Shedding light on what’s happening in order to win the battle : Who are Julian Assange’s relatives?

August 2019, by Monika Karbowska

Summer is gone, and softly gone with it is the deafening silence around the most iconic political prisoner in Europe. Mediatic whispers are slighlty rising, based on concerts, rallies and « I am Assange » visual artworks refering to the dreadful 2015-2016 terrorist attacks. Getting Julian Assange out of jail, protecting him and leading him to a safe place should be every Human Rights activist’s aim ; and, while pondering the quickest and most effective strategy to do so, I laid my fingers on one of my former « mapping » documents from the period of political repression I experienced, as a european union activist.

Who are my true friends ?

Some Greek, Polish and Bulgarian unionists and friends of mine and I reported in 2007 – 2009 the exploitation of East-European migrants, posted workers considered as slaves for workforce recruitment agencies, working in tourist sites 15 to 18 hours a day for a salary of 400-600€. We launched a campaign to fight for those European migrant workers’ rights, printed a multilingual leaflet and I published an article under my own name in left-wing Polish and Greek media and on alterglobalization French and German websites[i] . And I paid the price. Konstantina Kouneva, my friend and famous Bulgarian union activist got acid thrown on her in a street of Athens in December 2008 and, in August 2009, I was kidnapped at night by the Greek police while I was at home, on the tourist island I worked for ; then I was indicted by two colluding accusers for burglary based on a scenario as utterly fantastic as the one written by the social democratic activist and police officer aiming at suing Julian Assange for sexual assault. Reading the fictional detective production by Irmeli Krans [ii], made me irresistibly remind of my own legal case, because of the choice of protagonists and because of the insidious sexualisation of the situation in order to shame me and silence me. I had been sued for five years for something I did not commit and threatened to be rendered to the Greek police during grotesque proceedings via a European arrest warrant following a rigged trial marked by magistrates, lawyers, police officers and local bosses being family members. When I could organize my successful legal defense, I therefore used the mapping document entittled « Who are my real friends in this legal case ». On the paper, next to me, was written the name of my mother ; on the right and on the left, were a few of my friends from different countries ; at the bottom of page were the actions to take and the ones financing them. My lawyers, my doctors and my moral and political supports showed all around.

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The judgment of the Naxos court clearing me of the repressive cabal against me

I don’t really believe poor Julian Assange to be able to write such a document for himself though that type of review is absolutely needed if you are a dissident hounded by the capitalist system and if you want to save your own skin. It doesn’t matter if your sheet of paper is sparsely filled, what is important is the loyalty and the reliability from your real supports. The closer you get to your release, the more you may even remove from your list nuisances who make you lose precious energy and take your time away over unproductive storyteling. You can’t afford to do that because it is your life on the line now. So I wondered how Julian Assange could answer the following question : « who are my true relatives ». And, as a human rights organization is intended to defend the rights of those too weak to protect themselves, I’m trying to help Julian Assange sort out the true ones from the liars, beyond the walls of the dark hollow place is in.

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Trade union leaflet for which I was prosecuted in Greece

The more I would immerse myself in the significant documentation spanning the ten-year European Julian Assange’s saga, the more I found the official storytelling put forward by the media and weblogs to be covering very different tales. So I had to adjust my mapping to a changing situation. I would get rid of people who were Julian’s closest relatives but who disappeared, became unavailable and either way, don’t defend him : Sarah Harrison, and  my well-established left-winger friends from Berlin could not find her wherabouts, Jacob Appelbaum, the true hero of the movie « Risk » and the brilliant developper of the search engine called Tor, has not given news for three years, since he was forced to leave the Tor project. I will not consider Mrs Renata Avila because, as a East-European citizen, she had her state completely destroyed et deeply reshaped by Soros’ organizations and I cannot trust someone getting a salary from an organization funded by the very same man.

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Union table at Thomas restaurant in Santorini in summer 2007

[i] http://amitie-entre-les-peuples.org/Travail-capitalisme-et-migration

https://wolnemedia.net/wyzysk-pod-akropolem/

file:///C:/Users/Ikaria/Documents/Documents/Monika/Politique/Europe/Οι%20σκλάβοι%20του%20Αιγαίου.htm

https://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/183992.shtml

[ii] http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/protocol.pdf

The « Director »

Anyway, I quickly realised his former relatives could not be a part of Prisoner Assange’s perfect adopted family scene. In the center, the « director », as some media nicknamed him when he died in 2016[i] , would get pride of place. He is Gavin McFayden, the very Kristinn Hrafnsson’s partner in WikiLeaks’ financial managing, via Islandic society Sunshine Press Production, created on October 8th 2010[ii]  while Julian Assange is monopolized with the Swedish charges. He was so closed to Julian Assange since his arriving in Europe in 2009 at least, that some people consider him as the real WikiLeaks founder – WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 , and as Assange’s mentor, best friend and only friend. Well, I must admit photos with the two of them reveal in a way tenderness [iii], especially as Julian Assange paid him a tribute at his death in a direct message on Twitter from his « embassish » jail whereas he said nothing about his maternal grandfather’s death, Alfred Hawkins, or about his social father’s death, Brett Assange in 2012[iv].

Gayvin McFayden’s role in WikiLeaks’ saga and Julian Assange’s personal fate needs to be seen as pivotal and historic. Hippie activist of the Trotskist International for the Socialist Workers Party, filmmaker and journalist, MacFayden probably made his far-left contact network available to his spiritual son Julian Assange as WikiLeaks was supposed to be an extension or the outcome of the Center for Investigative Journalism created in 2003 while Bush and Blair’s Irak War was culminating[v] . Therefore, the same Center provided Julian Assange with staff and closed associates such as Sarah Harrison, Renata Avila, or David Farrell, putting together and formatting the well-known 2010 leaks : the Afghan and Irak Logs, US diplomatic cables. MacFayden founded a committee raising funds to defend Julian Assange and may have manages them. Perhaps it is the famous « legal defence fund » led by Susan Benn, MacFayden’s widow, that selected Doughty Street Chambers and suggested people like G. Robertson or J. Robinson to be Julian Assange’s legal team [vi]

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Julian Assange and Gavin MacFadyen in December 2011

It is true I cannot remember CIJ’s actions though, at the peak of European resistance against globalization et imperialism, dozens of thousands of political leftist activists would have debates in cultural centers and squats during the European Social Forum in London, in 2004. Young enthusiastic British activists from Stop The War Coalition managed to gather 100,000 people together for the final march ending at Trafalgar Square on October 18th 2004. As a very committed European activist, I think WikiLeaks, in 2010, was the outcome and not the starting point of struggles against US war hostile invasion in Irak[vii] .

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McFayden left an empty place in Julian Assange’s « resistance network mapping » because he, Julian Assange’s spiritual father also known as « master » among some sources, died of cancer in 2016. I am not sure whether I should add Mrs Susan Benn to Assange’s relatives not just because of the lack of facts proving they were closed but because the way the lawyers, shepherded and paid (?) by her support fund, acted does not seem very useful. My Greek legal case lasted five years and as long as I would pay politically suspicious lawyers, I would lose my trials one after another and I would fail to keep in mind the appropriate needed successful strategy. In European laws, as the accused one, I was in charge of my own defence line, of my freedom and of my honour. Accessing the translation of my file and any file documents related in the language I understand the most was my absolute right. Most important, I am a citizen endowed with inalienable rights and lawyers are no substitute for me concerning may own rights. They are just assistance I can change whenever I want to, once I paid them upon presentation of legal invoice, or because they were legal aid provided by my country of residence.

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[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J33qDyAkkk4

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/06/gavin-macfadyen-obituary

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/apr/24/fbis-long-obsession-gavin-macfadyen/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gavin-macfadyen-5sm355v99

[ii] https://fr.scribd.com/document/341479410/Sunshine-Press-Productions-Ehf-private-limited-company-aka-Wikileaks

[iii] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/business/media/gavin-macfadyen-dies-wikileaks.html

[iv] https://www.northernstar.com.au/news/julian-assanges-grandfather-dies-in-victoria/1572359/

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/790278989596295170/photo/1

[v] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/shine-a-light/gavin-macfadyen-1940-2016-why-investigative-journalism-matte/

[vi] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18648922

https://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/news-photo/susan-benn-representative-of-the-julian-assange-defence-news-photo/147408599?adppopup=true

[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/oct/18/eu.world1

https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2004/esf/

Who gets profits from Wikileaks’ money ?

Numerous articles have showed for years the futility of Jennifer Robinson’s strategy. She has initiated no legal action to get Julian Assange out of jail upon health reasons since April 2019, and she abstained from filing an appeal of his detention for breaching his bail [i]. I am even less willing to trust her because I am a European citizen and Polish sovereignist communist activist and Jennifer Robinson has spent her summer supporting actively a separatist organization in Indonesian West Papua, contributing to the Indonesian State inner divisions and tensions whereas Indonesian people are trying to protect their natural resources nationalizing them[ii] . In his writings and speeches, Julian Assange NEVER promoted imperialist interferences in  other states or peoples’ conflicts, he never supported colour revolutions on purpose of « regime change » benefiting pro-western political forces. It is not that much unreasonnable to think that a detainee’s counsel should share the slightest values he reflects [iii].

There are numerous grey areas concerning Wikileaks’ finance and fund receiving parties which is no news. German law Wau Holland foundation, who acts as a fund raiser, and Islandic Sunshine Press Production company’s role and WikiLeaks’ legal framework require to be busily assessed [iv]. And what really matters is Assange, I mean the man, who has never benefited from his organization’s financial windfall, whether it is legendary bitcoins or real money, being parts of his European head-officed organization’s financial statement. Presently, those facts heavily strain his actual situation as a detainee. In august 2010, Julian Assange was already powerless, with no money, stuck in Sweden and subjected to do-gooders for his accomodation, his food (sic), his phone credits while he was already tracked down by US secret services and while the European legal armada was starting in order to ground him and extradite him to the US [v].

Just a question from a migrant a proletarian activist : why did nobody from WikiLeaks, from CIJ or no family member of him send him a Western Union money order within the two hours following the freezing of his bank account ? In december 2010, British judicial system considered citizen Julian Assange as a indigent as he had no address, no flat, no belongings… Nothing. This is why he was refused release on bail and then, once a outrageous bail was paid by healthy leftist social democrates, he was trapped in a house belonging to a man vouching for Prisoner Julian Assange’s good behaviour, he was monitored day and night by electronic tagging, he was inflicted a night curfew and he had to report to a local police station evryday. The man, Julian Assange, has relied on his relatives for nine years for mere daily actions. Besides, how can we trust such a tale abounding on the Internet about Assange managing his organization as a merciless boss, firing his co-worker Daniel Domscheit Berg or using shamelessly the 17-year-old juvenil’s computer skills and letting him down when the CIA starts watching him [vi]. And remember we have just realized Gavin MacFadyen was the one in charge of WikiLeaks – with Kristin Hrafnsonn as a background leader – and that Julian Assange only had a honorary position on the organization chart, just like a luxury trainee working on the project of non-profit organization, which is typical of the alterglobalization-NGO decade.

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Kristinn Hrafnsson, Gavin MacFadyen, and Julien Assange (left to right) of WikiLeaks, before a Media press conference at a south London Hotel, where they talked about the Iraq body count, this morning. (Photo by John Stillwell/PA Images via Getty Images) – the owners of the Sunshine Press Production compagny , Hrafnsson, MacFadyen, Assange

Actually, we, French people, are incorrigible social achievement defensor and we can’t keep from wondering whether Julian Assange had an employment contract with WikiLeaks organization with social protection and retirement contributions ? These issues are important while in a repressive capitalist system that treat you differently depending on whether you are a volunteer with no income or a socially integrated salaried taxpayer. I was about to forget the essential aspect for non EU migrants : working gives you a resident permit referencing your address and work position. If Julian Assange had such a permit mentionning his job as a journalist, nobody would have denied it to him.  However he doesn’t own such a document, his address may be a Post Office box somewhere in Australia and Sweden refused him the work permit he applied for while living at his accuser’s place, Anna Ardin. Still about the financial issue, non one among his relatives seems to pay attention to Julian Assange social status or social security and retirement contributions though he is a foreigner in Europe. He would have avoid many problems and much suffering had a non-profit migrant-worker organization assisted him.

Years later, the problem arised again because Julian Assange exhausted himself mentally and physically while locked in the Ecuadorian diplomatic mission’s facilities. The 2015 medical report set up by three London doctors mandated by the Ecuadorian State, implies that Julian Assange is not medically taken care of because of security issues – indeed – but also because of « who’s paying » issues [vii]. So it seems that the Ecuadorian diplomatic mission pays for his daily expenses but he still has no employment contract and no social security, from Great Britain, from Ecuador or with the status of posted worker ! I was shocked to discover such information. And well, I spent 30 years, as an social activist and volunteer, explaining to undocumented workers it is essential to regularize their situation thanks to an employment contract! In 2015, Julian Assange was 44. He was probably getting tired of such living conditions as different illnesses had started to weaken him. Nowadays, in the only well-detailed letter we received last June, he complains about phone call prices in detention centres. In jail, everything has a price. If you cannot pay, it is because you, or your relatives, have no money. As an insecure proletarian, I cannot feel indifferent towards such a cry for help.

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Gavin MacFadyen the Director of Wikileaks and co-Director of Sunshine Press Production and the Center for Investigative Journalism CIJ

[i] https://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/liberez-assange-ethiques-et-medias/article/220819/les-avocats-fantomes-de-julian-assange

[ii] https://www.insideindonesia.org/resource-nationalism-as-imperialism-3

[iii] https://twitter.com/suigenerisjen

[iv] https://fr.scribd.com/document/341479410/Sunshine-Press-Productions-Ehf-private-limited-company-aka-Wikileaks

[v] Julian Assange’s 2016 statement against Sofia Wilem’s accusation

https://www.les-crises.fr/accusations-suedoises-deposition-de-julian-assange-14-15-novembre-2016-texte-complet/

[vi] https://www.wired.com/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/

https://www.wired.com/2013/06/wikileaks-mole/

[vii] « One of Mr. Assange’s colleagues commented that there had been many difficulties in finding medjcal practitioners who were willing to examine Mr. Assange in the Embassy. The reasons givert were uncertainly over whether medical insurance would cover the Embassy {a foreign jurisdiction )»’-  medilca file from the December 2015 in the Equatorian diplomatic mission

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/cms/Psychosocial%20Medical%20Report%20December%202015.pdf

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The frightening londonian-ecuadorian chapter

The chapter regarding the Ecuadorian Embassy needs to get a key-place in my « resistance mind-mapping » and raises many questions. It is in fact incorrect to state that someone cannot be medically treated in an embassy. The place, just like any other residence of the ambassador, consular place or flat for members of the diplomatic mission and family members, are inviolable and people inside benefit from diplomatic immunity. The inviolability of a given place lies in the fact that the agents of the State are allowed to penetrate inwards only with the agreement of the Head of mission, i.e. in line with the foreign government willingness. The inviolability of the person owning the diplomatic passport. The inviolability of the person holding the diplomatic passport implies that he or she cannot be arrested and detained or prosecuted by a judge because it is an « absolute immunity » under the Vienna Convention, more precisely according to the diplomatic usage of this Convention as it is practiced since 1961 [i].

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Any son or daughter of diplomat fellows, position I kept along my whole childhood, knows how difficult it is to denounce domestic violence in this kind of system because the protection of minors from the host country are not applicable, combined with the fact that the country of origin is far away. In other words, the foreign State is sovereign in all areas related to its diplomatic mission.

It chooses and accredits doctors from outside the hosting country if needed, bringing them in, employing them. For the record, the Republic of Poland, as a legacy of good communist management, installed in its Parisian embassy a medical office, led by a much skilled doctor who treats about 150 people working for the mission, an equipped dental practice with a fully dedicated dentist, in the era of People’s Republic of Poland at least. Poland is an average sized country (twice more inhabitants than Ecuador, or two thirds of French population), and no doubt Russia and the United States have entire field hospitals in their main offices[ii].

Ecuador is not a wealthy country, but I refuse to believe that it was impossible to install mobile dental equipment as in use by Health specialized NGOs, or similarly to perform an X-ray of Julian Assange’s shoulder. If this was not done, it means the problem was elsewhere.

The diplomatic premises may even be enlarged. To buy an entire house for the « prisoner », to buy a building, or the corridor, the staircase, the landing, in order to get a direct access through the emergency exit… And if Great Britain were determined to trample 500 years of tradition of diplomatic reciprocity and destroy the Vienna Convention, it was politically possible to break off relations with this country, to refer the matter to the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, to bring back the allied BRICS countries which are deeply concerned about State sovereignty and international law observance. As for Julian Assange, this experience has been devastating for his health and his global situation.

The map of the relatives thus appears terribly empty and Julian Assange sadly alone. We then have to question his family. In my personal case, my mother was right next to me, essentially helpful. She was 70 years old, doubtful about my political struggles, she nevertheless gathered all the required resources to compensate the repression I suffered, and constantly I reported to her shamefully and gratefully, the progress of my case and the initiatives from my political friends to get me out of a destructive cabal. My mother and one of the key activists having rescued me are now close friends.


[i] https://www.admin.ch/opc/fr/classified-compilation/19610070/index.html

https://www.persee.fr/doc/afdi_0066-3085_1961_num_7_1_1076

file:///C:/Users/Ikaria/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/RODELYS_Elza%20(1).pdf

[ii] Informations from Adam Karbowski, Ewa Zaleska, and Halina Matejczuk; Halina Matejczuk „Bylam konsulem PRL”, Fundacja Konstantego Ostrowskiego, 2015, Bialystok, (« I was Consul in Polish People’s Republic »)

The family

Mrs Christine Hawkins Assange did not let me the chance to provide my assistance because my calls, tweets and messages have gone unanswered; I have no aim to overwhelm her but on the contrary to support her morally by testifying that the life of her son, a political prisoner, is close to our hearts, we citizens of Europe. I understand that she is exhausted by ten years’ imprisonment and a sterile defence while her son’s situation is constantly deteriorating. It sounds natural to me that she has stopped sending tweets, or even that she would not travel to Europe to join the citizens’ committees trying to open the prison doors and shouting out the scandal of the detention of her dying son. I have learned of her as a victim of domestic violence by a man who was a member of an extremely dangerous cult, as Julian Assange pointed out in his autobiographical texts [1]. I therefore understand her difficulty to face this harsh battle against a warlike and imperialist political system among which the self-focused networking ramifications effectively suggest the organization of a sect.

The CIA, MI5 and MI6, the Swedish SAPO, the German BND and their obsessional attempts  to trap her child, torture him, experiment on him, must traumatise her to the utmost extent, reminding her of what Anne Hamilton Byrne’s cult was doing to the children she was taking from Australian single mothers in the early 1960s up to the year 1987, when the « Lebensborn » children camp was dismantled[2]. I sympathize because Christine Ann Hawkins probably suffered a lot trying to protect her eldest son and her second son conceived with Leif Meynel, a Family Cult’s member. Her never-ending escaping life evokes a terrifying impression of totalitarian surveillance, much more terrible than my life as a child of communist diplomats constantly monitored and obstructed by the secret services of Polish People’s Republic and Soviet Union in the 1980s, during the intense period of the finishing Cold War. I have a certain lucidity or paranoia related to my origins, but at least I know that the People’s Republic believed it was fair to protect its elites offspring from the hostile powers attempts to purchase and abuse them.

However, Assange mother’s absence prevents our action from being effective because she is alone representing the family whom Julian Assange presented as close to him in the film « Risk », the only one appearing in the reports of Russia Today in 2012 [3]. Moreover, the absence of Christine Assange is not entirely compensated by John Shipton’s activism. This man presents himself as Julian Assange’s biological father who managed to visit him twice in Belmarsh, in early June and early August 2019. Thus, hundreds of defence committee activists, in the absence of any communication from lawyers, remain suspended to the alarming but succinct statements of this single interlocutor. Where is Julian Assange? In Belmarsh in a cell or in the medical district? Perhaps he is in a special area in the prison, a terrorist isolation cell, a « very dark place » (as he recently wrote in a letter to us) « a dark place » evoking the secret CIA prisons in the Eastern countries which existence have been proven? Is he alive, and if so, what is his exact state of health? Is he able to coordinate his defence and political support or is he dying? John Shipton was never clear on the date and duration of the interviews, on the exact place where he would have seen Julian Assange, on the personal or political nature of their exchanges, on Julian Assange’s ability to express himself, on his ability to live on a daily basis (getting up, walking, eating, thinking and speaking…), the video fled by a fellow inmate in June having never been dated or authenticated or explained by Shipton, Mrs Assange or the lawyers. Experienced French activists who have spent their lives trying to get Nelson Mandela out of prison and who fight daily for the rights of Palestinian political prisoners are unsatisfied regarding the trustfulness of the information provided by John Shipton. A political prisoner always needs to talk, to send a message to the outside world to continue his fight, his health condition is a battle issue. If Julian Assange remains silent, is it due to his declining health ? So why not go immediately to the obvious conclusion, the necessity to launch legal procedure for requesting an exemption from punishment on health grounds? Nothing happening in prison can be really hidden, even in a high-security prison, as told me Mateusz Piskorski, a Polish sovereignist political activist who has just spent three years in arbitrary detention for « pro-Russian espionage ». It is surprising and frightening that no information or message from Julian Assange has yet been reported by the families of the other prisoners of Belmarsh.

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easy to apply for a visit on the Belmarsh prison website

John Shipton appeared late in Julian Assange’s surroundings in 2013 while he was locked up in the Ecuadorian premises. Assange says in his writings and interviews that he met his biological father when he was 25 years old and never explained the nature of their relationship. What an outside observer may learn is that Shipton appears publicly as a leading member of the Wikileaks Party and leads his son in an election campaign for the Australian Senate elections [4]. Julian Assange’s notoriety is thus combined with John Shipton’s long-standing political connections in the Australian Peace Movement or within the Socialist Equality Party, a Trotskyist party currently a pillar of the Fourth International and an active participant in support committees [5].

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Cancellation of Julian Assange’s visit that I booked: Belmarsh’s document explains that the DATES and times are not AVAILABLE. It does not say that Julian Assange refuses to see me, nor that visits are impossible, nor that I am not on the visitors’ list. The sybilline answer will be repeated each time we make requests that are first accepted and then refused.

However, the testimony of Daniel Mathews, a Julian Assange’s student friend who finally leaved party, depicts a Julian Assange who does not lead the Wikileaks Party and barely participates in the virtual meetings [6]. Naturally, any political refugee who has left his country for more than 5 years knows that it is difficult to regain a foothold in a society that is evolving and escaping him. But Julian Assange seems quite alone, and far more focused on finding ways to rescue Edward Snowden than on political calculations necessary to build electoral coalitions among tiny opposition parties in an Australia he left 14 years ago and never wanted to return to.

All these reasons and certainly others lead to the failure of the Wikileaks Party, which scored 0.66% votes in December 2014. But if Julian Assange never mentions those electoral struggles afterwards, John Shipton still manages a structure by which he ensures a certain notoriety. Politically, his visit to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December 2013 [7](25) exposed him to media attacks, while tabloids were being glossing over his personal fortune and the sale of his architect’s house located in a chic suburb of Sydney for more than 1.7 million dollars [8]. Recently John Shipton introduced another person to witness Julian Assange’s worrying health deterioration: Gabriel Shipton, film producer and son of John Shipton and Catherine Ann Barber Shipton. This young man introduced himself on September 2 as Julian Assange’s half-brother who had not « seen him for years » and who « may have seen him for the last time » [9](27). Although biological ties are still important in our permissive and liberal Western society, the British prison service does not necessarily favour the « biological family » in granting access rights. The « Guide for the use of family and friends of prisoners », to be downloaded from the prison website [10] and the documents published by the Consulate, for example Polish ones [11], for the benefit of relatives Polish citizens’ relatives serving sentences in Great Britain, rather prove that prisoners choose the relatives regardless from their biological family ties. Moreover, in the case of Julian Assange, it would have been necessary to prove, in the absence of a social and administrative link between John Shipton and Julian Assange, these links by a DNA test! This explains why it is very likely that in the eyes of the prison administration Mr Shipton has as much right to visit the prisoner referenced A9379AY as Mrs K. or any other activist from a support committee. Did Julian Assange choose Gabriel Shipton, whom he has not seen in years, conscientiously and voluntarily to exercise his right of access and bring political messages out to the outside world?

Beyond the thorny issue of biological paternity, if I were imprisoned for my political activities, and this can still happen to me, it would embarrass me to see my father’s mistress’ son or daughter landing onto my cell first and foremost under the pretext of common paternal genes. I would ask strong and experienced personal friends to come and carry my messages to the world and to put in place together the strategy to win the battle. But does Julian Assange, whose many personal rights have been violated, still have a choice? Is he just able to willingly fill in an administrative document? All these uncertainties generate anxiety, especially since in the event of death, Gabriel and John Shipton would then identify the body and their announcement would result in a final verdict.

Create a coordination of citizen movements

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Poster of Aymeric Monville’s book and petition for the release of Julian Assange at the Fête de l’Humanité in September 2019

In this context of harsh seclusion, only one person stands out: John Pilger, a well-known leftist journalist and anti-imperialist activist who has known Julian Assange since 2011 and is trusted by a majority of left-wing political activists. However, since Pilger is 80 years old, it is difficult to ask him to lead such a battle. We sincerely wish to help him in this task and we think that a European coordination meeting of Julian Assange’s Defence Committees is necessary and feasible. The meeting could take place in London or Berlin. My experience as an organiser of Social Forums and other European meetings makes me a potential co-organizor of this meeting that could occur on the beginning of October 2019.

I would therefore like to contact Mr. John Pilger as soon as possible. No doubt that he will appreciate the dynamism, experience and radical nature of the social movements that form the heart of Julian Assange’s Support Committees, among which the one I belong to, namely the WikiJustice Human Rights Association, almost as old as the Yellow Vests movement.

(20+) WikiJustice Julian Assange | Facebook

All internet references counter-checked on 20 September 2019.

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[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/julian-assange-we-just-kept-moving-2359423.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_(Australian_New_Age_group)

http://rescuethefamily.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Moore_(The_Family)

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/i-m-still-alive-cult-survivor-speaks-about-life-beyond-anne-hamilton-byrne-20190614-p51xx5.html

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u68nLqjm9TM&t=1520s

https://www.rt.com/news/christine-assange-interview-julian-659/

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-28/wikileaks-party-members-prepare-for-election-campaign/5050316

https://infogalactic.com/info/The_Wikileaks_Party

[5] https://socialequality.com/

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2019/06/28/sydn-j28.html

[6] https://www.danielmathews.info/2013/08/21/statement-of-resignation-from-wikileaks-party-national-council/

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/04/wikileaks-party-returns-to-syria-in-mission-to-help-ordinary-people

[8] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2981095/As-Wikileaks-founder-Julian-Assange-seeking-refuge-Ecuador-father-selling-home-1milion.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3021390/Julian-Assange-s-father-sells-quirky-Sydney-home-1-42million.html

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/realestate/news/sydney-nsw/the-home-of-julian-assanges-father-fails-to-sell-at-auction/news-story/86d2c63a0780436b62fc50a490efa154

[9] https://www.rt.com/news/467835-assange-brother-prison-hell/

[10] https://www.justice.gov.uk/contacts/prison-finder/belmarsh/visiting-information

https://www.prisonadvice.org.uk/hmp-belmarsh

[11] https://manchester.msz.gov.pl/resource/5add3b87-a90b-48cb-8a3a-01fd69721ce4:JCR

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