The State v Julian Assange with Gabriel Shipton & Stella Moris - WBD525

Gabriel Shipton is a Film Producer & advocate for his brother
Julian Assange; Stella Moris is a lawyer & wife to Julian
Assange. In this interview, we discuss the unprecedented State
assault on Assange’s freedom, the effects on his mental &
physical well-being, & the threat to journalism.


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On March 15th 2006, US forces dropped from helicopters onto the
roof of a house in a village north of Baghdad. The mission was
reportedly to intercept a member of al-Qaeda who was visiting the
dwelling. The US troops gathered 11 family members in one room,
handcuffed them, and shot them all in the head. This included 5
children under 6, one of whom was a 6-month-old baby. US soldiers
then called in an airstrike to destroy evidence of their crimes.


Iraqi police reported the details of the incident at the time,
but the US military refuted these claims, stating a fire-fight
with insurgents caused the deaths, and that “[US forces] take
every precaution to keep civilians out of harm’s way.” Their
investigations ended, effectively neutering any other external
examination of their conduct.


This was until 2010 when WikiLeaks released a series of
classified US documents on the Afghan War, Iraq War, and cables
between the US State Department and its diplomatic missions
around the world. One such cable was from a March 2006
investigation of the above incident by the UN, which corroborated
the Iraqi police’s accusations that a horrific war crime had been
committed.


WikiLeaks releases in 2010 highlighted hundreds of other
unreported civilian deaths at the hands of the US military in
both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, including military coverup of
the torture (using drills and acid) and execution of Iraqi
detainees by Iraqi authorities.


Julian Assange is the only person linked to these incidents who
has been punished. In August it will be 10 years since he sought
asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. During that time the
CIA had planned to kidnap and execute him. Then, 3 years ago
Assange was arrested in the embassy and taken to the UK’s highest
security prison, Belmarsh, where he’s still kept. All because he
published source material, a journalistic practice acting as a
bedrock of democracy.


US authorities have indicted Assange, an Australian citizen
residing in the UK, using their 1917 espionage act; this has
never previously been used against a journalist. The US is
seeking to extradite Assange using a 2003 UK-US treaty, which was
hurriedly brought into law without oversight as a response to the
war on terror. The rights of individuals in the UK are limited by
this treaty. To compound issues further, Assange will not benefit
from US constitutional rights.


The full weight of the US and UK states is being used against
Assange. His physical and mental condition is deteriorating.
Assange’s treatment is being used as a warning to others.
Whatever your preconceived ideas are about this case, the
implications are chilling: the US is seeking to make journalism a
crime, and those they accuse suffer.