On Tuesday, Dame Vivienne Westwood and British singer M.I.A joined hundreds of protesters at an event in support of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who is currently awaiting a hearing that will decide if he’ll be extradited to the United States to face conspiracy and hacking charges.

Wearing a homemade mask of the WikiLeaks co-founder’s face, Westwood told crowds at the “Don't Extradite Assange” march that Assange was a “kind, good freedom fighter for free speech” and a “political prisoner”.

Dame Vivienne Westwood, wearing a mask, reads a statement outside the Home Office in London. © NIKLAS HALLE'N

“Julian Assange will die unless we set him free,” she said from a covered stage erected outside the Home Office headquarters in London.

M.I.A also took to the stage, performing her 2008 single “Paper Planes” and imploring the Home Office not to extradite Assange.

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Assange’s extradition hearing is currently set for February 2020. In October, his request to delay the proceedings by three months was denied.

M.I.A performed and implored the Home Office not to extradite Assange. © Ollie Millington

The whistleblower has been in London since 2012, when he claimed asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he was wanted for facing sexual assault rape allegations. (Those charges were dropped in 2017.)

In April 2019, he was ousted from the embassy for “discourteous and aggressive behaviour," according to Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno, and removed by the Metropolitan Police on an extradition notice from the US, where he could face federal conspiracy charges related to 2010 leaks.

In May, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for violating his bail conditions by claiming asylum at the embassy.

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WikiLeaks gained international notoriety in 2010, when it leaked classified video and documents related to the American military, including more than 90,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan, nearly 400,000 documents from the Iraq War, and a video of a US helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several civilians in Baghdad.

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