Assange is ‘walking’ Europe in jail to keep busy
The wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has opened up about the harsh reality her husband experiences every day, as the threat of a 175-year prison sentence looms, and how their family manages to spend limited but quality time with him.
“He’s gone through two pairs of sneakers, walking the European continent in his cell,” Stella Assange told the
National Press Club. She said he had the distances to his favourite cities mapped out, and although he is isolated and confined, he walks the distance to Brussels, Venice and Lisbon around his cell.
“He reads to keep his mind busy, to fight the crushing sense of isolation and of time wasting away,” she said.
“He has spent 1502 days in this prison cell.”
Mr Assange continues to face the threat of extradition to the US over leaked information about US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq published on Wikileaks in 2010 and 2011.
He was arrested in 2019 and is now being held in Belmarsh prison in London while he await his fate.
Speaking of the difficult process she and her children take to visit Julian Assange in prison, Ms Assange recalled her husband’s time growing up in Australia, including when he would go surfing at Byron Bay as a teen, or go cycling around Melbourne.
A lawyer and human rights defender, Ms Assange thanked both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton for their public support, but she issued pleas to the US government for it to drop the charges against her husband.
“A 175-year sentence is a living death sentence,” she said.
“We must do everything we can to ensure that Julian never, ever sets foot in a US prison.
“We are now in the endgame. Julian needs his freedom immediately and Australia plays a crucial role in ensuring his release.
“If Julian is extradited, he’ll be buried in the deepest, darkest quality of the US prison system. He will be isolated forever.”