Four Days of Action announced for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th February

international | anti-war / imperialism | press release Friday February 04, 2011 09:30 by London Catholic Worker

"FREE ASSANGE! FREE MANNING! FREE SPEECH!"

February 4th. 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - NO EMBARGO

PRESS RELEASE

"FREE ASSANGE! FREE MANNING! FREE SPEECH!"
Four Days of Action announced for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning
4th, 5th, 7th and 8th February

February 4th. 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - NO EMBARGO

PRESS RELEASE

"FREE ASSANGE! FREE MANNING! FREE SPEECH!"
Four Days of Action announced for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning
4th, 5th, 7th and 8th February

Cyber, anti-war and human rights activists will today descend on the
Australian High Commission and on Monday on the Woolwich
magistrates court, attached to the Category A
Belmarsh Prison, to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,
presently on restrictive bail and facing extradition, and also for
Bradley Manning, the young soldier who is being held in solitary
confinement in Quantico Marine Base in USA.

On Saturday 5 February, a public meeting will be held at Harringay's
Giuseppe Conlon Hall, which also serves as a 'house of hospitality' for
refugees and others in need of help and support. Speakers will include
former political prisoner of the US, Ciaron O'Reilly, and a speaker from
the support group 'UK Friends of Bradley Manning'. Footage from the
'Collateral Murder' video Manning is accused of leaking will be shown
and there will also be live music.

On Monday, the activist groups will join others from WikiLeaks London
Support group outside Woolwich magistrates courts attached to Belmarsh
Prisonwhere the extradition hearing of Julian Assange is due to be heard.

Irish/ Australian anti-war activist Ciaron O'Reilly served 13 months in
US prisons for his part in disabling a US B52 Bomber at the now
defunct Griffis Air Force Base in upstate New York on the eve of the
1991 Gulf War. In December 2010 WikiLeaks
published secret cables which had been sent from the US embassy in
Dublin following the 2006 acquittal of O'Reilly and four other activists
of criminal charges in relation to $US2.5 million damage to a US war
plane being refuelled at Shannon Airport en route to the 2003 invasion
of Iraq. A Dublin jury had unanimously acquitted the activists on
all charges but the cables show that U.S. authorities were considering
further legal action against the activists thorugh the civil courts. The cables
also quoted Irish government making apologetic and dismissive statements
about the Irish legal system

O'Reilly has said:

"Reporting war crimes should not be a crime. The war on Iraq is the
crime. I should know a crime when I see one. I have a 30 year criminal
history in a wide variety of jurisdictions! The persecution of Julian
Assange and Bradley Manning are the great anti-war show trials of our
era. They echo the persecution of Daniel Ellsberg, the Chicago 8, the
Berrigans and the Catonsville 9 during the Vietnam period. We need to
be on the streets protesting as loudly as we can while these two men
are in the docks and in the dungeons for their opposition to these
criminal ongoing wars on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I was talking to a British Iraq combat veteran recently and he
reflected on the sophistication of the war machine in prosecuting wars,
marketing wars domestically and persecuting anyone who has the courage
to oppose these wars. When I was a prisoner of the United States
government, they did to me what they are doing to Manning: they isolated
me. I was arrested and sentenced in upstate New York and was transported
by Con Air to the Mexican border, then driven hours into the Texas
outback to do my time in an overcrowded isolated county jail in Pecos.
Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst, has been buried alive in
solitary confinement in the largest US marine base in the world. His
present prison conditions amount to torture in anyone's terms of reference.

"Many beliveve that Assange has been hit with bogus charges that will
eventually evaporate as a holding action before the British government
hands him over to the Americans. At the end of my sentence, I was
moved from Texas to Louisiana. I was rearrested on release on a minor
immigration charge and was also charged with "being guilty of a crime of
moral turpitude" and an exorbitant $50,000 bail was placed on my head.
This is a charge they had previously used effectively against their
political target Charlie Chaplain to banish him from the United States
In my case the charge evaporated, as these proposed charges with Assange
will also evaporate

UK Friends of Bradley Manning have been campaigning for the UK to
recognise Manning as a British citizen on account of his Welsh-born
mother, and to take steps to protect him as such.

WikiLeaks London Support group have maintained a consitent presence
outside of all Assange's bail hearings.

Events over the next few days include;
- Friday Feb. 4th 4.30pm-6.30pm
Vigil and Speak Out at the Australian
Embassy on The Strand.central London

- Saturday Feb. 5th. 3pm
Public Meeting at Giuseppe Conlon Hall
49 Mattison Rd. Harringey London N4

- Monday and Tuesday Feb. 7th. and 8th. 9am-5pm
Vigil outside Julian Assange's extradition hearing at
Woolwich Courts, Belmarsh Rd. London SE28

'These actions are being co-ordinated by the London
Catholic Worker, an organisation which offers hospitality to the
destitute as well as taking part in nonviolent resistance to war.'

For further information, please contact: Ciaron O'Reilly
Phone 079 392 90576