A Reading of Suzie Dawson's 'Freeing Julian Assange, Pt. 1'

A lot has been written and said about Julian Assange and Wikileaks during these past eight years or so, while Assange has been essentially on the run from the U.S. deep state and its complicit partners in other countries, Congress, the Executive branch, the Department of Justice and the judiciary.

Most of it has been brazen propaganda in service of the powerful. But some of it has been essential—essential because of a small group of journalists, thinkers and activists who have helped us see how much the persecution of Julian Assange and Wikileaks is connected to a much larger struggle between empire and those who challenge or embarrass it.

I’m talking about people like Christine Assange, Chris Hedges, Elizabeth Lea Vos, Joe Lauria, the late Robert Parry, Craig Murray, Caitlin Johnstone, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Ray McGovern, Vivian Kubrick, William Binney, John Kiriakou, Daniel Ellsberg, and George Galloway, among several others.

As important as all of these figures have been to our collective understanding of the U.S. government’s drive to eliminate Assange and Wikileaks, no one has been more instrumental than Suzie Dawson, herself an exiled journalist and activist in flight from private and state intelligence agency persecution in her home country of New Zealand.

In addition to her years of activism, her creation of the #Unity4J across-the-world video vigils, and the deep, research-driven work she’s done with Elizabeth Lea Vos in deciphering significant swaths of the Snowden files on the NSA, she has gifted us as well with touchstone investigative journalism about Wikileaks, Assange and how (and from where) the campaign against them really operates.

She’s provided us with an extraordinary education. She’s shined some very distinct spotlights on some very terrifying things in the process, particularly starting with her 2018 opus Being Julian Assange.

In the last few weeks, she’s been gradually releasing her follow-up to that lengthy, necessary piece called Freeing Julian Assange. Dawson does research so far down the rabbit hole that what usually emerges are lengthy articles that require determined time and study.

Since not everyone can spend the time it takes to absorb her work, I thought it might be helpful if people could listen to her latest piece in audio format, so I sat down this morning and recorded myself reading Part 1 of “Freeing Julian Assange”. (Update) A reading of Part 2 is here.

Enjoy, and thanks to Suzie Dawson for all she's contributed to our understanding of Wikileaks, Assange and the entire anti-imperial project.