Oakland Grand Lake Theatre Rally for Julian Assange

KPFA ANCHOR DAVID ROSENBERG: Julian Assange's extradition appeal is scheduled for October 27th and 28th, and with the Yahoo News bombshell that the CIA plotted to kidnap or kill him still making waves, activists around the world are standing up and demanding that the U.S. drop the charges. The hearing is scheduled for October 27 and 28. KPFA's Ann Garrison reports

ANN GARRISON: I spoke to Rick Sterling, one of the organizers of the rally for Julian Assange at the Grand Lake Theatre. He said there were 100 people there and “Free Assange” was on the threatre’s marquee.

RICK STERLING: If the London court does not overturn, If they do not reject the extradition request of the US, then we in the US need to ramp up the pressure on the Biden administration.

AG: Yesterday Mickey Huff spoke to Jeff Mackler, another of the rally’s organizers, on the Project Censored Show.

JEFF MACKLER: The government is trying to find something to discredit him and say, "Well, he's not really a journalist. He's an information gatherer. He's a national security threat. he publishes secret documents of the United States."

But they have problems with that, because people like Dan Ellsberg, one of the Pentagon defendants, released hundreds of 1000s of paper telling the truth about the Vietnam War, and I'm saying it wasn't his writings. It was the government writings. Julian Assange published the stories of the United States government and the embassies across the country, explaining how they plan and plot kidnapping, wars, death squad wars, drone wars, special operations wars. He didn't invent the stories. Nobody denied the truth of anything he said. He's being persecuted for publishing it.

The government says we need to have our secrets. And the question is: What secrets do the American people have the right to know about? Us wars against poor and oppressed people? We just finished 20 years of war with a million dead in Afghanistan. And Assange revealed the truth about that.

That was Rick Sterling and Jeff Mackler on the importance of freeing Julian Assange. Assange faces charges that could lead to his extradition to the United States in a British courtroom on October 27 and 28. In Berkeley, for Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.