{"id":403037,"date":"2019-04-13T14:34:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sep-australia-rallies-demand-freedom-for-julian-assange\/"},"modified":"2019-04-13T14:34:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:34:02","slug":"sep-australia-rallies-demand-freedom-for-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sep-australia-rallies-demand-freedom-for-julian-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"SEP (Australia) rallies demand freedom for Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>SEP (Australia) rallies demand freedom for Julian Assange<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    our reporters<br \/>\n    <br \/>13 April 2019<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held rallies in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday, opposing the illegal termination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s political asylum and calling for a mass movement of workers and young people to secure his freedom.<\/p>\n<p>The protests were held less than 24 hours after Assange was hauled out of Ecuador\u2019s London embassy and arrested by British police. Assange is being held on bogus bail charges and faces extradition proceedings by the US government, which is seeking to prosecute him for his role in WikiLeaks\u2019 exposure of US war crimes, illegal diplomatic intrigues and mass surveillance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/e37ad5fb-4f5f-475e-956c-982a47e4e48N\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/e37ad5fb-4f5f-475e-956c-982a47e4e48N\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>Part of the SEP Melbourne rally in defence of Assange<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Christine Assange, the WikiLeaks founder\u2019s mother, endorsed the SEP protests, issuing a statement urging all people \u201cto attend the rallies tomorrow to demand that the Australian government act urgently to protect Julian and bring him home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Australian protests reflected a groundswell of opposition to the attack on Assange, with demonstrations held in London, the United States and in Germany.<\/p>\n<p>Each Australian rally was attended by more than 150 people. Participants included office workers, teachers, construction and power workers, students, young people and retirees. Some protesters had travelled up to five hours to take a stand.<\/p>\n<p>Prominent defenders of Assange took part. His father John Shipton attended the Melbourne rally. Somerset Bean, a well-known British graphic designer and WikiLeaks supporter, was also present. In Sydney, Mary Kostakidis, a well-known former TV news presenter, participated, alongside defenders of democratic rights who have supported Assange for over a decade. Protesters&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2019\/04\/13\/ausr-a13.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 SEP (Australia) rallies demand freedom for Julian Assange By our reporters 13 April 2019 The Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held rallies in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday, opposing the illegal termination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s political asylum and calling for a mass movement of workers and young people to secure his freedom. The protests [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-403037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}