This happened at the height of the weeks of total power-water-information blackout that we had here, in North Carolina and I didn’t find out until just now!
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by WikiLeaks
Julian Assange, accompanied by his wife Stella, took part in a parliamentary hearing on his detention and conviction – and their chilling effect on human rights – on 1 October 2024 ahead of a full plenary debate on this topic by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
In his first public remarks since his release from detention at Belmarsh Prison in the UK, Mr Assange told parliamentarians:
“I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today because after years of incarceration I pleaded guilty to journalism. I pleaded guilty to seeking information from a source, and I pleaded guilty to informing the public what that information was.”
He added: “It’s good to be back. It’s good to be amongst people who – as we say in Australia – who give a damn. It’s good to be amongst friends.”
The hearing was organised by the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in the framework of a report on this topic by Thorhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC). Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson also took part. In a resolution adopted the next day, the Assembly – which brings together MPs from 46 European nations – recognised Mr Assange as a former “political prisoner”. It also expressed deep concern at Mr Assange’s harsh treatment, warned of its “chilling effect” and called on the United States, a Council of Europe observer state, to investigate the alleged war crimes and human rights violations disclosed by him and Wikileaks. Mr Assange and his wife Stella were in the public gallery watching the debate.
• More on the Assembly’s resolution
• The Assembly’s resolution, the full report by Ms Ævarsdóttir and other documents
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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT
Julian Assange: However, in February 2017, the landscape changed dramatically. President Trump had been elected. He appointed two wolves in MAGA hats, Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman and former arms industry executive, as CIA director, and William Barr, a former CIA officer, as US Attorney General.
By March 2017, WikiLeaks had exposed the CIA’s infiltration of French political parties. It’s spying on French and German leaders. It’s spying on the European Central Bank, European economics ministries, and it’s standing orders to spy on French industry as a whole.
We revealed the CIA’s vast production of malware and viruses. It’s a version of supply chains. It’s a version of antivirus software, cars, smart TVs, and iPhones.
CIA director Pompeo launched a campaign of retribution. It is now a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction, the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks, and the planting of false information. My wife and my infant son were also targeted.
A CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife, and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six-month-old son’s nappy. This is the testimony of more than 30 current and former US intelligence officials speaking to the US press, which has been additionally corroborated by records seized in a prosecution brought against some of the CIA agents involved. The CIA’s targeting of myself, my family, and my associates through aggressive extrajudicial and extraterritorial means provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression.
Julian Assange is a hero and gift to “civilization” or what is left of it. It is unfortunate that he and WikiLeaks were not around during the Korean and Viet Nam wars to report the truth. Trump should have had the intelligence and integrity to pardon him for exposing reality to the world and stop the madness. For being the star of The Apprentice, he has been an utter failure in hiring worthy people. Possibly given a second chance, he will have learned some lessons on how to vet his hires. Am not overly hopeful as he is too busy blowing his own horn. The West is living in 1984 unfortunately.
Tore Maras has said that he was blocked from pardoning Assange by the “Careers” at the State Department and in the OPM or what she calls “The 4th Unelected Branch of Government”. https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/tore-says-show-april-14-2023/, who she describes as the “enemies within”.
Assange is so normal, so easily understood, so not an American. As such, how dare he not bow to the almighty USG!
Lets go down memory lane a bit. Why was the US military in Iraq in the first place? Why, why, why! Why have Americans lost the ability to think critically? Who taught Americans to think as groups, behind group leaders who think for them? Who selects the group leaders? Who connects political group leaders with religious group leaders? There is a common denominator. It’s not space aliens, or reincarnated Ebyptians or the progeny of ancient Persians.
Whose footprints and fingerprints are all over the Bush II whitehouse, the 911 event and all over the US Congress today? The 911 event allegedly engineered and pulled off by a cabal of Arab foot soldiers in the mountains of Afganisan, therefrom defeating the most advanced defense system ever devised, intended to traumatize Americans and redirect them in another clearly defined direction by General Wesley Clark. Who benefitted—the most?
I was optimistic in the first few minutes of the Joe Rogan interview of Donald Trump. Actually hopeful I would see a repentant, reformed and more thoughtful Trump considering all he’s been through lately. Alas, the old braggadocios, chest thumper Trump emerged. He stepped oh so easily into charming Joe’s trap. Whatever was Thumper thinking when he ripped environmentalists a new one? Kennedy must now be having second thoughts! This double mindedness has plagued Trump every step of the Trump way. Unless he overcomes this malady I do not see how he expects to unite the nation in a common cause.
Seeing as how utterly bereft of normal sensililities by either of the two clowns that Trump says he’s trying to defeat, it suspiciously appears that they are all following the same duopoly party script. Which brings my thoughts back to Assange and the world as seen through the scarce eyes of a principled journalist who never surrendered his ability to think critically.
It’s difficult for me to forget it was Trumps henchmen who wanted to murder Assange.
View “2 out of 3 Americans gone by 2025”. Sheds some light on Trump and his loyalties or disloyalties.