Sixty Blue Mountains residents gathered in Katoomba on Tuesday [March 9] to meet the father of the imprisoned founder of WikiLeaks - Julian Assange and hear from his campaign.
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Julian Assange's father, John Shipton, spoke in Carrington Place as part of a regional tour. Assange is in Belmarsh prison in London. He has been accused of hacking and conspiracy charges in the United States.
John Shipton says his whistleblower son's matter will only be solved with Australia's involvement.
"Right around the world there's increasing momentum to releasing Julian Assange."
He spoke of several cross Parliament party groups around the world supporting the move.
"Twenty four of the world's human rights NGO's signed a letter which was on the front page of The New York Times three weeks back for the extradition [from Britain to America] to be stopped."
He said his son had been "held in detention for 10 years ... under a deluge of ceaseless malice".
"This is our power rising up and our resistance to the implication that journalists and Australians ought to be intimidated to the point where they're held in arbitrary detention for 10 years under a deluge of malice, ceaseless malice.
"Due process again and again is abandoned."
Assange and WikiLeaks drew fury from the US Government after publishing thousands of pages of once-secret reports and documents in 2010, generated by American military and intelligence agencies, including detailed descriptions of CIA hacking capabilities.
But a London court ruled in January against the U.S extradition because of fears for Assange's mental health.
"We have 24 parliamentarians in Australia, the first cross parliamentarian group. They take those concerns ... it's very positive ... plus you and me. It's authority rising up."
Mr Shipton, an architect and former Leura resident who designed and built the Leura amphitheatre in the mid 1980's, also spoke at the WikiLeaks Cafe in Hazelbrook on Wednesday (March 10).
He thanked Mountains residents for listening and suggested they use the site his son founded - "use the facilities that WikiLeaks has created".
Political activist, Graeme Dunstan, who is travelling alongside Mr Shipton as "peace bus captain" said "we sense we are on a home run now". The group heard local MP Susan Templeman was supporting moves to bring Assange home.
Jacob Grech, who is also travelling with the tour and acted as MC, gathered the audience for a group picture at the end of the event to "send love and support for our boy in Belmarsh".
Blue Mountains for Assange organiser Warren Ross said, "There was a great turn out from our community at short notice. The takeaway for us all is that our actions do matter; contacting MPs, getting onto the Wikileaks site and sharing the information, speaking up, occupying public space, that is how we are going to free Julian Assange".
Ward 1 Cr Kerry Brown added: "We need to save Julian Assange because his human rights are also our human rights. We are all in this together to call out secret, ruthless and lawless government behaviour."
