Lately there has been ABC coverage of Australian citizen and journalist Cheng Lei, jailed in China, and the American journalist, Evan Gershkovich, recently detained in Russia.
Leonid Volkov is Navalny’s chief of staff and was recently in Australia and enjoying generous media time here. Alexei Navalny is a high profile and much publicised critic of Vladimir Putin, and considered by many to be a political prisoner in Russia. No doubt Mr Volkov had plenty of doors open to him on his recent visit to Canberra.
No doubt more doors opened than were open to Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton, and his brother Gabriel Shipton when they were in Canberra last year seeking access to politicians.
However, the name Assange has not been heard, spoken or written by mainstream media for some time now. Perhaps the media is hoping, together with the government, that by ‘disappearing’ his name, the man himself will disappear behind the grim walls of fortress Belmarsh.
The recent visit to Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison by the newly appointed Australian High Commissioner to the UK, Stephen Smith, together with Senator Wong’s comments at the National Press Club last week, is much appreciated. However, Senator Wong’s claim that the Australian government is not able to intervene in the legal affairs of other countries is a furphy. The Australian government has been involved before in the cases ofe David Hicks, Mamdouh Habib, Peter Greste, and Kylie Moore-Gilbert etc.
I would imagine the Australian government is involved all the time on behalf of Australian citizens in the legal processes of other countries. We would hope that’s one of the things we pay our taxes for.
The crux of the matter is that the case of Australian citizen Julian Assange is not a legal one. It is a political one. Julian Assange is a political prisoner being held in a UK prison at the behest of the United States.
He is about to begin his fifth year of incarceration without charge.
The intention is to silence Assange, and others like him, for revealing the truth of the workings of power and corruption.
What must not be interfered with is the toxic and militaristic arrangement between the Australian, United States and United Kingdom governments – known as AUKUS.
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. 
