On February 9, at UCLA Law School, the LA Committee for the Defense of Julian Assange presented “The Prosecution of Julian Assange and the Threat to the Freedom of the Press,” a three-hour program examining the major political, legal and constitutional issues surrounding the Assange prosecution, putting it in context with the US-lead campaign to punish whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.

Here are links to an edited version of the event; the Ellsberg, Chomsky and Assange interviews; resources posted by the Courage Foundation and letters of support. Here is the event materials page prepared for the event.

The speakers included

Bianca Bagatourian Bee, Gaslighting playwright

Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild

Robert Corsini, Documentary Filmmaker and Producer

Vincent De Stefano, ACLU Pasadena/ Foothills Chapter

Jim Lafferty, National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles

Margaret Kunstler, co-editor, In Defense of Julian Assange

Sharon Kyle JD, Publisher, LA Progressive

Barry Pollack, Julian Assange’s US attorney

Stephen Rohde, Constitutional scholar, ACLU SoCal

Alveena Shah, UCLA Law School, Moderator

Carey Shenkman, First Amendment lawyer

With the integration of exclusive interviews with Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, and a rarely seen interview with Julian, substantial information was presented about Julian:

his role as a journalist on a wide range of important international issues

the concerted efforts of the US, the UK, and Sweden to demonize him and spread false and misleading information

the atrocious conditions of torture and cruel and Inhumane conditions to which he has been subjected

the intolerable conditions of incarceration he faces in the US based on how Chelsea has been and is being treated

the importance of the information published by Julian, include the shocking evidence of war crimes depicted in the Collateral Murder video

the unprecedented indictment which has been filed by the US, making Julian the first publisher or journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for revealing leaked documents which the government claims are secret

the history of the infamous Espionage Act and the threat it poses to freedom of speech and the press if this prosecution is allowed to go forward

the nature of the extradition proceedings pending in the UK and the importance of the exception for “political offenses.”

The LA Committee for the Defense of Julian Assange will continue to work on this important cause and will keep you fully informed.

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