Frank Ball, Tweed Head
Julian Assange has recently been before a Magistrates Court. Renowned filmmaker and journalist John Pilger who attended the hearing described it as a 50s style show trial.
Julian is held in Bellmarsh prison ( UKs “Gitmo”) in solitary confinement 23 hours per day and only recently allowed limited access to a computer to prepare for his upcoming extradition trial due February 2020.
His defence team request that the date be put back to later in the year was rejected out of hand by the Magistrate and then ruled that the trial be held in Bellmarsh prison.
This punishment is for nothing more than telling the truth.
If the warmongers get away with this, who will be next?
George Orwell would have recognised what’s happening, he wrote a book about these issues: 1984
Something similar is happening in Australia where the MSM are making common cause over AFP raids on the ABC and a News Corp journalist and rightly so, but next to nothing about the plight of Julian, who if extradited to America could end up facing a prison term of 175 years.
Democracy should be about free speech and the right to know what our government is doing in our name.
If we do not learn the lessons of history we are doomed to repeat them
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
