Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam released the statement below on May 31.
* * *
Around the country today we’re coming together to demand action from the Australian government to protect an Australian citizen from prosecution and from persecution.
Yesterday’s verdict in the UK Supreme Court provides for another delay, another fortnight of legal limbo. It is another two weeks in which the important work of this publishing organisation stays on hold.
We’re calling for Julian Assange to come home. The WikiLeaks publishing organisation has been targeted for sustained harassment and character assassination, and its finances have been shattered by a banking blockade by Visa, MasterCard and others.
In Australia, we have seen bipartisan political indifference on behalf of the old parties, indifference that looks on closer examination like hostility.
This Australian citizen needs diplomatic, legal and political help from his government and he’s not getting it.
Today we’ve come together to demand his safe return to Australia, and more importantly, to meet each other in person, to organise and plan the next stage of our campaign.
We need to raise our voices much louder, in direct challenge to the economic and political interests that seem to feel so threatened by the uncompromising transparency agenda that WikiLeaks has championed, and that our world so desperately needs.
Thanks for turning out today in defence of democracy, in defence of freedom to communicate, and in defence of the people who now find themselves under attack for leading the way.
