The Progressive International pays respects to the Traditional Owners of the land and their Elders, past and present.
We acknowledge their ongoing resistance to the destructive forces of colonialism and their sustained connection to water and land.
Sovereignty was never ceded.
MARY KOSTAKIDAS
“Coming to you from Sydney University, home of the Foundation which conferred on Julian Assange the Sydney Peace Medal for his exceptional courage and conviction that truth matters and justice depends on it.” - @MaryKostakidis
“For revealing how power works, what governments get up to…and the tools used to deceive citizens, his punishment has been brutal,” says @MaryKostakidis
The result of being pursued by the world’s most powerful govt, acc. to former UN Rapporteur @NilsMelzer, amounts to torture.
MARK DAVIS:
“Emphatically, Julian Assange redacted the most dangerous material from the Afghan War Logs,” says Davis.
“I was with him the evening he did so; He redacted 10,000 names…”
Refers to Australia’s prestigious @Walkleys who awarded Assange for his outstanding contribution to journalism.
Quoting the judges:
“Assange took a brave, determined and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency … and the public’s right to know.”
KERRY O’BRIEN
“The longer Assange remains caught in the web of US legal procedure without demonstrable and effective intervention by the Australian Government to bring him home, the more the Australian Government’s credibility will suffer. "
“Julian faces 175 yrs in prison for committing acts of journalism, for the same publications for which he has won awards the world over,” says @Suigenerisjen
“The @NYTimes and @WashingtonPost made clear, the indictment criminalises
public interest journalism.”
JENNIFER ROBINSON
“The Freedom of the Press Foundation has called (Julian’s prosecution) the most terrifying threat to free speech in the 21 st century,” says @Suigenerisjen
“The American Government is lying about Julian Assange. That’s the bottom line,” says @JohnKiriakou.
“… the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally broad and vague (and) the freedom of the press is resting on this case.”
JOHN KIRIAKOU
“If they can prosecute Assange they can prosecute anybody,” says @JohnKiriakou
When they say they’ll treat Julian fairly, it’s a lie. The Eastern District of Virginia Court is made up of CIA, Dept. of Homeland Security, Govt. agencies. Julian won’t stand a chance.
DEAN YATES:
“My staff? Killed on my watch,” says Yates.
Lawyers from @Reuters tried to get a copy of the tape from the Pentagon so we could better protect our staff in Iraq.
“They refused … Then Assange published video of the entire attack.”
“Collateral Murder is pure truth-telling,” says Yates.
“Yet the US didn’t prosecute the men who pulled the trigger or anyone else in the chain of command … The real criminals are the architects of the invasion – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld.”
“Julian is a moral innovator; he made moral gains which had an immense effect on human life,”
says @KellieTranter
“Posterity will pay Julian the highest honour for putting into the world the things that we most value: truth, transparency and justice.”
KELLIE TRANTER
“@AlboMP Goes to Washington should be the story of an Australian prime minister standing up for truth and fairness and the rights of a citizen, securing the release of a person who has put his life on the line for those same values for the benefit of (all).”
BOB CARR
“The American involved in the exposure of American war crimes walks free … The Aussie is still being pursued,” says @BobJCarr
“These are war crimes and we know about them … because Julian Assange published them.”
“Without question, it's time for the persecution, prosecution and incarceration of Assange to come to an end,” says @Josh4Freo
“The parliamentary friendship group has called upon the US government to end the extradition process and set Julian Assange free."
DR. MONIQUE RYAN MP
“We’ll continue to speak to our own Government and hold them to account,” says @Mon4Kooyong
“As members of the Australian Govt, we need to do what we can to protect the freedom and rights of all Australians, but particularly those who speak truth to power."
SENATOR DAVID SHOEBRIDGE
“It should never be a crime to tell the truth,” says @DavidShoebridge
“Assange is a case study in how this country treats whistleblowers,” says @DavidShoebridge
“What we’re seeing has moved beyond neglect into an institutionalised attack, with the aim of silencing not just Julian but anyone who dares follow his example.”
BRIDGET ARCHER MP
“The ongoing persecution of Assange offends my sense of natural justice, human dignity and fairness,” says @BridgetArcherMP
“There can never be a legal solution to this case. It’s inherently political.”
.@YanisVaroufakis calls on @AlboMP to “move heaven and earth to unsully the bad name of previous Australian govts that stood idly by while one of its citizens was taken to the cleaners by recalcitrant, violent American administrators. Mr. Albanese, free Julian. Bring him home.”
BERNARD COLLAERY
"As with Witness K in Australia, speaking truth is Julian’s alleged crime. Detaining Julian Assange with the stated purpose of shutting down @WikiLeaks is precisely the conduct, namely hostage taking, that the United States pressed the world to outlaw."
BERNARD COLLAERY to Australian Prime Minister @AlboMP, who is “in his prime.”
“Mr Albanese, don’t leave an awful blemish on your legacy.”
“Australia has the power to bring Julian home,” says @Stella_Assange.
“@AlboMP, more than anyone, holds Julian's fate in his hands. I ask Prime Minister Albanese to take Julian's fate in his hands and bring him home to our kids, to me. End his suffering."
Thank you to this evening’s speakers, partners, organisers and everyone who joined the fifth #BelmarshTribunal to #FreeAssange.
Please join us in solidarity over the coming weeks in the following actions 👇
Isabel Perón’s Argentinian government was overthrown by a US-backed coup on this day in 1976, ushering in a bloody dictatorship under which 30,000 people were killed and disappeared.
For the US Ambassador in Argentina, who had already warned Washington of the plotter's plans for “military rule of extended duration and of unprecedented severity”, the coup was "probably the best executed and most civilized coup in Argentine history."
The West German ambassador in Buenos Aires was even more blunt, describing Argentina as a “cornerstone in the expanded transatlantic security framework, a market and source of raw materials, home of many German settlers and German assets.” These reactions foreshadowed US and European support for Argentina’s murderous junta.
In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that he believed the junta “will need a little encouragement from us.” However, US support for General Jorge Rafael Videla’s junta went well beyond “a little encouragement”. 48 hours after the junta took power, the US formally recognized the new military government and the International Monetary Fund granted it a previously withheld loan of $127 million.
Vladimir Ulyanov, known by his pseudonym Lenin, died on this day 100 years ago. Lenin was one of history’s great pathfinders of socialism, a relentless thinker who insisted always on a “concrete analysis of the concrete situation” against the dogmatism and idealism of his peers.
Writing in 1920, Leon Trotsky called Lenin the “first worker” of the transformation of the old world.
“To be able to direct such a revolution, without precedent in the history of peoples,” he wrote, “it is most evidently necessary to have an indissoluble organic connection with the main strength of popular life, a connection which springs from the deepest roots.”
After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917, Lenin made his way back to Russia from exile in Switzerland.
At Petrograd’s Leningradskaya Station, he delivered a historic speech. “The people need peace; the people need bread; the people need land,. And they give you war, hunger, no bread — leave the landlords still on the land…”
This was the language of the cadet seeking respite from war. It was the language of the textile weaver seeking bread for her hungry children. It was the language of the peasant toiling on the land not his own. It would produce the famous rallying cry of the Revolution: Peace! Land! Bread!
On this day in 1917, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, issued a public statement declaring Britain’s “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and offering its support for what it called a “national home for the Jewish people in Palestine”.
The statement, known today as the Balfour Declaration, laid the grounds for what was to come.
In the late 19th century, a political and ideologically colonial movement called Zionism emerged in Europe. It sought to create a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The fact that Palestine was already inhabited by Palestinian Jews, Christians, and Muslims living side-by-side was dismissed as a minor stumbling block.
As Theodor Herzl had said, the colonizers would simply force “the penniless (native) population across the frontier.”
Today we recall the Conference of Afro-Asian Peoples (18-24 April 1955). Known as the Bandung Conference after the Indonesian city where it was held, the event deepened unity among Africa and Asia, and is said to have inspired the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.
The conference brought together 29 nations representing more than half the world population. Writing about the gathering, R. Wright explained: “the West is excluded. Emphasis is on the coloured nations of the world... This is perhaps the greatest historic event of our century.”
Bandung was the first major Afro-Asian conference of its kind — and the first to be held without the involvement of any Western colonial power. It grappled with issues common to the peoples of both continents: sovereignty, racism, nationalism, and anti-colonial struggle.
Twenty years ago today, the USA, UK and their allies invaded Iraq — one of the greatest atrocities of the 21st century.
Built on lies and deception, the war killed as many as one million people; displaced over four million; inaugurated a global network of torture camps; and destabilised an entire region. Two decades later, the war criminals walk free.
While he aligned with the US anti-communist agenda, he enjoyed tremendous military and financial support.
As he tortured the Iraqi people, Hussein operated with near-total impunity: in 1987, Iraq faced no consequences after it fired at a US warship, killing 37 crew members. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…