Julian Assange’s US extradition appeal is a significant event in the world’s history of democracy but he’s been in jail so long some have probably missed the memo.
This week’s Byron Bay screening of Kym Staton’s documentary THE TRUST FALL: JULIAN ASSANGE is a chance to catch up.
When Mr Assange found asylum in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012, whole houses and apartments could be rented in the Byron Shire for less than $500 per week.
A lot has changed in the past twelve years, both on the Northern Rivers and abroad, but the Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder has had to learn of events such as Brexit, the pandemic, Russia’s Ukraine assault and Australia’s referendum from confinement.
The award-winning white-collar worker has spent more time in detention, described by UN rapporteur Nils Melzer as torture, than many perpetrators of domestic violence and child abuse.
Alleged US war crime victims speak out
Many around the world with an interest in frank and fearless journalism and a democracy that serves its people await Mr Assange’s appeal with anxiety and hope, recognising various other geopolitical forces at play such as the upcoming US election and Australia’s role in the Five Eyes alliance.
In the meantime, anyone who has forgotten what all the fuss was over in the first place when it came to the US case against Mr Assange could be forgiven since the details of the ongoing saga often crowd out the crucial facts at the heart of it.
WikiLeaks, along with several other reputable international news agencies including The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, shared evidence alleging US war crimes in Iraq.
Video footage taken from a US military helicopter showed it being used to mount a shooting spree against civilians including children and two Reuters news agency staff, the latter dying from the shots.
Assault survivors’ experiences are shared in THE TRUST FALL: JULIAN ASSANGE via contemporary interviews, including a distressing one with a child wounded in the attack.
Assange doco to screen in US before presidential election
Premiering in Melbourne in July 2023 before screening at the Byron Bay International Film Festival later that year, the film has since been shown in more than 350 cinemas around Australia, New Zealand and in the United Kingdom.
Mr Staton says more than 40,000 screening attendances have been recorded, making it ‘probably the most watched documentary in cinemas of this year in the world,’ on a per capita basis.
He says it’s the highest grossing documentary in Australia so far this year, and fifth internationally despite limited screenings overseas.
The film is due for release in the US on 17 July 2024, before heading to Canada and Europe.
The US screenings are of particular interest, given US justice administrators have the power to drop their case against Mr Assange.
‘I’m really looking forward to making a noise over there, having the film add pressure to governments to the US government in particular,’ Mr Staton says, ‘because they’re the ones that are going after Julian, trying to extradite him into their country under an antiquated Espionage Act of 1917’.
‘We’ve had a few Americans watch the film and come and talk to us afterwards,’ the filmmaker says, ‘and they usually express embarrassment.’
‘They’re quite ashamed by what their government has done to Julian.’
Mr Staton was recently one of four Northern Rivers locals to be granted a ‘meet your MP’ appointment with Labor Member for Richmond Justine Elliot.
Northern Rivers campaigner for Julian Assange, Roy Drew, was also at the meeting and later told a Mullumbimby crowd gathered to hear Mr Assange’s father, John Shipton, speak that Ms Elliot appeared interested and repeated Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s statement that Mr Assange’s case needs to close.
THE TRUST FALL: JULIAN ASSANGE is to screen at Byron Bay’s Palace cinemas Wednesday 12 June.
Kym Staton is to introduce the film at 6.30pm and to be available for informal chats afterwards, when he will also be raising funds via a sale of his poetry.
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