Dear Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,

As you are surely aware, Julian Assange has been locked away since 11 April 2019 – more than 5 years ago - in solitary confinement for more than 23 hours per day for more than 5 years

If Julian Assange, who has broken no British law [1] can be treated in this way, this means that any Australian citizen can also be imprisoned. (This article has been adapted from a PDF file. To download, see the end of this article.)

Clearly what is at stake here is the right of every Australian to free speech and for protection from malign foreign governments.

I therefore put to you and your government that you must find the means to persuade UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to end the imprisonment of Assange now and to persuade US President Joe Biden to end his government’s efforts to extradite Julian Assange.

I understand you and the Foreign Minister have already spoken to both Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak about this matter, but given that Assange remains imprisoned and that the US is still resolved to extradite Julian Assange, could I suggest that at least you use more forceful language in your future communications with these people? Should that not persuade them, could I suggest that you speak more loudly and in public at press conferences and in Parliament for Julian Assange and end the ‘quiet diplomacy’ that you have practised thus far?

I believe that alone could persuade both Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak to give Julian Assange his freedom, but should that fail, you still have the following recourses:

• Ask other political leaders in those countries for their help. Both George Galloway, the recently elected member for Rochdale in the UK, and Robert F. Kennedy Junior, who is contesting the 2024 US Presidential elections, are both outspoken supporters of Julian Assange;
• Raise the case of Julian Assange at the next United Nations General Assembly;
• Prosecute the United Kingdom at the International Criminal Court; and
• Prosecute both the United Kingdom and the United States at the International Court of Justice

If you were to follow at least some of my above suggestions, I expect that both the US and the UK could find that the political costs of continuing their imprisonment of Assange would be too large.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon Melbourne Victoria

How you can help

Take extra copies of this leaflet and give to friends, neighbours and other members of the public. Download the PDF from this page to print more copies. As I can't be sure which will work in the Officeworks printers, two versions of the PDF file have been created. They are version 1 and version 2. They are both portrait A3 files each containing 4 portrait A5 page images.

Attend protests for Julian Assange including the Weekly Melbourne Vigil for Julian Assange which starts at 5pm each Friday outside Flinders Street Station.

Contact your MP or your state Senators and ask them, at the forthcoming sittings of both the House of Representatives and the Senate which commence on Tuesday 14 May, to put a motion which calls on the Australian government to act as suggested above to free Julian Assange.

Footnote[s]

[1] in July 2012 Julian Assange ‘skipped bail’ to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid being extradited to the United States. For this supposed ‘misdemeanour’ Assange was sentenced in May 2019 to serve 50 weeks in Belmarsh Prison. He finished that sentence in May 2020 and has not broken any other British law before or since then.