VIDEO - Assange Full Speech: "U.S. War On Whistleblowers Must End, Bradley Manning Must Be Released"
Calls on Obama to end the 'witch hunt' for whistleblowers.
- 'The US war on whistleblowers must end'
- Calls for release of Bradley Manning
- Asks Obama 'to do the right thing'
Complete video and photos below.
---
Here's the full speech:
Julian Assange made his first public appearance in two months, ever since he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Addressing the hundreds of people gathered outside the embassy, Assange thanked them for their support, claiming it was their resolve and presence that stopped British police storming the building.
"On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and police desceneded on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it, and you brought the worlds eyes with you. Inside this embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through the internal fire escape," Assange said.
"But I knew thered be witnesses. And that was because of you."
The WikiLieaks founder thanked President Correa "for the courage he has shown" in granting him asylum, and to all the nations and individuals who have shown him support.
Assange also addressed the US government and President Obama, calling for the "witch hunt against WikiLeaks" to end.
"The United States must pledge before the world will not pursue journalists for shining light on the secret crimes of the powerful. The US administration’s war against whistleblowers must end."
He also spoke of Bradley Manning, the Army Private who has been charged with 22 criminal counts over his alleged role in providing Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks site with sensitive documents that were then distributed. Manning has been imprisoned for more than 800 days and has yet to stand trial before a military tribunal.
"On Wednesday Bradley spent his 815th day of detention w/o trial. The legal maximum is 120 days," Assange told the crowds gathered outside the embassy.
"If Bradley Manning did as he is accused, he is a hero and invaluable to all of us. Bradley Manning must be released".
Assange went on to mention Nabeel Rajab, a Bahraini human rights activist, who was "sentenced to 3 years in jail for a tweet".
Rajab tweeted critical comments about the Bahraini Prime Minister, calling for him to step down. Before his arrest, Rajab appeared as a guest on episode four of ‘The Assange Show’ on RT, hosted by the WikiLeaks founder. In the interview, he criticized the US-led invasion of Iraq, as well as US refusals to take action during the Bahraini protests and the wider Arab Spring.
Assange also spoke of Pussy Riot, a Russian female punk band, three members of which have just been sentenced to 2 years in prison for a "punk prayer" in Moscow’s main cathedral.
"There is unity in the oppression," Assange said. "There must be absolute unity and determination in the response"
The WikiLeaks founder was granted political asylum on Thursday – a decision that ignited a wave of international responses, with the UK and Sweden opposing the verdict and Latin American countries strongly supporting Ecuador’s move.
Aug 19, 2012 at 1:46 PM
Reader Comments (11)
1. Why is extradition being mentioned at all? Assange hasn't been convicted of a crime, nor has he been charged with one. Anywhere.
2. Why is the UK involved? It's Swedish authorities who want to question Assange, who's offered to go there--provided Sweden won't extradite him to the U.S.
3. Why the hell is Assange concerned about extradition to the U.S.? Again, he hasn't been charged with or convicted of any crime, anywhere, which includes the U.S. What does Assange know that we don't?
4. Why don't UK authorities shut their fucking pieholes about Assange and crack down on actual criminals hard at work in Standard Chartered, HSBC, Barclays, RBS, AIG FP-London, Lehman-London, et cetera, et cetera? Oh, that's right. The UK's only exports are financial FRAUD and terrorist money-laundering services, and thus it needs to jam its beak into public orgasms like this Assange business as a distraction.
Meanwhile, in the good old U.S.A., a land free of distratctions, a former U.S. Marine was ranting on Facebook recently...
http://jeenyuscorner.com/2012/08/17/former-marine-arrested-last-night-over-facebook-posts-that-s-s-claim-were-terroristic-jeenyuscorner-com (check out the message attributed to the Marine's mother toward the end)
As for Question 3 above (why Assange would make Sweden's agreement not to extradite him to the U.S. a condition of his agreeing to travel to Sweden and answer questions), I found this:
"Assange's New York lawyer, Michael Ratner, was convinced a grand jury was investigating Assange, then went on: 'Four Corners has obtained a copy of a subpoena from a grand jury which is examining evidence for possible charges relating to "conspiracy to communicate or transmit national defence information" and obtaining "information protected from disclosure from national defence". Critically, the subpoena contains the identifying codes, 10 and 3793.'"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/opinion/julian-assange-saga-just-gets-weirder/story-e6frg9to-1226453630275
Assange's lawyer contends that the code is shorthand for 3 U.S.C. § 793, which covers criminal "conspiracy to commit espionage" and that 10 refers to the year-based prefix of the grand jury number.
Assange's lawyer may not have the code exactly right, but it's close enough. In fact, 18 U.S.C. § 793, entitled "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information," is quite a bit more on point than Assange's lawyer has it.
In any event, that appears to explain why Assange will head to Sweden only if authorities there agree to certain conditions.
Separately, I called several UK officials about their fucking piehole problem. Unfortunately, they are still pouting about Standard Chartered getting called out on its massive criminal concealment of terrorist money-laundering activities, and didn't respond.
---
What the hell does that mean. Details.
http://dailybail.com/home/wikileaks-cable-systemic-insolvency-is-now-the-problem-globa.html
I thought this was an interesting Wiki release. Also don't forget Wikileaks' role in getting the videos out of the civilian shootings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://dailybail.com/home/tiny-tim-is-now-your-big-brother-geithner-to-make-it-illegal.html
http://dailybail.com/home/how-attorney-general-eric-holder-colluded-with-bank-of-ameri.html
http://dailybail.com/home/long-awaited-wikileaks-secret-bank-of-america-files-have-bee.html
The document drop that never happened.
The problem with UK officials starts here:
"in 2000, they passed an act, called the Financial Services Markets Act of 2000, which basically included a clause which said that the competitiveness of the City was MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RULE OF LAW. It said that regulators must consider the international mobility of financial businesses before taking enforcement action, and they must avoid damaging the UK’s competitiveness.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IE7rHh4Arc (Ian Fraser on Max Keiser at 15:50)
So the UK's official policy for over a decade has been that bankers are beyond the rule of law. The UK, in other words, has re-instated a thinly disguised government known as the Divine Right of Kings (the only difference being that UK officials don't formally address bankers as "your Majesty"--at least not in public).
Thus unshackled by law, UK officials overlook, as a matter of policy, massive criminal violations by banks like Standard Chartered going on right under their noses, just like they condone LIBOR rigging by Barclays (and lkely RBS), fraud by AIG FP-London, fraud by Lehman-London, etc., crimes that are now running into the trillions of damage.
As if altogether ignoring law weren't bad enough, however, UK officials have taken their hubris to the next level by affirmatively denouncing laws outside the jurisdiction of the UK and purporting treat rumors of a sexual pecadillo outside UK borders as a state offense. They did this in complaining about a NEW YORK regulator who worked enforce against Standard Chartered NEW YORK state laws, and now with Assange, who under international law has done nothing to even consider extradition: he's not been covicted of or charged with any crime.
This, in a nutshell, is the UK's fucking piehole problem: having relegated itself to the eternal dustbin of legal history, the UK's only recourse is to run its mouth about matters it has little or nothing to do with. All of which, again, points to the entire affair as an enormous distraction.
Those are great questions that no one ever answered. But you are right that there would definitely be a footprint if this story was true.
This fabled story originated with Rep. Kanjorski in Feb. 2009, the Year of the Crazy Story. Let's recap just some of the epic weirdness that began in the first month of the new Obama Adminstration:
2/6: Kanjorski, responding to an irate caller on C-Span, busts out of left field with the heretofore untold story of the Federal Reserve "noticing" a $550 billion drawdown on money market accounts in the U.S.
3/3: Obama states: “What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.” http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/7771/does-president-know-what-p-e-ratio-stands
3/6: Dow Jones bottoms at 6627, then rises 60% by year end. http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI
3/10: Bernanke comes out against mark-to-market accounting. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ae28zU9ATxmk
3/12: Kanjorki and other members of Congress rail against mark-to-market accounting. http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/13306816
3/16-4/2: FASB proposes and then adopts mark-to-fantasy accounting. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agfrKseJ94jc
3/30: The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Treasury has $134.5 billion left in TARP funds. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123828522318566241.html
6/3: Two Japanese businessmen are apprehended in Chiasso, Italy attempting to head into Switzerland with... $134.5 billion in U.S. bonds stashed in secret compartments inside their luggage. How could that much money fit inside of luggage? "The securities were divided among 249 certificates of 500 million each, along with ten other certificates each worth $1 billion respectively." http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/420590-marli/8420-did-the-japanese-try-to-dump-135-billion-in-us-bonds-on-the-black-market
Conclusion: Lots of crazy shit shit involving unprecedented shitloads of money was going on in the first half of 2009, and no one has ever given an explanation worth a shit for any of it.