Chelsea Manning

The following letter is to be sent to every independent candidate standing in the Federal Parliamentary election. A similar letter is to be sent to the candidates standing for the smaller parties, It is my hope that raising the profile of Julian Assange, now, may result in the election, on 18 May, of a Federal Parliament with at least a few members who are prepared to act to try to protect Julian Assange from those in the United States whose criminal conduct he helped expose to the world. One party, which is standing candidates this election and which has campaigned in support of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning is the Socialist Equity Party. Their candidates include 2 candidates standing for the NSW Senate and 2 candidates standing for the Victorian Senate. In NSW they are contesting the Lower House seats of Parramatta and Hunter, in Victoria they are contesting the seat of Calwell and in Brisbane they are contesting Oxley. Let's hope that we will soon learn of other candidates who will also stand up for Julian Assange.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Firstly, thank you for standing as a candidate in the forthcoming election of 18 May.

Still from "Collateral Murder" video, leaked by Chelsea Manning (pictured opposite, below) to Julian Assange (opposite, top). The shorter version is embedded within this article.

I write to ask if you will use the election campaign to speak up for Julian Assange, an unjustly imprisoned Australian journalist, who faces extradition from Britain to the United States. Through the Wikileaks news service, established in 2006, Julian revealed to the world war-crimes that United States' rulers wanted to remain concealed. One of the most infamous of those incidents was the 12 July 2007 "Collateral murder" in Iraq by the US crew of an Apache helicopter.

Julian Assange and other whistleblowers including Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, have revealed much of what we now know about how and why America, Israel, Australia and their allies have waged bloody wars against the peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. As a result of these wars several millions have died since 1990. If the US-NATO aligned powers can get their way, they intend much of the same for the people of Latin America, Russia and East Asia. On these and related issues, the Wheeler Centre conducted a superb interview with Assange tonight 30 September 2015 and there seems to be a podcast there at http://www.wheelercentre.com/events/julian-assange. Check it out.

Updates (18/8/15) : 1. "Julian Assange and the Value of WikiLeaks: Subverting Illusions" (17/8/15) | Global Research republished from Roots Action, 2. Manning barred from legal library before solitary confinement hearing (17/8/15) | RT.

This article has been adapted from the original article which was published on RT on 10 Aug 2015. The fate awaiting Julian Assange should he be extradited to the United States is indicated by the treatment of fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning at the hands of the United States Government. See Chelsea Manning faces indefinite solitary confinement, lawyer says (13/8/15) | RT.

Australian citizen Julian Assange is believed to have been 'victimized' by Swedish prosecutors following revelations that they interviewed 44 people in the UK, but refused to interview the WikiLeaks head in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he has been for over three years. A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Hazel Press news organization has revealed that Sweden has granted 44 requests to interview witnesses or suspects in the UK since 2010, the Press Association reports. This has led supporters of the WikiLeaks founder to claim that Assange has been "singled out," as he has also agreed to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors inside the embassy concerning sex allegations in the Scandinavian country.

This article about fellow Australian Julian Assange has been adapted from the original Sputnik International article of 7 April 2015.

April 5 marked the five-year anniversary of the release of the Collateral Murder video by WikiLeaks (embedded within). The shocking footage showed the entire world the 2007 US Apache attack helicopter airstrike on Baghdad that killed 12 people - including two Reuters staff members - and injured two small children.

Ironically, the only ones imprisoned for the crime were those with the courage and compassion to attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice.

See also: l'Espresso interview | Julian Assange: 'I still enjoy crushing bastards' (2/4/15).

by Jamison Maeda. First published on Clare Daly's web site (http://claredaly.ie) on 7 Sep 2013. (Emphasis not in Original.)

Bradley Manning was a 25 year old intelligence analyst in the US Army, who was arrested in 2010 for leaking hundreds of thousands of confidential, government and military documents to the public via Wikileaks. Manning claimed his objective was to remove "the fog of war and reveal the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare." Manning accomplished much more. Manning was believed to be responsible for the Wikileaks release of 38 minutes of cockpit gun sight footage of an American airstrike in Baghdad in 2007. The video shows a United States Army AH 64 Apache helicopter killing a group of men including a Reuters journalist and photographer, and a civilian man who stopped to assist the wounded. That man's two children were also wounded in the attack. (Preventing those who attempt to assist wounded in battle is a violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and considered a war crime.)