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 👇
BREAKING 🇪🇸🇮🇱 An ongoing pattern of military cargo flights from the Zaragoza Air Base in Spain to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv has transported over 60,000 weapons parts directly to Israel since October 2023, reveal @ProgIntl, @palyouthmvmt and @afsc_org.
@palyouthmvmt @afsc_org Over the last 12 months, the @ProgIntl and the @palyouthmvmt have carefully tracked the flow of arms to Israel through Europe's ports and across the Mediterranean Sea.
Today, together with the @afsc_org , we reveal the regular illegal air traffic of arms to Israel.
@palyouthmvmt @afsc_org These flights are part of a broader pattern which sustains Israel's genocide from the air.
Challenge Air Cargo, National Air Cargo, and Atlas Air have all been shown to transport military cargo from other destinations to Israel, such as Belgium and the US.
On this day in 1962, US President John F. Kennedy first implemented the US embargo against Cuba, significantly expanding measures put in place by his predecessor.
Officially, the embargo hoped to stall the spread of socialism in Latin America, seeking to isolate the “present Government of Cuba and thereby [reduce] the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers”.
A declassified 1960 State Department memorandum revealed its sinister logic: to make “the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Today, nine nations — collectively known as The Hague Group — gathered in The Hague to coordinate legal, diplomatic and economic measures against Israel’s violations of international law.
"Just as the international community once united to dismantle apartheid in South Africa, we must now unite to enforce international law and protect the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination."
— @VarshaGandikota, Co-General Coordinator of the @ProgIntl
@VarshaGandikota “After many decades of Israel’s evasion of accountability, this is a glimmer of hope that Palestine will soon be free and liberated.”
Today, nine nations — collectively known as The Hague Group — gathered in The Hague to coordinate legal, diplomatic and economic measures against Israel’s violations of international law.
Convened by the @ProgIntl, the meeting between state representatives of Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa explored collective action at both national and international levels to further the cause of Palestinian liberation.
The US began to invade Panama on this day in 1989.
Washington dispatched more than 20,000 soldiers to the Latin American nation to overthrow the regime of former CIA asset General Manuel Noriega.
Codenamed Operation Just Cause, the US invasion killed as many as 3,000 people, wreaking such destruction that local ambulance drivers referred to parts of Panama City as “little Hiroshima”.
On this day in 1975, representatives of the regimes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Santiago, Chile to establish a covert network of transnational repression.
Inspired by the Truman Doctrine and engineered by the CIA, Operation Condor (known as Plan Cóndor in Spanish) enabled South America’s US-backed dictatorships to abduct, torture and murder dissidents across the continent – and around the globe.
For Eduardo Galleano, Operation Condor was the "MERCOSUR of terror”.
Within three years, Operation Condor had expanded to include eight of South America’s 13 countries.