminality and corruption committed in the dark are abusing the criminal justice system to punish the man who gave the public the evidence needed to achieve accountability.

This is a case of rampant state corruption, not just evidenced in to the documents that WikiLeaks published but also in the criminal manner in which the political persecution is unfolding against him.

US and British authorities have gone rogue on this matter and we the people must spell out what the rule of law, justice and democracy really mean in this case, and they all come down to one thing: freeing Julian Assange.

Thank you again. And see you next time.

Julian Assange Files his Perfected Grounds of Appeal


Today, 26 August 2022, Julian Assange is filing his Perfected Grounds of Appeal before the High Court of Justice Administrative Court. The Respondents are the Government of the United States and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Priti Patel.

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal contain the arguments on which Julian Assange intends to challenge District Judge Vanessa Baraitser's decision of 4 January 2021, and introduces significant new evidence that has developed since that ruling.

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the United States Government include the following points:

• Julian Assange is being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions (s.81(a) of the Extradition Act);
• Julian Assange is being prosecuted for protected speech (Article 10)
  The request itself violates the US-UK Extradition Treaty and International law because it is for political offences;
• The US Government has misrepresented the core facts of the case to the British courts; and
• The extradition request and its surrounding circumstances constitute an abuse of process.
  
  The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) include arguments that Home Secretary Priti Patel erred in her decision to approve the extradition order on grounds of specialty and because the request itself violates Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.
  
  "Since the last ruling, overwhelming evidence has emerged proving that the United States prosecution against my husband is a criminal abuse. The High Court judges will now decide whether Julian is given the opportunity to put the case against the United States before open court, and in full, at the appeal," said Julian Assange's wife Stella Assange.
  
  Background:
  
  4 January 2021: Westminster Magistrates Court discharges (throws out) the US extradition request against Julian Assange. District judge Vanessa Baraitser rules that extradition is barred under the 2003 Extradition Act because it is "opressive" (s.91). The United States Government appeals.
  
  27-28 October 2021: US appeal hearing before the High Court Appeal. Julian Assange suffers a transient ischemic attack (TIA) on the first day.
  
  10 December 2021: The decision to discharge the extradition request is overturned by the High Court due to the United States Government issuing so-called 'diplomatic assurances' to the UK Government. The High Court rejects the United States Government's arguments that the district judge erred in her findings.
  
  14 March 2022: The Supreme Court refuses Julian Assange permission to appeal the High Court's decision. The case is sent back to the Magistrates' Court with instruction to issue the extradition order.
  
  20 April 2022: The Magistrate issues the extradition order, which is sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel for approval.
  
  17 June 2022: Home Secretary Priti Patel approves the extradition order to extradite Julian Assange to the United States.

Today, Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Julian's extradition to the US, but that is not the end of the road - we will continue to fight for his freedom and we know we can rely on your continued support.

Here is the statement I gave to media outlets today:

"This is a dark day for Press freedom and for British democracy. Anyone in this country who cares about freedom of expression should be deeply ashamed that the Home Secretary has approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the country that plotted his assassination.

Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job.

It was in Priti Patel’s power to do the right thing. Instead, she will forever be remembered as an accomplice of the United States in its agenda to turn investigative journalism into a criminal enterprise.

Foreign laws now determine the limits of press freedom in this country and the journalism that won the industry’s most prestigious prizes has been deemed an extraditable offence and worthy of a life sentence.

The path to Julian’s freedom is long and tortuous. Today is not the end of the fight. It is only the beginning of a new legal battle. We will appeal through the legal system; the next appeal will be before the High Court. We will fight louder and shout harder on the streets, we will organise and we will make Julian’s story known to all.

Make no mistake, this has always been a political case. Julian published evidence that the country trying to extradite him committed war crimes and covered them up; tortured and rendered; bribed foreign officials; and corrupted judicial inquiries into US wrongdoing. Their revenge is to try to disappear him into the darkest recesses of their prison system for the rest of his life to deter others from holding governments to account.

We will not let that happen. Julian's freedom is coupled to all our freedoms. We will fight to return Julian to his family and to regain freedom of expression for us all".

“Thanks everyone for coming today. What happened in court today is precisely what we wanted to happen. The High Court certified that we had raised a point of law of general public importance and that the Supreme Court has good grounds to hear this appeal. The situation now is that the Supreme Court has to decide whether it will hear the appeal but make no mistake we won today in court.

But let’s not forget that every time we win, as long as this case isn’t dropped, as long as Julian isn’t freed, Julian continues to suffer. For almost three years he has been in Belmarsh prison and he is suffering profoundly, day after day, week after week, year after year. Julian has to be freed and we hope that this will soon end.

But we are far from achieving justice in this case because Julian has been incarcerated for so long and he should not have spent a single day in prison. If there had been justice the officials who plotted, who conspired to murder Julian, would be in the courtroom right now. If there were justice, the crimes that Julian exposed, war crimes, the killing of innocent civilians, would not be ignored.

Our fight goes on and we will fight this until Julian is free. Thank you.”

As I told journalists outside the High Court, the fight goes on. Please help us to continue the fight to free Julian by contributing to this appeal.

I will update you further when we have recieved a decision from the Supreme Court and, if they agree to hear the case, a new phase of the campaign will begin.

Thank you so much for your continuing support.

This morning at 11:05 Julian Assange filed an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court the High Court's ruling that he can be extradited to the US. 

The High Court's ruling in USA v Assange raises three points of law of general public importance that have an impact on the procedural and human rights safeguards of a wide range of other types of cases.

On December 10th, the High Court upheld the Magistrates’ Court’s assessment, based on the evidence before her, that there was a real risk that, should Julian Assange be extradited to the United States, he would be subjected to near total isolation, including under the regimes of SAMs (Special Administrative Measures) and/or ADX, (administrative maximum prison) and that such isolation would cause his mental condition to deteriorate to such a degree that there was a high risk of suicide. These findings led the lower court to block the extradition under s. 91 of the Extradition Act, which bans "oppressive" extraditions.

However, the High Court overturned the lower court's decision to block the extradition, based solely on the fact that after the US lost the extradition case on January 4th 2021, the US State Department sent a letter to the UK Foreign Office containing conditional assurances in relation to Julian Assange's placement under SAMs and ADX. 

The assurances letter explicitly states in points one and four that "the United States retains the power" to "impose SAMs" on Mr. Assange and to "designate Mr. Assange to ADX" should he say or do anything since January 4, 2021 that would cause the US government to determine, in its subjective assessment, that Julian Assange should be placed under SAMs conditions and/or in ADX Florence. These conditional assurances alone were considered sufficient by the High Court to overturn the lower court's decision.

Under English law, in order for the application to have a chance to be considered by the Supreme Court, first the same High Court judges who ordered Julian Assange's extradition must certify that at least one of the Supreme Court appeal grounds is a point of law of general public importance (s.114 of the 2003 Extradition Act).

Julian Assange's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court is therefore currently under consideration by the High Court judges. It is not known how long it will take for the decision to come down, but it is not expected before the third week of January.

For background, see Julian Assange's filing opposing the US extradition in the High Court. https://defend.wikileaks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Assange-Defense-Appeal-Arguments-and-Extradition-Glossary.pdf

In the meantime, I urge you to continue supporting our legal fight for justice, for freedom of expression and for the rights of journalists and publishers to hold Governments to account. Any donation, no matter how small, will make a huge difference. 

Thank you so much for your continuing support.

The US appeal against a District Judge's decision to block Julian's extradition continued today. Here is a report from Central News, an independent court agency, who has a reporter watching the case:

Mark Summers QC, for Assange, argued he would still be kept in oppressive conditions even if he was not in SAMs.

‘Why are they [the US] allowed to change their case after two years with a mentally vulnerable defendant in custody?

‘Here we are even with the “sea change” there is no assurance at all to assuage concerns about conditions in this case.

‘All the evidence, including from [US assistant attorney Gordon] Kromberg, is that administrative segregation is a prospect.

‘What that means is Mr Assange is almost certainly heading for conditions of extreme isolation, whatever the label one attaches to them, within the prison estate, pre-trial for however long that lasts, and in the event of conviction, or even acquitted.

‘Even in the event of an acquittal, Mr Assange would be brought in front of a grand jury for civil contempt.

‘In the event of conviction, if he does not receive the type of sentence that the sentencing guidelines say he should, if Mr Kromberg does not prosecute Assange for civil contempt, as he has done in other cases, only then, if Australian agrees to have him transferred there, which they may or may not.

‘It would still, on the evidence, take years to process the transfer, around 2 years on average.

‘There is the possibility of Mr Assange having to serve years, or possibly the rest of his life, in extreme isolation, perhaps leading to his death.

‘This is a case where there is credible evidence of US government plans developed at some length to do serious harm to Mr Assange.

‘The US has sought to use a UK court to attain jurisdiction of Mr Assange where they have contemplated assassination and poisoning of that requested person.’

James Lewis, QC, for the US government, said: ‘Diplomatic assurances are a solemn matter, they are not dished out like Smarties.

‘My learned friend said he would in conditions akin to SAMs anyway, because he would be in administrative segregation. Firstly, that only applies to pre-trial.

‘There is a fundamental distinction between administrative segregation and SAMs.

‘It is not isolation.

‘It is just nonsense.

‘The US has never broken a diplomatic assurance, ever.’

Lord Chief Justice Baron Ian Burnett of Maldon, PC, and Lord Justice Holyrode will hand down their decision at a later date. Is is thought that their ruling might not be handed down until six weeks time.

The US appeal against a District Judge's decision to block Julian's extradition continued this morning. Here is a report from Central News, an independent court agency, who has a reporter watching the case:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was a target of a CIA plot to assassinate him in the Ecuadorian embassy, the High Court heard today.

The US government are trying to put the 50-year-old on trial for espionage and hacking but a judge blocked his extradition in January due to the risk he would commit suicide in an American jail.

The Australian is accused by the US government of conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak classified military documents between January and May 2010.

A US grand jury indicted him on 18 charges last year – 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act – including conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified diplomatic and military documents.

Assange's lawyers claim he faces up to 175 years in jail if convicted, although the US government responded the sentence will probably be between four and six years.

James Lewis QC, for the US, has said the Court of Appeal should grant the extradition since the US government has given diplomatic assurances about Assange’s treatment that fundamentally alter the nature of the case.

If the court does order the Australian's extradition, the case would then be sent to Priti Patel for the Home Secretary to give her final decision.

He also criticised Professor Michael Kopelman for not revealing Assange was in a relationship with Stella Moris when he first gave evidence about Assange’s mental state last year.

Assange did not attend the second day of the appeal at the High Court today (thurs) due to his recently increased medicine dose, which has caused him to suffer from fatigue.

Edward Fitzgerald, QC, for Assange, said Professor Kopelman was a reliable witness, adding extradition should always be denied when there is a high risk of suicide, even if protective measures would be put in place to prevent it.

Mr Fitzgerald said: ‘The general evidence is any, or most, people, will find a way [to commit suicide].

‘People find a way to commit suicide whether they are clever or not clever, but when they are driven.

‘Given the severity of his condition he will be driven to take his own life, whatever the steps that are taken, whatever the conditions.

‘There is nothing to suggest that these factors have changed in the least bit since the extradition hearing.

‘This is not in the distant future but the moment he lands in America.

‘It is absurd to say you can’t look further down the line. If you know the requested person is going to put in torturous conditions after 2 years, you can’t say you can only look at the first six months.

‘This is a person with serious mental disorder.

‘The US has recklessly stated that there was a finding that the court has been mislead, and that is not true, there was not such as finding.

‘There have been a number of reports in the press that there was such a finding.’

Mr Fitzgerald described the ‘frightful and menacing’ situation Assange found himself in, as the US government conducted covert surveillance on Assange and Ms Moris inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

He continued: ‘There are great grounds for fearing what will be done to him given the revelations of surveillance in the embassy and plots to kill him.

‘They were taking about poisoning, kidnapping, and killing Mr Assange, in these circumstances, of course there would be concerns for Ms Moris’s safety.'

Referring to District Judge Vanessa Baraitser's decision in January not to grant Assange's extradition, citing a real risk of suicide, Mr Fitzgerald said:

‘The judgement of the district judge was humane and wise.

‘The judge had every reason to find Professor Kopelman’s reticence to be reasonable.'

On the orders of US government agents, Ecuadorian embassy security staff photocopied Assange’s lawyers' notes, took DNA evidence from the nappies of his children and planted surveillance devices inside the embassy, the court heard.

Mr Fitzgerald also cited Professor Keith Rix’s report on whether Professor Kopelman’s breached ethical guidelines, saying there was a ‘need to maintain the confidentiality of a family member with very young children whose privacy and safety might be put at risk by inappropriate and premature disclosure of a relationship with a very high-profile individual, who had become the declared target of the agencies of a powerful foreign state.’

He said: ‘This was not done to maintain a tactical advantage, it was done to protect Stella Moris.’

The extradition request was denied in January, but the US is appealing the decision claiming Professor Kopelman, was not a reliable witness as he did not disclose Assange had a child while living at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Members of Assange’s family and friends appeared in court at the Royal Courts of Justice while supporters protested outside with banners, megaphones, and a sound-system, chanting: ‘There’s only one decision, no extradition!’

The charges relate to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and secret cables about Guantanamo Bay.

This included the notorious ‘Collateral Murder’ video, which showed the July 2007 killing by an American Apache helicopter crew of eleven civilians, including Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and Saeed Chmagh, 40.

The video, recorded by the helicopter gun-sight, showed the helicopter crew firing into a group of Iraqi civilian men in New Baghdad after being given permission from a commanding officer, killing 11 men and seriously wounding two children.

Judge Baraitser had said there was a 'real risk' Assange would be locked up at the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) if convicted, which would cause Assange’s mental health to significantly deteriorate.

The US government gave the UK diplomatic assurances Assange would not be put in Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), an restrictive form of solitary confinement reserved for terrorism and national security prisoners

But the US reserved the right to impose SAMs if they conclude a future ‘act’ met the test for it.

Under SAMs, it would be a criminal offence for Assange to even speak to another prisoner, the court heard.

The US also gave assurances it would consent to transferring Assange to an Australian prison if he applies for it after he is convicted and sentenced, and will not be housed in Colorado supermax prison ADX Florence before trial.

Assange would also receive any required medical treatment while in US custody, the US government assured.

District Judge Baraitser wrote in her ruling any extradition should be barred 'if it is unjust or oppressive to due to a person's health.

'Mr Assange suffers from a recurrent depressive disorder which was severe in September 2019 and is sometimes accompanied by psychotic features.

'Mr Assange suffers from autism spectrum disorder albeit a highly functioning autistic case and Asperger's syndrome disorder.

'Not withstanding the strong and constant support of his family… Mr Assange has remained severely or moderately clinically depressed throughout his detention at HMP Belmarsh.

'He had suicidal or self-harming thoughts, felt despairing or hopeless and had plans to end his life...he has made frequent requests for access to the Samaritans.

'The thoughts of self harm and suicide… led to a plan for him to be monitored.

'He has already made suicidal plans… and taken steps to plan for his death by preparing a will.

'The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man.'

Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US from Sweden for rape allegations dating back to 2010 that he always denied.

Swedish authorities dropped the rape allegations, but Assange was dragged out of the embassy by British police and imprisoned for 50 weeks in April 2019 for breaching his bail conditions after his asylum period expired.

Assange has been in custody in Belmarsh Prison ever since.

Earlier today former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for Assange to be released as he addressed a small crowd of people again gathered outside the High Court.

Mr Corbyn said Assange should be 'hailed' for telling the truth.

The appeal hearing continues.

Day 1 of the extradition hearing was mainly taken up by the prosecution putting foward its case for why the District Judge's decision should be overturned and Julian's extradition should be allowed to go ahead. The defence arguments will be heard in detail on Thursday.

Here is an account of the afternoon's hearing from Central Press, a court agency who have a reporter covering the case:

For the prosecution, James Lewis QC said: ‘No one who has ever been extradited from the UK to the US has ever committed suicide. That is a fact.

‘The judge focused on the ability to get around suicide prevention measures. The judge’s approach carries the risk of rewarding fugitives for their flight. It becomes a trump card, everyone will say that they are clever enough to get around suicide prevention measures.

‘The handing of that trump card to fugitives cannot be a proper way of dealing with extradition.’

Mr Lewis also stated Assange would not receive a lengthy sentence of imprisonment. He cited the cases of alleged hackers Daniel Hale and Reality Winner, who received prison sentences of 45 months and 63 months respectively.

The prosecutor then criticised Professor Kopelman, particularly the professor’s failure to disclose the fact Assange was in a relationship and had fathered two children with Stella Moris while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Ms Moris’s relationship with Assange was revealed in the press during the initial extradition hearing. Professor Kopelman had initially hidden Ms Moris’s relationship with Assange because he was concerned for her privacy, the court heard.

The barrister then called Kopelman’s view that Assange would be at risk of suicide in a US prison a ‘completely settled, biased, unobjective opinion’.

Mr Lewis continued: ‘What is crucially important is Professor Kopelman did not say he knew this all along ‘He didn’t say his first report should be considered in light of this fact, and he should not have signed the statement of truth. His notes made it clear that, for the first time, his report was misleading.’

Referring to District Judge Baraitser’s opinion that this was an ‘understandable, human response’, Mr Lewis said: ‘One does not know what understandable response means when an expert witness has a duty to the court.’

‘She failed to appreciate the significance of the fact Prof Kopelman was willing to mislead on a material issue. Experts are not allowed to make misleading statements to the court for any reason. The judge treated this as if it is a relatively minor matter, that is not how the Supreme Court sees it.’

Assange had also told another doctor he would not commit suicide due to his concern for his son from a previous relationship, the court heard.

Referring to Assange’s diagnosis of autism at the age of 48, Mr Lewis said: ‘It would be frankly inconceivable that a person given custody in Australia could be autistic, he was given custody of his son.’

Edward Fitzgerald QC for Assange, called the appeal ‘an attempt to re-litigate the case.

‘Firstly, this was a carefully reasoned and carefully considered judgement,' he said.

‘This picture that my learned friend tries to paint, of Professor Kopelman as this lone wolf is absolute nonsense. I just wonder some times if my learned friend’s reading the same judgment we are.’

Addressing Mr Lewis’s argument that District Judge Baraitser did not give sufficient reasoning why she preferred Professor Kopelman’s evidence to the prosecution’s psychiatric evidence, Mr Fitzgerald said they (the US government) were asking for ‘4,000 page judgments’.

Mr Fitzgerald continued: ‘It is perfectly reasonable to find it oppressive to extradite a mentally disordered person because his extradition is likely to result in his death.’

Mr Fitzgerald also pointed out that Australia may not accept Assange if the US agrees to allow him to serve his sentence there, and that the US’s assurances did not guarantee Assange would not be placed in SAMs if he was convicted.

The appeal hearing continues on Thursday.

The US appeal against a District Judge's decision to block Julian's extradition began this morning. The opening of the case was based on the prosecution's argument that his extradition should go ahead. Here is a report from Central News, an independent court agency, who has a reporter watching the case:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be put into solitary confinement in the US which would stop him even speaking to another prisoner, the High Court heard today.

The US government want to try the 50-year-old for espionage, but a judge blocked his extradition in January because of the risk he would commit suicide in an American jail.

The Australian is accused by the US government of conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak classified military documents between January and May 2010. A US grand jury indicted him on 18 charges last year – 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act – including conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified diplomatic and military documents.

Assange's lawyers have said he faces up to 175 years in jail if convicted, although the US government claimed the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years.

The extradition was blocked last January, but the US is appealing the decision, saying one of Assange's key witnesses, psychologist Doctor Michael Kopelman, was not a reliable witness as he did not disclose Assange had a child while living at the Ecuadorian embassy.

The charges relate to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and secret cables about Guantanamo Bay.

This included the notorious ‘Collateral Murder’ video, which showed the July 2007 killing by an American Apache helicopter crew of eleven civilians, including Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and Saeed Chmagh, 40. The video, recorded by the helicopter gun-sight, showed the helicopter crew firing into a group of Iraqi civilians in New Baghdad after being given permission from a commanding officer. Two children were also seriously wounded.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser had said there was a 'real risk' Assange would be locked up at the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) if convicted, which would cause Assange’s mental health to significantly deteriorate.

Assange initially did not attend the hearing at the High Court due to his recently increased medicine dose, but later appeared for part of the hearing via videolink from Belmarsh prison wearing a white shirt, black facemask, and a black tie.

James Lewis QC, for the US, said the court should grant the extradition since the US government has given diplomatic assurances about Assange’s treatment that fundamentally alter the nature of the case.

If the court granted the extradition, the case would be sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel for her to give the final decision.

The US government said Assange would not be put in Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), a restrictive form of solitary confinement reserved for terrorism and national security prisoners.

However, the US reserved the right to impose SAMs if they conclude a future ‘act’ met the test for it. Under SAMs, it would be a criminal offence for Assange even to speak to another prisoner, the court heard.

The US also gave assurances it would consent to transferring Assange to an Australian prison if he applied for a transfer after he is convicted and sentenced, and that he would not be housed in Colorado supermax prison ADX Florence before trial. Assange would also receive any required medical treatment while in US custody, it was claimed.

Mr Lewis said: ‘Even without the assurances, we maintain the District Judge was wrong to come to the conclusions she did.

‘The district judge, having concluded that the psychiatric expert called on behalf of the defence misled her, ought to have ruled that his evidence was incapable of being relied upon. In light of the assurances, the district judge would have sent the case to the Home Secretary.

‘In our submission, the District Judge entirely based her decision on the imposition of SAMs pre- and post-trial at ADX Florence.

‘If he commits a further act, it must be open to the US to impose SAMs, otherwise it would give him a blank cheque to do whatever he could, if those conditions could not be imposed.

‘We never understood that assurances were necessary. Our position was that it was highly unlikely he would be subject to Special Administrative Measures. We have now dealt with these problems through these assurances. District Judge Baraitser's prediction was based on a risk of suicide brought about by a set of circumstances which might occur.’

In a written skeleton argument submitted to the court, Mr Lewis also said: ‘Proceeding on the basis that an individual has the ability to circumvent suicide prevention measures becomes a trump card.

‘It negates that a requesting state may have the resources, the treatment and suicide prevention measures (equivalent to those in the UK) to treat psychiatric illness and manage the risk of suicide. It also assumes that no treatment in the requesting state could reduce the risk of suicide before it becomes acute.

‘The District Judge’s approach carries with it the risk of rewarding fugitives for their flight, and of creating an anomaly between the approach of the Courts in domestic criminal proceedings, and in extradition. In the domestic context, it would never be said that an individual accused of crimes of the severity of Mr Assange’s could not be put on trial (despite being fit to be tried) because of his determination to commit suicide.’

District Judge Baraitser said in her January ruling that extradition should be barred 'if it is unjust or oppressive to due to a person's health’.

'Mr Assange suffers from a recurrent depressive disorder which was severe in September 2019 and is sometimes accompanied by psychotic features.

'Mr Assange suffers from autism spectrum disorder albeit a highly functioning autistic case and Asperger's syndrome disorder.

'Not withstanding the strong and constant support of his family… Mr Assange has remained severely or moderately clinically depressed throughout his detention at HMP Belmarsh.

'He had suicidal or self-harming thoughts, felt despairing or hopeless and had plans to end his life...he has made frequent requests for access to the Samaritans. The thoughts of self-harm and suicide… led to a plan for him to be monitored. He has already made suicidal plans… and taken steps to plan for his death by preparing a will. The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man.'

Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US from Sweden for rape allegations dating back to 2010, which he has always denied.

Swedish authorities dropped the rape allegations but he was dragged out of the embassy by British police and imprisoned for 50 weeks in April 2019 for breaching his bail conditions after his asylum period expired.

Assange has been held in Belmarsh Prison ever since and denied bail.

The hearing continues.

It is seven months since Julian’s extradition was blocked by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, yet he has remained in prison, suffering and isolated, despite having committed no crime.

 It took the court six months to decide whether to grant the US government permission to appeal. Permission has been granted on a limited basis; that is to say, two out of the five grounds that the US applied to appeal on were rejected.

 I am appealing once more, on behalf of Julian, for your help to continue our fight for Julian's freedom. The calamitous US-UK Extradition treaty, passed under Blair, provides that the United States government's legal costs are entirely paid for by the UK tax payer. Julian on the other hand, is having to raise the money to defeat the US case.

 The next court date is on Wednesday, August 11th, at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. Julian is expected to attend in person.

 The decision to limit the US appeal was taken by Mr. Justice Jonathan Swift, one of the most senior High Court judges in charge of the Administrative Court (Swift has a reputation of being a conservative judge, recently described by Jolyon Maugham QC as "very Government minded"). Swift found that Judge Baraitser had rightly relied on expert evidence that Julian’s clinical condition meant that he is at a high risk of death if the UK court orders his extradition, as well as supporting her assessment on the integrity of the expert witnesses.

 Wednesday's hearing is NOT the main appeal. It is a preliminary appeal hearing, in which the US government will ask different High Court judges for permission to re-introduce the two grounds that Swift dismissed.

 Wednesday's hearing is important because Swift decided that the appeal should be heard on very narrow, limited legal grounds. He determined that the US government should not be allowed to question the previous judge's decision-making on the facts regarding US prison conditions and Julian's state of health.

 The US government will re-run arguments that have already been settled by two previous judges, including a very senior High Court judge. It seems unlikely that the judges on Wednesday will reach a different conclusion.

 Wednesday's hearing is therefore particularly vexatious. The ultimate strategy by the US government is to try to get the court to dismiss important evidence by one of the most eminent neuropsychiatrists in Britain, Michael Kopelman, regarding Julian’s mental health.

 It is the latest move by the US government to try to game the British legal system. The US government’s handling of the case exposes the underlying nature of the prosecution against Julian: aggressive tactics and subverting the rules so that Julian’s ability to defend himself is obstructed and undermined while he remains in prison for years and years, unconvicted, and held on spurious charges. The “process” is the punishment.

 The real substance of the appeal will take place at the main hearing later this year. But the scope of that hearing, three grounds (narrow) or five (revisiting factual evidence) will be determined at Wednesday's hearing.

 The main hearing later this year will focus on one principal aspect: after having lost the extradition case in January, the US government issued what is referred to as “undertakings” or “assurances”, though both terms are misnomers.

 Julia Hall, Amnesty International's expert on Counter-Terrorism, Criminal Justice and Human Rights, commented that the US 'undertakings' in this case “are not assurances at all" and added "these are inherently unreliable”. (https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2021/07/24/julia-hall-amnesty-international-expert-on-national-security-assange-should-be-released/6272346/)

 The big picture is that any assurance short of dropping the case entirely is entirely worthless. Julian is being punished for doing his job. He published true information that the public had the right to know and which revealed serious wrongdoing on the part of states and their agents.

 Some people have wrongly suggested that the US government’s so-called “assurances” are significant concessions in relation to Julian’s case – for anyone who looks at their wording it is clear that they are no such thing, as Amnesty International has repeatedly exposed.

 Here are a few reasons why experts immediately discound the US 'undertakings' in this case: 

• According to its own filing in the case, the caveats to these “assurances” render them meaningless – the US government can still impose the conditions that Judge Baraitser concluded would kill Julian. In fact, the US "undertakings" impose no obligations whatsoever on US authorities to rule out SAMs and ADX. On the contrary: they say that the US government can impose ADX/SAMs once Julian is in US custody, at any time, for whatever reason they decide, in secret.
• More than 80,000 prisoners a day are held in solitary confinement in the United States outside the Supermax system and the SAMs system according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Even if the US government did not apply SAMs or ADX, Julian would be certain to fall into the category of prisoners held in solitary confinement, conditions that the medical experts in this case have found would drive him to suicide (only some 45 people are held in SAMs and approximately 500 in ADX Florence).
• According to the US government’s own filing, the very US agencies that WikiLeaks and Julian have repeatedly exposed engaging in criminality and wrongdoing, including torture, would play a central role in determining Julian's prison conditions if he were extradited to the United States (28 C.F.R. § 501.2 or § 501.3). News reports have listed these US agencies as having carried out illicit activities targeting Julian and our family. These include agencies that are known for literally institutionalising torture and killing people.
• The pledge that he could finish his sentence in Australia is not a concession, it is existing, agreed protocol between the US and Australia – but it would only be accessible to Julian when all appeals have been exhausted, which will  take more than a decade, maybe even two. The case would inevitably go all the way to the US Supreme Court
• The history of US conduct of the case – bugging the Ecuadorian Embassy, spying on Julian and our family, targeting Julian’s lawyers and violating legal privilege, recording his lawyers’ meetings with him, harvesting DNA from our baby, to name but a few of the known aspects, shows that the US government cannot and should not be trusted to deliver on any “undertakings” they make in relation to Julian. The only criminal activity that has taken place in this case has been committed by the prosecuting state against Julian, his colleagues, friends and family. 

There have however been numerous fleeting reports about the “undertakings” that have completely misconstrued their scope and nature, wrongly suggesting they remove the factors that the Magistrate took into consideration to rule against extradition on January 4th.

 What the US is proposing is a formula to keep Julian in prison effectively for the rest of his life despite mounting international pressure for his release and a widespread acceptance that the US case is built on lies.

 It is ironic that the US appeal was granted days after investigative journalists in Iceland revealed that the Department of Justice’s lead witness Thordarson has admitted that allegations in the indictment against Julian that are based on his testimony are fabricated, and that he became a DoJ witness in exchange for immunity from US prosecutors (https://stundin.is/grein/13627/). Those discredited allegations have grossly misled the UK courts and are repeatedly cited in the judgment delivered on January 4th.

 Julian spent his 50th birthday behind bars in Belmarsh prison, where he has been on remand for two years. He is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job. Julian’s freedom is coupled to all our freedoms - no democratic society can ever make journalism a crime.

 Although there is pressure from legislators, human rights organisations and press freedom groups from around the world for the US to abandon this baseless, politically motivated prosecution, unfortunately we must prepare to fight it in court again. Your generosity and commitment to helping him win this case is overwhelming and he is so grateful for all your support. Thank you from us both.

 Actions:

    Please donate to Julian’s legal costs of the US appeal!

    Protest in front of the High Court in London on August 11th, at 09:00

    Sign the Geneva call to Free Assange (https://pressclub.ch/gva-freeassange/?lang=en)

    Follow the many actions via @deacampaign and others.

Upcoming Dates:

August:

 11 August: A 2-hour Preliminary US appeal hearing and Enough is Enough—Free Assange Now! Protest at the High Court, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London. Julian is expected to attend

 19 August: World Humanitarian Day

 30 August: International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

 September

 5 September: Father’s Day (Australia)

 10 September: World Suicide Prevention Day

 21 September: International Day of Peace

 26 September: German elections

 26 September: International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

 28 September: International Day for Universal Access to Information

October

 2 October: International Day of Non-violence

 3-6 October: Tory Party Conference in Manchester

 10 October: World Mental Health Day

 22 October: 11-year anniversary of the publication of the Iraq War Logs

 24-31 October: Global Media and Information Literacy Week

 24-31 October: Disarmament Week

November

 1-12 November 2021: UK Climate Change Conference UK 2021 – COP26, Glasgow COP26 conference will see the world's leaders travel to Glasgow to discuss global climate and health challenges.

 2 November: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists

 29 November: 11-year anniversary of the publication of Cablegate (US State Department cables)

 December

 7 December: 11-year anniversary of Julian's deprivation of liberty. Julian was arrested on this day in 2010 and has never been free since.

Six months have passed since an English court refused my partner Julian’s extradition to the United States – ruling that sending him to America would be so oppressive it would drive him to suicide.

Here is an update on the legal case and other activity.

President Biden in Europe as politicians urge him to drop Julian’s extradition

Joe Biden arrived in Europe for several important engagements: the G7 in the UK, a NATO Summit and EU trade meeting in Brussels, and a further summit in Geneva.

Coinciding with his presence in the UK, members of the UK Parliament from all major political parties wrote a letter to President Biden noting that the United Kingdom is “increasingly confronted with the contradiction of advocating for press freedom abroad while holding Mr. Assange for years in the UK's most notorious prison at the request of the US government”, and that “We appeal to you to drop this prosecution, an act that would be a clarion call for freedom that would echo around the globe.” (https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1403361729329967105)

On the day President Biden arrived in the UK, the House of Commons held a debate about the Safety of Journalists. John McDonnell MP said that: “It is a continuing stain on the reputation of this country that Julian Assange remains in Belmarsh prison. There are no justifiable grounds for keeping imprisoned a journalist who had the courage to expose war crimes and abuse of human rights." (https://twitter.com/DEAcampaign/status/1403038506021265415)

Richard Burgon MP made a powerful speech in the Commons urging Biden to drop the appeal against Julian. (https://twitter.com/DEAcampaign/status/1403026231415742465)

Our family is campaigning for Julian’s freedom on both sides of the Atlantic

Julian’s father John Shipton and brother Gabriel are currently in the United States travelling from city to city to raise awareness about Julian’s case and what’s at stake: both Julian’s life and the future of the First Amendment (Tour Itinerary: https://assangedefense.org/tour/). Earlier this week, John and Gabriel collected the 2021 Sacco and Vanzetti Award on Julian’s behalf in Boston. The award is named after one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in US history.

Earlier this month, I was in Switzerland where the Geneva Press Club organised the city of Geneva’s call for Julian’s freedom (https://twitter.com/DEAcampaign/status/1402949743744106497). There was massive media interest, given partly that President Biden’s visit to the city is just days away. The mayor of Geneva, Frédérique Perler, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, and Geneva Councilor of States, Carlo Sommaruga took part, while approximately forty media organisations attended a press conference. A statue of Julian, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning by Italian sculptor Davide Dormino sits on the Bains de Paquis pier in the heart of Geneva as Biden will be visiting the city.

It was the same story in Paris a week earlier where there was overwhelming media interest in Julian’s case and strong support for our campaign. I met with politicians, gave numerous interviews (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKlzHq7E2iM), and had a Q&A session with law and politics students (https://www.facebook.com/canalnetworkassas/videos/305802761024086/).

Our family is continuing to call on the Biden administration – which has declared itself to be a champion of free speech – to drop the extradition of Julian. We are urging the governments involved to get behind our call to President Biden to drop the charges and allow Julian to be reunited with his family.

The legal state of play

Blocking the extradition was the result we wanted. However, the US is trying to appeal that decision and the UK’s High Court is yet to announce whether it will grant permission for the appeal to be heard.

Shortly after making the decision to block extradition in January the same court also refused Julian bail. This means that, despite being an innocent man, convicted of nothing, Julian has remained behind bars in the UK’s most notorious prison for more than two years, facing an indictment brought by the Trump administration for exposing Bush-era war crimes, with restricted access to his lawyers and rarely able to see his family in person.

We have not been in the same room since he was in court in January and Julian has not been able to see our two sons since last October. Only in the last couple of weeks have I been able to apply for a prison visit, which will hopefully take place later in June.

Julian has now been in continuous incarceration for over a decade. I know that he is suffering and the longer this goes on the harder it becomes. The passing of time only reinforces the evidence given by experts at Julian’s extradition hearing - that being in prison, as someone with Asperger’s and long-term depression, takes a huge toll on his well-being and is life-threatening.

Our dearest wish is that he will be able to come home in time to celebrate his 50th birthday on July 3 with his family. But the system continues to move slowly.

The High Court’s decision could come any day – and, if permission to appeal is granted, it will mean several more months of incarceration for Julian while we wait for another hearing and prepare our defence.

The uncertainty is very tough, but your support keeps us going. Thankfully, there is an ever-growing number of media organisations, free speech campaigners and international politicians joining our campaign to free Julian.

In Geneva I invited everyone to join my fight to free Julian. We need to break the deadlock. That involves recognising that this is primarily a political case, not a legal one. It is a policy choice by the Biden administration to continue to prosecute publishers, which is not consistent with their other policy position on press freedom. Bringing these two positions into alignment necessitates the Biden administration dropping the case and Julian’s freedom.

It is a policy decision by the US government to go after foreign publishers working abroad. The extraterritorial application of US criminal laws on foreign publishers’ activities encroaches on the sovereignty of other countries, the sovereignty of allied countries, and it limits the scope of their civil liberties and press freedoms.

That is why insisting President Biden end this extradition is not just about the humanitarian considerations or the gross injustice of this case, but is also in the UK’s own interest, in Europe’s own interest, and in the interests of those who cherish the political openness enshrined in the US First Amendment.

This is not simply a legal matter. It is a politically motivated case and journalism is on trial as well as Julian. If the court’s decision to block extradition is reversed as a result of the US appeal, then all journalists could face the same fate. Politicians have a responsibility to recognize this, and the power to end this.

Please continue to raise awareness of this case and donate what you can to help us defend Julian – and, from both of us, thank you for your support.

Stella Moris

Upcoming dates:

It is very effective to organise campaign events around the political calendar, for example Biden’s travels, and the travels of other senior members of the Biden administration.

June

14 June: NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium

15 June: EU – US summit Brussels, Belgium

16 June: Biden-Putin Summit in Geneva, Switzerland

20 June: Father’s Day (UK), World Refugee Day

23 June: World Whistleblower Day

26 June: UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture and Start of Assange Week (ends 4 July). Follow @deacampaign for campaign events planned during this week. I have called for a global Lamington bake, like the kids and I did last year: https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/status/1402013244152172558.

July

3 July: Julian’s 50th birthday

14 July: Deadline for evidence to the UK Parliament’s Open Consultation on Safety of Journalists

18 July: Nelson Mandela Day

25 July: 11-year anniversary of the publication of the Afghan War Diaries

30 July: Whistleblower Day (United States)

August:

19: August: World Humanitarian Day

30 August: International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

September

5 September: Father’s Day (Australia)

10 September: World Suicide Prevention Day

21 September: International Day of Peace

26 September: German elections

26 September: International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

28 September: International Day for Universal Access to Information

October

2 October: International Day of Non-violence

10 October: World Mental Health Day

22 October: 11-year anniversary of the publication of the Iraq War Logs

24-31 October: Global Media and Information Literacy Week

24-31 October: Disarmament Week

November

1-12 November 2021: UK Climate Change Conference UK 2021 – COP26, Glasgow COP26 conference will see the world's leaders travel to Glasgow to discuss global climate and health challenges.

2 November: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists

29 November: 11-year anniversary of the publication of Cablegate (US State Department cables)

December

7 December: 11-year anniversary of Julian's deprivation of liberty. Julian was arrested on this day in 2010 and has never been free since.

It has been another week of suffering for my partner, the publisher and human rights defender Julian Assange. He remains inside Belmarsh Prison where he continues to be held as a prisoner, even though he is not convicted of anything - in the same conditions as convicted murderers and armed robbers. He is now into his third year of arbitrary, pre-trial imprisonment, awaiting the outcome of the US government's application for permission to appeal.

A few days ago I gave a briefing to a group of parliamentarians from eleven countries about Julian's case:

I said: "[The 11th of April] was the two year anniversary of Julian's arrest and incarceration in Belmarsh. There were protests, and vigils on five continents and stories in the major UK Sunday papers. A double decker bus filled with people and draped with "Free Assange" followed the path from Julian's arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy to Belmarsh prison, where Julian has been buried from public view for the last two years. If it weren't for Julian's communications with me and a limited number of other people, he would have no idea of what was going on not only around the world, but fifty yards from the cell that holds him." (Full briefing: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WdWbMqZomtY.)

The prison system takes a long time to navigate, and even when you have a sense of what is going on, bureaucratic hurdles can appear out of nowhere. This happened for a few days last week, when contact with Julian was unexpectedly disrupted. It meant the vital contact which keeps him and us going stopped until it was re-established through mechanisms neither of us control.

These types of problems pale in comparison with the extraordinary difficulty of preparing a complex case such as his from prison, where Julian's access to his own court documents and prosecution material is partial and delayed. Julian hadn't even seen his lawyers in person for 6 months before the extradition hearing in September. There is no question that the prosecution has a major advantage when the defendant has to prepare his case from prison. That was true even before COVID, but COVID has made everything immensely more difficult.

Although COVID restrictions have eased in the UK, inmates in Belmarsh are still unable to receive family visits in person. We have not been able to see each other in person since October, except for in the court room. The last time I was in the same room as Julian was on January 6th, when his bail application was refused. He hasn't been able to hold his little boys in his arms for over a year.

Julian's defence team served its objections to the US Government's request for permission to appeal on April 6th. The team also informed the Court of the cross-appeal points it will pursue if the High Court agrees to hear the US appeal. We expect the court to grant permission to hear the appeal, because that is normally what happens.

In the meantime, the campaign has to focus on the big picture and plan around the political calendar rather than the court calendar, because court dates are constantly subject to change and delay. The political calendar, and key dates such as Julian's 50th birthday on the 3rd of July, are the best guide for planned actions.

Julian is not charged with anything in the UK, and the case that has been brought against him has been blasted by every credible international and press freedom organization. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer recently did a briefing to a group of 40 countries' members of parliament. The United Nations expert has just published a book about Julian's case in German. His investigation concluded that "The prosecution [against Assange] isn't pursuing law and injustice, it is pursuing political purposes. Therefore it is a persecution, not a prosecution." (Watch Melzer's briefing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1v6H0nRVzU).

Thanks for your continuing support. Please share this fundraiser and follow me (@stellamoris1 on twitter) and visit https://dontextraditeassange.com

Key dates:

24 April

10-year anniversary of the publication of the Guantanamo Bay Detainee Assessment Briefs (also known as the Gitmo Files https://wikileaks.org/gitmo/). The potential sentence for exposing this publication is 40 years, according the Trump indictment. Guantanamo Bay has been in the news because the Biden Administration has announced its intention to close the prison camp. A new film has been released based on Mohamedou Ould Salahi who was detained without charge in GITMO, and eventually freed, called The Mauritanian. In addition to the Detainee Assessment Briefs, WikiLeaks published numerous documents exposing prisoner abuse in the secretive prison at Guantanamo Bay (https://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Analyses).

May

This is very tentative but in May it is possible there will be a hearing in the High Court concerning the US government's appeal against January’s extradition decision – if the courts allow permission for an appeal.

June

26 June: Start of 'Assange week; for Julian's 50th birthday, ending on Julian's birthday on July 3rd

July

3 July: Julian's 50th birthday

25 July: 11 year anniversary of the publication of the Afghan War Diaries

October

22 October: 11 year anniversary of the publication of the Iraq War Logs

November

1-12 November 2021: COP26 UN Climate Conference to be held in Glasgow. The COP26 conference will see the world's leaders travel to Glasgow to discuss global climate and health challenges.

28/29 November: 11 year anniversary of the publication of Cablegate (US State Department cables)

December

7 December: 11-year anniversary of Julian's deprivation of liberty. Julian was arrested on this day in 2010 and has never been free since.

#DropTheCharge #FreeAssangeNOW

Stella Moris

I want to thank everyone on behalf of Julian and myself for helping to raise the funds to defend him against the US extradition appeal. This fundraiser has now passed £75,000 which will help to support the new legal challenges.

I hope Julian will be able to spend his 50th birthday this year on July 3rd at home, safe and with his kids. But it is by no means a certainty, so I ask everyone to redouble your efforts to make sure that his liberty becomes a reality. There is a severe risk that the lower court's decision could be reversed, and if Julian is extradited it would be a death sentence.

Small actions have a multiplying effect, and we must step up efforts until he is a free man.

Pressure must mount on the Biden Administration, and especially incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland, to break with this Trump-era indictment, to "return to sanity" and to the Obama-era policy not to prosecute Julian. Biden and his Justice Department under new leadership must drop the charges. These efforts should also extend to lawmakers and administration officials at the federal and state levels.

There are some key dates coming up which are really important to Julian and our campaign:

5 April

11-year anniversary of the Collateral Murder/Rules of Engagement publication: https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/. The video footage, taken from an Apache helicopter gunsight, showed the crew firing on a group of men and killing them, including two journalists from Reuters. It provoked a debate about the Iraq War and accountability for war crimes. The potential sentence Julian faces for his part in releasing this publication is 40 years, according to the Trump-era indictment. Whenever you hold an event about Julian please show the Collateral Murder video if the opportunity lends itself. Many people, especially those under the age of 30, have not seen the video. The video is key to understanding why the US administration wants to silence Julian.

11 April

This marks the 2-year anniversary of Julian's incarceration in Belmarsh prison. Julian is now into his 11th year of deprivation of liberty. Julian has not been a free man since his arrest without charge in December 2010. He was held in Wandsworth prison from 7 - 16 December 2010; then under house arrest from 16 December - 19 June 2012; then besieged at the embassy of Ecuador where he was granted political asylum in order to protect him from US extradition between 19 June 2012 and 11 April 2019. The UN (WGAD 54/2015) concluded that UK and Sweden were acting unlawfully by arbitrarily depriving him of his liberty. The UN demanded his freedom of movement be restored in February 2016. US charges were unsealed on the day of his arrest (Sweden never presented charges and dropped the investigation shortly after). Julian has been incarcerated in Belmarsh prison since 11 April 2019 to the present day, under a Trump-administration indictment, for exposing Bush-era war crimes.

24 April

10-year anniversary of the publication of the Guantanamo Bay Detainee Assessment Briefs (also known as the Gitmo Files https://wikileaks.org/gitmo/). The potential sentence for exposing this publication is 40 years, according the Trump indictment. Guantanamo Bay has been in the news because the Biden Administration has announced its intention to close the prison camp. A new film has been released based on Mohamedou Ould Salahi who was detained without charge in GITMO, and eventually freed, called The Mauritanian. In addition to the Detainee Assessment Briefs, WikiLeaks published numerous documents exposing prisoner abuse in the secretive prison at Guantanamo Bay (https://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Analyses).

May

This is very tentative but in May it is possible the High Court appeal against January’s extradition decision will be held – if the courts allow an appeal.

3 July

Julian's 50th birthday.

1-12 November 2021

COP26 UN Climate Conference to be held in Glasgow. The COP26 conference will see the world's leaders travel to Glasgow to discuss global climate and health challenges.

Please keep sharing our CrowdJustice page with friends, family, colleagues and anyone else who might be able to donate.

#FreeAssangeNOW

#DropTheCharges

Stella Moris

It has been another busy week for my partner Julian Assange's legal team and for the wider community of supporters.

Julian's lawyers are preparing submissions to counter the US application to appeal the Magistrate Court's decision of 4 January 2021, which blocked the extradition on grounds that extraditing Julian would be tantamount to the death penalty.

In Australia, which is heading into a general election in the second half of this year, the head of the main opposition party, Anthony Albanese, is now calling for Julian to be freed after more than a decade of having his freedom denied.

In the United States, the incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland could drop the charges against Julian entirely. This would align Biden's administration with Obama's, rather than Trump's, on the WikiLeaks matter. If Garland opts to pursue the Trump administration's indictment against Julian it will adopt, entrench and continue the most serious assault unleashed by the Trump administration against the press and civil liberties.

It was the Trump administration which brought charges against Julian, all relating to the revelations he helped to expose about Guantanamo Bay, the US embassy cables, and the Bush-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Garland faces a choice: whether to continue the Trump administration's war on the press or defend the integrity of the US Constitution.

It is possible that Merrick Garland will see sense and drop the charges. Julian's indictment is opposed by people within the administration. The press and virtually every press freedom group have advocated for the US to end this prosecution because it criminalises journalism itself. Even within the administration, the political nature of the case and its threat to the Constitution has reportedly led to resignations.

The outgoing US prosecutor Zachary Terwilliger gave an interview the day after the US lost its bid to extradite Julian before the Magistrates' Court. Terwilliger anticipated that the new Attorney General would look at the case afresh and determine whether the case should be continued, further evidencing that there is already disagreement within the ranks.

Keep up the pressure on the Biden administration to return to the right position, the position under Obama.

Please share these updates with your networks and help us raise money to pay for the legal costs to defend against this outrageous appeal.

#DropTheCharges

#FreeAssangeNOW

Stella Moris

It is a busy time for the lawyers working on my partner Julian Assange’s extradition case. Last Friday was the deadline for the US government to finalise its application to the High Court, asking for permission to appeal last month’s decision. Earlier in the week, a coalition of dozens of major US press freedom groups had called on the Biden Administration to drop the charges against Julian.

The next step in the legal case is that Julian’s legal team will respond to the US grounds for appeal. Julian's lawyers are hard at work. Julian's team has asked the High Court to give them more time to consider whether to lodge a cross appeal in order to challenge parts of the ruling where the magistrate did not side with Julian and the press freedom arguments. A cross appeal would provide an opportunity to clear Julian’s name properly.

On January 4, a UK magistrates court ruled that it was unsafe to extradite Julian because to do so would likely result in his death. The magistrate took into account extensive medical evidence and blocked the extradition on grounds that to extradite him would be so oppressive as to be contrary to s.91 of the Extradition Act. Although Julian won at the Magistrates Court, the magistrate did not side with him on the wider public interest arguments.

We wanted a UK court to properly quash the extradition and refute the other grounds too. We wanted a finding that the extradition is an attempt to criminalise journalism, not just in the US but in the UK and the rest of the world as well; and that the decision to indict Julian was a political act, a violation of the treaty, a violation of his human rights and an abuse of process.

Julian’s extradition team is considering all these issues, and whether they can be cross-appealed. The Court will set the deadline for the defence to submit its response, and once it has all the arguments before it, the High Court will decide whether it wishes to grant permission for the appeal to be heard.

Meanwhile, Julian – who is an unconvicted innocent man – remains on remand in the high security Belmarsh Prison where he has been for over 500 days. He should be home with his kids, but he was refused bail. There are many terrible things about Belmarsh, not least how cold it has been over the last couple of weeks and that he is isolated in a cell practically all day long.

However, the most pressing problem for Julian is that conditions in detention continue to obstruct his ability to prepare his legal case, a case on which his life depends. He is denied proper access to his lawyers--his legal team is unable to do in-person visits because of Covid, and there are months of waiting lists for video conferencing. There are delays in legal papers reaching him and the laptop issued by UK authorities for the court case is read-only, it has no text editing programs, and the keys are glued down to prevent him from typing. This makes it all but impossible for him to provide adequate feedback to his team with regards to the materials required for the appeal.

The campaign is now at its most critical point. We cannot afford to have the Magistrate Court's ruling reversed on appeal.

The Biden Administration will soon appoint its new Attorney General and this will be an important moment to raise the pressure on the Biden Administration to live up to its commitments to defend press freedom and drop the charges against Julian. The Obama administration, of which Biden was Vice President, decided not to pursue charges against Julian because it recognised that to do so would be a wider attack on press freedom.

It was the Trump administration which charged him and pursued the extradition as part of its war against journalism.

Do whatever you can, however you can to help raise awareness about Julian's case in the coming weeks and months, until Julian's freedom is secured. Go to the dontextraditeassange.com campaign site for resources and ideas.

Please keep sharing this fundraising appeal with friends, family, colleagues and anyone else who might be able to donate. This is a David and Goliath battle, and the US government has unlimited resources. Keep explaining why Julian is guilty of nothing other than exposing truths about US war crimes and human rights abuses. An attack on him is an attack on a free press.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

#FreeAssangeNOW

#DropTheCharges

Stella Moris

Our High Court appeal fund has reached £50,000, thanks to your generous support towards Julian’s new legal fight.

Over 1000 people have pledged to help defend Julian against the appeal of the extradition hearing decision.

The High Court appeal was lodged by the US government in the final days of the Trump administration. Julian and I are enormously grateful and heartened by the amazing support. More and more people understand what is at stake and the need for Julian to be free, and we need that to continue until Julian comes home.

On January 4 a UK Magistrates Court issued a ruling blocking the US government's request to extradite Julian. The UK magistrate ruled that extraditing him would be unsafe. The magistrate accepted that the evidence showed a high likelihood that Julian would die if the UK decided to extradite him. However, the US is now seeking to overturn that decision on appeal.

Although Julian won, he was refused bail, so he continues to be held as an unconvinced ‘remand’ prisoner in Belmarsh high security prison, where he has been for 22 months. He's been there for longer than many violent convicts. He faces difficult conditions, isolated for most of the day, which are compounded by Covid. In his block there were 97 inmates who had tested positive for Covid-19 by the end of December.

Julian should be warm, at home with me and his two sons. Max just turned two and we were forced to spend yet another birthday apart. Julian is really suffering with the cold weather. Even though winter clothes were sent to him in early October, Julian has still not received them. When he goes outside in the exercise yard he is having to layer up his existing clothes, which are not warm enough.

Many people are asking the Biden Administration to distance itself from the Trump-era prosecution of Julian, and to drop the charges entirely. Doing so would be in keeping with President Obama’s position that the US should not prosecute Julian because the case is the biggest single threat against press freedom. If the Biden Administration decides to drop the case, Julian could be free within weeks. But if it keeps the case going, it could take years.

The UK courts could decide to reverse the decision blocking the extradition on appeal, and if that happens, Julian will most likely never come home and our children will lose their father forever.

Julian’s lawyers must continue to prepare for all eventualities. Even though they are working for minimal rates, and in many cases pro bono, it is an expensive process and they carry enormous responsibility on their shoulders.

The next steps in the extradition case are as follows:

• The US will submit its final appeal grounds by February 12. If the High Court is not satisfied that the US grounds for appeal are sound, Julian will be able to come home. If, on the other hand, the High Court agrees to hear the appeal, then that hearing is expected to take place in a few months.
• If the High Court appeal goes ahead, the losing party could then appeal to the Supreme Court and/or the European Court of Human Rights. That could take several years.

In the meantime we must stay strong and grow the campaign for Julian’s freedom in every way we can.

Julian's life is at stake. That in itself is a terrifying and urgent reality. He should be free because his incarceration is a grave injustice to Julian and to our family.

This case is about an innocent man but it is also about our fundamental values. Julian is being punished for doing the right thing. Any prosecution of Julian – who exposed war crimes and human rights abuse– undermines press freedom in a way that affects every single person. The attempt to prosecute him criminalises public interest journalism.

Thank you again for continuing to be involved and engaged. Please share the CrowdJustice appeal with anyone who might be able to help.

#FreeAssangeNOW

#DropTheCharges

Stella Moris