Julian Assange shared his solidarity with the Palestinian people with this image in 2014 during Israel’s #Gaza military offensive. Then, just like now British people were protesting against the injustice and war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli state upon the people of Palestine.

Via Kelly Kolisnik @kellykolisnik Julian #Assange holding up a #FreePalestine sign from the Ecuadorian embassy in London during Israel’s 2014 #Gaza offensive.

We started our day of solidarity by putting up banners for our weekly vigil outside HMP Belmarsh taking place later that day.

Then proceeded to Temple Tube station where WikiLeaks and Free Assange supporters answered the call by The Committee to Defend Julian Assange to join in solidarity with Palestine and flyer for Julian Assange. JADC had produced 5000 flyers and the official Wikileaks Don’t Extradite Campaign produced 15,000 flyers all available to supporters to distribute.

Some #FreeAssange supporters outside Temple tube station 22/05/21

It is important to remember what WikiLeaks is about and why Julian Assange is in HMP Belmarsh and why the US administration has the last 11 years persecuted him, why they charged him for his publishing work. WikiLeaks publications pursue justice through transparency. The goal is to Free the oppressed by freeing ourselves from the shackles of ignorance and walk into the empowered position of knowing the truth! In the context of solidarity with Palestine this is what we learned from WikiLeaks. From our flyers:

We have learnt a great deal from WikiLeaks.org publications about war crimes committed by Israeli military forces in Palestine.

Diplomatic cable 08TELAVIV2329_a revealed Israel’s secret “Dahiya doctrine” – deliberate targeting of civilians with excessive force. IDF’s Maj Gen Gadi Eisenkot  said Israel will use disproportionate force upon any village that fires upon Israel, “causing great damage and destruction.” He made very clear: this is not a recommendation, but an already approved plan — from the Israeli perspective, these are “not civilian villages, they are military bases.”

15 #FreeAssange supporters with flyers in bags and backpacks make their way to the Palestine March meeting point alongside the Embankment. 22/5/21

US Diplomatic cable 09TELAVIV1694_a disclosed that Israel used civilians as ‘human shields’, incendiary phosphorous shells were fired over civilian population areas, and other examples of excessive firepower that caused unnecessary fatalities and destruction of property, during the 2008 Gaza invasion, according to former IDF soldiers.

Asa Winstanley, Associated Editor with the Electronic Intifada wrote in his blog:

One of the first things that struck me while reading the cables from the US embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv was how worried the Israeli government seems to be about the Goldstone Report into war crimes committed during Israel’s 2008-2009 attack on the people of Gaza. In cable 09TELAVIV2777 of December 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have named the report as one of three “principal threats” facing Israel—the other two being Iran’s alleged nuclear programme and “missile proliferation”.

It is this journalism and publishing that we need to stop the Israeli war crimes supported by our government. Journalism is not a crime.

Jonathan Cook in a recent article wrote that the gravest danger to media freedom lies on how far the political and media establishment are willing to go to stop dissident journalism – a journalism that seeks to expose corrupt power and hold it to account. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been out of sight for a decade – first as a political asylum seeker, then as an inmate of a British prison – subjected to endlessly shifting pretexts for his incarceration for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange could languish in jail for years to come.

Flyering alongside the Embankment before the March started.

Don’t let this injustice to continue!

Write to your MP, join our vigils and protest, pass motions of support in the civil society organisations you participate demanding Julian Assange’s freedom.

We need WikiLeaks and Julian Assange to continue publishing the truth about war crimes and who is responsible. We must defend all those who with their bodies defend our right to know the truth about what our governments are doing in our name but without our consent!

Last port of call on this day’s journey was to visit our wonderful Billboard designed by Somerset Bean “Journalism is not a crime, #FreeJulianAssange! #NoUSextradition” in Battersea, London. Thank you WikiLeaks!

Very grateful to Joe, Derek, Val and Antonia for the many photos, watch here Julian Assange’s fiancé and mother of his youngest children Stella Morris, addressing the thousands who attended the Palestine solidarity march:

Here is the Transcript curtesy of @BrownNaila:

Journalism is not a crime, outside 10 Downing street 22/05/21