Blue Mountains for Assange (BMA) activists have rallied for the first visit of Julian Assange's wife to Australia and the largest protest for Assange in Australia.
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The rally and march on Wednesday, May 24 in Hyde Park in Sydney was attended by an estimated 1000 people. Speakers included Mr Assange's wife Stella Assange and his father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton.
It was originally scheduled to coincide with US President Joe Biden's visit to Sydney for a meeting with the prime ministers of Australia, Japan and India. The protest went ahead despite the US president cancelling his trip.
Leila Wedd, one of the BMA organisers who attended the protest said: "We are part of a network in the Sydney region and around the country and world working together to help free this Walkley-award winning journalist who has been persecuted and incarcerated for revealing government crimes.
"There is a heartening rise in public, media and parliamentary awareness of just how much is at stake. Prime Minister Albanese's 'quiet diplomacy', that has got nowhere, is being drowned out by the rising fury".
Speaking at the rally, Stella Assange, thanked the protesters who were "at the forefront of a global movement for justice. A global movement that converges on one man, but the meaning of which goes far beyond Julian's freedom. It's not just Julian who has lost his freedom, but all of us. Because in order to keep Julian in prison, they have had to corrupt their own rules and their own principles."
She said: "He's in prison because he exposed the crimes of others. No decent human being will ever tolerate that. The only people whose interest remains in Julian's imprisonment, are the ones who are guilty and implicated in those crimes... Julian is an Australian, he's a country boy, and he's from this country. That means that the key to securing Julian's release lies with you."
Former military lawyer and whistleblower David McBride told the crowd: "We are going to win this, because we are right."
BMA activist Michael De-Campo, who also attended the rally, said: "The latest poll shows that over 80 per cent of Australians support Julian's release. Anthony Albanese needs to stop pussyfooting around and stand up for this heroic Australian truth-teller. We are sick of Prime Ministers who behave like US courtiers."
Another BMA activist Brendan Doyle said: "We spoke with both John and Gabriel Shipton at the rally. They had seen our local member Susan Templeman in Canberra the previous day and she assured them of her support.
"We thank Susan for this. However, that support must include telling her parliamentary colleagues, Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, that their job is to demand the Americans drop the extradition charges now as a condition of the alliance between our two countries."
In a statement, the Macquarie MP told the Gazette: "The message from the Assange team was that they are very aware of the support from the Blue Mountains and are very grateful for it.
"I have been part of the Parliamentary support group on the Assange case since inception. In this Parliament, there's been a notable increase in the number of Parliamentarians being active in the group, which shows support for the government's view that the case has been going on long enough and should be resolved.
"I appreciate that there are legal avenues for the Assange team to pursue, however I hear the message that the time they take is too long and that action is urgently needed by the US and UK governments," said Ms Templeman
Julian Assange has spent four years in Britain's Belmarsh maximum security prison fighting extradition to the USA on 17 espionage charges for the publication of almost half a million secret US government documents from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The documents had been leaked by then US intelligence analyst, Private Bradley Manning, now Chelsea Manning.
