OVER 800 Australian protesters took to the streets in Sydney last Saturday to demonstrate against extradition to the US by the British government of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that was intended to coincide with the cancelled visit of the US president to Australia.
Leading the protest rally, the wife of the jailed whistleblower demanded his release from incarceration in the UK and called on Aussie Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to bring her husband back to his native Australia.
‘He needs to be free because the world needs press freedom,’ his wife, Stella Assange, further emphasised while addressing the crowd of protesters.
Julian Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also spoke at the rally and was undisturbed by Biden’s absence, insisting: ‘They’re hearing the message loud and clear. They know there’s millions of Australians who want this brought to a close.’
Assange’s father, John Shipton, also took part in the protest rally and emphasised, ‘It’s time to show some sincerity of action and also to understand clearly that they need the support of the populous to enact policy, and the populous has given us whole-hearted and full support for the freedom of Julian Assange.’
‘So it’s time for them to pick up the phone and ring Biden and say, “Well, better send this dad home”.’
Meanwhile, Assange’s lawyers have begun their appeal at Britain’s Supreme Court against its order to extradite him to the United States.
The December 10 decision by London’s High Court overturned an earlier ruling by the British magistrate that it was ‘cruel’ to extradite the 50-year-old Australian man to the US justice system because of his mental health and the risk of committing suicide.
The US seeks to bring Assange to trial for WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of classified military documents related to the country’s war crimes and other atrocities committed by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US government has charged Assange with 18 counts related to the release of 500,000 classified files about the conflicts. He could face up to 175 years in prison in the United States, although the exact sentence is difficult to estimate.
- Russia has intercepted two US Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea.
The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday that Russia had scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to ‘prevent violations of the state border’ by the American bombers.
‘After removing the foreign military aircraft from the Russian state border, the Russian fighter went back to its air base,’ the ministry added.
The statement said that ‘the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international rules for the use of airspace’.
In Washington, the Pentagon confirmed that Russia intercepted the US bombers.
Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the B-1 bombers were taking part in a ‘long-planned exercise in Europe’.
Earlier this month, Russia intercepted two NATO aircraft, one German and one French, which were attempting to ‘violate’ its airspace.
The Russian defence ministry said the Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and escorted a German P-3C Orion patrol plane and a French navy’s Atlantique 2 anti-submarine patrol aircraft.
In April, a Russian fighter jet escorted a German naval aircraft over the Baltic Sea.
In March, a US drone crashed after colliding with a Russian jet over the Black Sea.
Earlier this month, US warplanes intercepted six Russian fighter jets in international airspace near Alaska, the state where US troops held military drills, according to the North American Aerospace defence Command (NORAD).
NORAD announced last week that it ‘detected, tracked, positively identified and intercepted’ Russian TU-95 bombers, IL-78 tankers and SU-35 fighter jets operating in and near the Alaska Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on May 11th.
NORAD is a combined organisation of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and ‘protection’ for Canada and the United States.