Welcome to the 131st Julian Assange Sydney Town Hall gathering.
Human rights are inalienable. All living and breathing men and women have human rights, if they respect the human rights of others. If you are a human being, who respects the human rights of others, you have human rights, but there is no guarantee that governments, including your own, will respect them.
Our human rights include:
- The right to live and breathe.
- The right to free movement.
- The right to access or refuse health care.
- The right to speak freely without restriction.
- The right to freely publish truthful information.
- The right to privacy.
- The right to assemble in public places.
The respect of human rights is essential for the peaceful existence of humanity. How can we expect others to respect our human rights if we don’t respect theirs?
If the human rights of anyone are violated, we need to take steps to make sure that the violation is stopped. We certainly don’t want to see our governments taking steps to perpetuate human rights violations, which is what we have seen with respect to Julian Assange.
Julian Assange published clear and irrefutable evidence of human rights being violated by the western governments, when he published documents that revealed war crimes, torture and forced evacuations.
Julian published documents revealing,
- war crimes committed by US led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,
- torture programs employed by the US in Guantanamo Bay,
- and the forced evacuation of the Chagos Islanders by the UK to facilitate the building of a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Western governments are fond of saying that they are for human rights, but we know their words are NOT sincere. If they were sincere about their respect for human rights, they would have been grateful to Julian for revealing human rights violations, but western governments have collectively violated Julian’s human rights as a punishment for revealing the truth of their criminal activities.
- The Swedish government played a part by tying Julian up in a legal battle over false allegations that could NOT be substantiated.
- The UK government played a part by preventing Julian from leaving the UK, even after Julian had successfully obtained political asylum from Ecuador.
- The Australian government played a part by keeping quiet.
- The US government played a part by bringing bogus charges of espionage against Julian.
- The Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno played a part by aligning with western governments to cease providing Julian with political asylum.
The citizens of the so-called democratic countries might expect their governments to uphold the human rights of all people, without discrimination on the basis of nationality or skin colour. We might have expected it, but we now know that our so-called ‘democratic’ governments treat human rights as merely optional, mentioning them selectively for public relations exercises. Julian Assange is being psychologically tortured for exercising his free speech and publishing rights. He is currently enduring solitary confinement at His Majesty’s Prison, Belmarsh in London where he has now been for over five years. Thirteen plus years of arbitrary detention and psychological torture have caused Julian’s health to suffer greatly.
The Australian Prime Minister is fond of ‘saying’ he is for human rights, but when it comes to the human rights of a journalist who has published the truth about western governments, he employs quiet diplomacy. We must resort to demonstrating our unity if we want to make sure our governments respect human rights. The human rights of Julian Assange are the human rights, so please help free Julian Assange.
Free, free Julian Assange!
Free, free Julian Assange!
Free, free Julian Assange!