Petition to Pope Francis for Julian Assange

Whistleblower may be in Imminent Danger

Justin and Anne Morahan have started a petition (on Change.Org) to Pope Francis asking him to intervene in the case of Julian Assange. There have been recent reports of Julian's health deteriorating due to lack of light, fresh air and isolation (no visitors allowed). There are also rumours afloat that he may be removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and extradited to Mr Trump's United States where capital punishment is still in vogue.

This is the text of the petition:

Julian Assange is a world renowned whistleblower. He dared with immense courage to reveal the atrocities that accompanied the recent war in Iraq. His fame brought him only misfortune, persecution, isolation - and now illness. For he is languishing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was granted asylum six yeas ago. He is now in imminent danger of being arrested and extradited to the United States to face trial and imprisonment, possibly in Guantanamo.
  

Dear Pope Francis, on behalf of men and women of goodwill everywhere, we approach you to request your very powerful help in requesting a release without re-arrest of this whistleblower.

Many years ago we made a similar request to a predecessor of yours for the release of a relatively unknown pacifist who was reportedly being abused in Italian prisons. A few days later he was released.

We trust in your humanity and goodness to exercise a similar intervention on the part of Julian Assange who for the past many months has been denied access to fresh air and visitors in what has become for him a hellish prison. Thank you.

Related Link: https://chn.ge/2vqQwn6

If you agree with the petition pleases sign. It would be even better if you could also make others aware of it and ask them to sign too.

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Group outside British Embassy,Dublin, in July calling for freedom for Julian
Assange including (L to R):
Paul O'Toole, Robbie Sinnott, Mick Wallace TD, Clare Daly TD,
Justin Morahan, June (?) and others

Julian Assange and "A Tsunami of Lies and Smear"

The whistleblower Julian Assange was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on 19 June 2012 by President Rafael Correa who has himself enjoyed an unprecedented ten years in office.  But in late March 2017, the new President Lenín Moreno denied Julian two life lines to health and sanity: access to the internet and the right to receive visitors. It is believed that he yielded to immense pressure from the United States and Spain in doing so.

Julian, a native of Australia, was responsible for publishing confidential documents that exposed war crimes by the US and their allies on Wikileaks. According to John Pilger, a top secret document was drafted in the US Defence Department. on 8 March 2008. It described in detail how important it was to destroy the “feeling of trust” in WikiLeaks by  threats of “exposure [and] criminal prosecution” and an unrelenting assault on reputation. .

There followed, in Pilger's words, "a tsunami of lies and smear" against the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, the most serious being a date rape charge in Sweden in 2010. This put his life and freedom in danger. Although the charges are now dropped, he is on notice from the UK Foreign Office that if he leaves the embassy, he faces arrest for violation of bail. His real fear is of extradition to the United States and its aftermath.


19 JUNE 2018: PROTESTS WORLDWIDE

Protests were held in solidarity with Julian Assange in cities around the world yesterday..They took place in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Wellington New Zealand, Dublin, London, India (Tamil Nadu), Sri Lanka (Colombo), Washington DC, Los.Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin.

19 JUNE 2018:  DUBLIN PROTEST

The Dublin protest outside the British Embassy, began at 6 pm and was addressed by Mick Wallace TD, Clare Daly TD and Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate.  All three had visited Julian in the Embassy in London when he was free to receive visitors.  The equally redoubtable Paul O'Toole and Robbie Sinnott provided the song and music. 

The theme was captured in the chant: "All we are saying is FREE JULIAN ASSANGE" that rang out loud and clear over and over in the evening summer sun.  It was Mairead who had contrasted our sunny outing in Dublin with the pitiless conditions of confinement obtaining in the embassy where Julian is now a de facto prisoner with no access to fresh air for the past six years.


The Nobel Laureate ended her talk by requesting the Irish government to offer to mediate between Britain and Ecuador to ensure Julian's freedom.
Meanwhile, at an earlier rally in Sydney on 16 June, John Pilger called on the Australian government and Prime Minister Turnbull to bring Julian home.


"I know Julian Assange well", he said. " I regard him as a close friend, a person of extraordinary resilience and courage".

And in an ominous note he added:  "The persecution of Julian Assange must end. Or it will end in tragedy".

Death Penalty: Excerpt from Anthony Ray Hinton book

Anthony Ray Hinton was falsely convicted of murder in Alabama and spent almost 30 years on Death Row. He was convicted because he was black. And he was released in 2015.

In a recent book he describes what it was like for an innocent man to be convicted for murder and await the time, in the cells, for the smell of burning flesh to be his own flesh.

Unbelievably for many, including his own niece, he made friends there with a man called Henry Hays, a convicted member of the Ku Klux Clan.

These two paragraphs from his memoir sum up his attitude to forgiveness of enemies and the wrongness and folly of execution (which he equates with lynching).


"ARH: I wish that I could have included a lot more about the men on death row — why they ended up being where they are. I wish I could have shown how we failed them. I think it was about five of us [on death row] that graduated from high school. Everybody had quit in the seventh and eighth grade. Tell me that society didn’t play a part. We still fail them because we’re spending more money on prison than we are on school. Since I’ve been out, I’ve been to white schools to speak and I thought I was at a college. They’ve got labs — Bill Gates, here they come. I’m saying, “Imagine if you could put something like this in a black neighborhood.”

I think about lynching. They probably lynched one of the greatest scientists of modern times. They probably lynched someone that could come up with a cure for AIDS, Alzheimer’s, cancer. We don’t know what a person can be. Earlier, we spoke of Henry Hays. Henry could still be alive today and could be in the general population getting blacks and white to come together. He could say, “I was brought up to hate. I’m telling you, it serves no purpose. If anyone knows, I know. I lived it.” But society didn’t want him to be an advocate."

I can't wait to purchase this wonderful testimony of a truly remarkable man.

Scourge of Catalonia Rajoy loses vote of Confidence in Spanish Parliament

Mariano Rajoy has just lost a confidence vote and Socialist Pedro Sanchez is the new Prime Minister of Spain.


The vote was 182 to 169 with one abstention.

Rajoy is the first Spanish Prime Minister to have lost office through a vote of no confidence  


The new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has promised to open new negotiations with Catalonia.

Another Day of Shame for Israel and the USA

Netanyahu and Trump are celebrating and smiling at the "opening" of the US embassy in Jerusalem while dozens of Palestinians are again slaughtered in cold blood.

It's very difficult to watch the "celebrations" in Jerusalem without wanting to be sick.  An American soldier sings the Star Spangled Banner. The reception is muted.  Ivanka and her husband hold hands on heart in a desperate attempt to encourage others.  But this is not about them. This is not about the USA.  It is not about Trump.  It's not even about Israel.  It is about Netanyahu.

Benjamin Netanyahu is all smiles.  Smarmy smiles by a man who has got his way.  A man who has convinced Trump, the so-called "leader of the free world", to be his stooge.  A man who has fooled Trump into entering the fray in Israel and Palestine. A man who smirks all day because Trump is celebrating his final humiliation of the Palestinians while he is killing their protestors down the road.

And no-one is shouting STOP.

At least no-one who matters.  We do not matter.  Jewish protestors at the White House do not matter.  The Jewish Voices for Peace do not matter.  Conscientious voices within Israel do not matter.  Government leaders do.  But the common chant of these leaders is that Israel should "show restraint".  A new definition for weasel words.

Who cares if 52 people are shot dead and 2000 injured as long as they are not Israeli citizens.

Shame on Israel.  Shame on Trump.  Eternal shame on Netanyahu