I will moderate this event on Monday at 7:00 pm with Stella Assange, attorney Jennifer Robinson and Kristinn Hrafnsson, Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks, at The Frontline Club in London.
The link for tickets is here.
Day X: Justice for Assange
Part of the FRONTLINE CLUB 2024 collection
Julian Assange's Final Appeal to be held in UK High Court
By Frontline Club
Date and time
Mon, 19 Feb 2024 19:00 - 20:30 GMT
Location
Frontline Club
13 Norfolk Place London W2 1QJ United Kingdom
About this event
1 hour 30 minutes
Mobile eTicket
The UK High Court has confirmed that a public hearing will take place on 20-21 February 2024. The two-day hearing may be the final chance for Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to the United States. If extradited, Assange faces a sentence of 175 years for exposing war crimes committed by the United States in the Afghan and Iraq wars.
Immediately after the court date was announced, protestors responded by calling for a mass protest at the court on the days of the hearing at 8:30am. They welcome all those who support press freedom to join them in London and around the world.
Assange has been confined in the high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested on a US extradition request on 11 April 2019. This will be his fifth Christmas in Belmarsh.
The upcoming public hearing will be held before a panel of two judges who will review an earlier High Court decision taken by a single judge on 6 June 2023 which refused Mr Assange permission to appeal.
This decisive stage in Mr Assange’s appeals will determine one of two outcomes: whether Mr. Assange will have further opportunities to argue his case before the domestic (UK) courts, or whether he will have exhausted all appeals without a possibility for further appeal in the UK and thus enter the process of extradition. An application before the European Court of Human Rights remains a possibility.
Assange's campaign for freedom is supported by Amnesty International, the National Union of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and virtually every civil rights, press freedom, and journalists' union in the world. More than 70 Australian federal politicians have called on the US to drop the prosecution. In the United States, the Congressional representatives calling for the case to be dropped grows steadily, currently H. Res 934 sponsored by Paul Gosar is gathering signatures from all sides of politics.
Join panel discussion with Stella Assange, human-rights activist and Julian's wife; Kristinn Hrafnsson, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks; and Jennifer Robinson, barrister with Doughty Street Chambers in London. Chaired by journalist Chris Hedges.
Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, who he married while in prison, and who has been campaigning relentlessly for his freedom, said, “The last four and a half years have taken the most considerable toll on Julian and his family, including our two young sons. His mental health and physical state have deteriorated significantly. With the myriad of evidence that has come to light since the original hearing in 2019, such as the violation of legal privilege and reports that senior US officials were involved in formulating assassination plots against my husband, there is no denying that a fair trial, let alone Julian’s safety on US soil, is an impossibility were he to be extradited. The persecution of this innocent journalist and publisher must end.”
Kristinn Hrafnsson, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, said, “There is no press without the protection to operate freely. Julian’s case is a landmark moment; the UK needs to decide if it wishes to be a haven for free press or if it wishes to be complicit in the degradation of a core value of our democracy. This is the last chance for judges in the UK to halt this un-just extradition of an innocent man.”
Jennifer Robinson's practice encompasses the full range of information and publication law issues, including privacy, defamation, harassment, reporting restrictions, freedom of information, data protection and contempt of court.
She is currently advising the International Federation of Journalists, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in relation to US extradition proceedings.
Julian Assange is another boogy man for the U.S. right, like Edward Snowden. They dared to tell the truth and the bullies from the U.S. couldn't have that so they want to bury these people in a dark hole, never to be heard from again. The U.S. has every reason to want to cover up the truth. They have been guilty of war crimes since WWII (The firebombing of Dresden, Germany for example). As a nation, they have gotten away with so much because of their military might. Exposing some of that is the best thing that could have happened. It takes them down a peg off of their high ladder for once or twice. It's a shame that these people will pay with their lives if they set foot on U.S. soil. And people think the U.S. is better than Russia. They are no different than Putin in a lot of ways. The biggest difference is that Russia has one man in charge. The U.S. has presidents and whole congresses behind their war crimes and they make their political enemies disappear as much as the Russians and Chinese do. But the United States are the good guys in the white cowboy hats that ride off into the sunset at the end of their movies, just ask them.
It would be appreciated if there could be a Zoom ( with tickets ) available for this event