Image by Simone Ramella via Flickr
Dandelion Salad
March 12, 2023
Consortium News on Mar 11, 2023
Anthony Albanese was mouthing his favourite platitude, “enough is enough” long before he was elected prime minister of Australia last year. He gave many of us precious hope, including Julian’s family. As prime minister he added weasel words about “not sympathizing” with what Julian had done. Apparently we had to understand his need to cover his appropriated ass in case Washington called him to order.
We knew it would take exceptional political if not moral courage for Albanese to stand up in the Australian Parliament — the same Parliament that will disport itself before Joe Biden in May — and say:
“As prime minister, it is my government’s responsibility to bring home an Australian citizen who is clearly the victim of a great, vindictive injustice: a man who has been persecuted for the kind of journalism that is a true public service, a man who has not lied, or deceived — like so many of his counterfeit in the media, but has told people the truth about how the world is run.”
“I call on the United States,” a courageous and moral Prime Minister Albanese might say, “to withdraw its extradition application: to end the malign farce that has stained Britain’s once-admired courts of justice and to allow the release of Julian Assange unconditionally to his family. For Julian to remain in his cell at Belmarsh is an act of torture, as the United Nations rapporteur has called it. It is how a dictatorship behaves.”
Anything to Say? Assange, Snowden & Manning Statues in Sydney
Consortium News on Mar 11, 2023
The three bronze statues that have been touring the world have arrived in Assange’s home country, where John Shipton, John Pilger, David McBride and other speakers demanded the prime minister tell Joe Biden to release the WikiLeaks publisher.
See also:
The Betrayers of Julian Assange, by John Pilger (transcript of speech)
From the archives:
Chris Hedges and Stefania Maurizi: The Dark Truths WikiLeaks Revealed
Chris Hedges and Gabriel Shipton: Will Julian Assange Ever Be Free?
John Pilger: The State of the UK Media, and The Resilience of Julian Assange
John Pilger: The Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Julian Assange’s Appeal
Chris Hedges and Nils Melzer: The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution
Dandelion Salad 
Changes of government are just like musical chairs aren’t they?
No matter who grabs the seats, they’re all ‘dancing’ to the same tune, and the composers are the multi national corporate behemoths.
Assange was pretty much tolerated until he stood on their toes.
BTW, Albanese is spelt Albangreasy. He’s as slippery as the rest of them,