This is the eightieth Julian Assange Town Hall Gathering! We gather here because Julian Assange is an honest, and completely innocent journalist, who has every right to be free. But Julian is far from free! He as been persecuted for over ten years and is currently held in torturous solitary confinement for merely exposing the crimes of the powerful.
Julian believed we should all be more truthfully informed. In 2006, he founded WikiLeaks to bring about a more informed public. It makes sense, that if we are able to clearly know what our governments are doing, we ought to be able to keep them acting in the public interest.
Through WikiLeaks, Julian has informed us about the wrongdoing of governments around the world. The response, from governments and media, has been to smear Julian with horrific lies about his character and to cruelly facilitate his imprisonment and torture with trumped up pretenses to prevent him from continuing his work of informing the public truthfully. This response from governments and media, demonstrates a level of corruption that few of us had previously dared to imagine.
Many of us arrive at conclusions based on what we want to believe. The tendency to believe our governments are mostly good and that when they do wrong, it is down to one or two corrupted or pitiful politicians who will eventually resign, be sacked, or be voted out of office. The treatment of Julian Assange for exposing serious crimes against humanity and for exposing high-level corruption, makes it clear to anyone who is prepared to look objectively at the facts, that our system is not working in the way we would want it to work. The answer is NOT to take the immediately easier path of turning a blind eye!
We need to follow the example of Julian Assange. We can all see governments and mainstream media lying and drumming up fear with little regard to facts. We can see others drawing conclusions based on fear and a perceived consensus of opinion and a complete disregard for available hard evidence. In cases when we don’t have hard evidence, we need to be asking questions requiring answers that are supported by hard evidence.
We need to base our decision on verified evidence in the same way Julian and WikiLeaks have. WikiLeaks has never had to retract anything it has published. We need to stand in solidarity with Julian and base our actions on available verified evidence. To do otherwise is extremely misguided and a very dangerous path indeed.
Since the time Julian Assange was silenced, we have seen the increasing denial of free speech. We have seen western governments become at ease prosecuting journalists. This clamp down on free speech affects everyone.
In a free society, we need there to be open discussion, whether it is between scientists, historians, doctors, journalists or anyone else. Without free speech, how will we ever be able to know the truth? There may well be consequences for speaking freely, but the ultimate consequence of not speaking freely will be immeasurably dystopian. By standing up for Julian Assange with verbal support for him and his journalistic principles, we demonstrate unity with an overarching principle that is relevant to all of us. Pulling in different directions will get us nowhere! With unity for Julian Assange we show we have the power to hold our governments to account. This is what we must do!
Even if we only care about the wellbeing of ourselves, individually, our best option is to speak up for Julian Assange! Everyone is affected by diminishing free speech and the lack of a free press. The name of Julian Assange represents the unity of people and a shared need to know the truth.
Even when we don’t know what to believe, we can still stand up for our right to know the truth. Julian Assange is being tortured and lied about because he is a hero to people who realize we ought to know about government and corporate wrongdoing.
Free Julian Assange!
Free Julian Assange!
Free Julian Assange!