Ithaka, a film about a father seeking justice for his son, has premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in Australia. Consortium News was there on opening night.
After Julian Assange was arrested at London’s Ecuadorian embassy in 2019, his Victoria, Australia-based father stepped into the legal, political and media fray. Joined by Julian’s fiancée, Stella Moris, 76-year-old John Shipton lays out the situation to journalists, often sounding eerily like his detained son. In early 2021, the U.K. verdict on whether to extradite Julian to America collided with a pandemic and the U.S. presidential election. As the crusade heats up, Shipton battles on, challenging misconceptions with quiet patience and remarkable composure. Filmed over two years across Europe and the U.K., this powerful documentary from Ben Lawrence (Hearts and Bones, SFF 2019) and Julian’s brother/producer Gabriel Shipton (Emu Runner, SFF 2019) cleverly encompasses the manifold aspects of a singular campaign. With original music by Brian Eno. — Sydney Film Festival.
Here is Consortium News’ report from outside the cinema on opening night, filmed and produced by Cathy Vogan (interview of Bob Carr by Shahnaz Martin, additional material from People for Assange):
Free Julian Assange Now!
“Without a Free Press, there can be No Democracy”
Thomas Jefferson
Naivety in Commentary?
Astounding depth of gullibility in population groups.
Intelligence and gullibility, both only latent potentials on the human psychic pallet.
The Chinese government shouldn’t keep secrets from its citizens, but its quite in order for the US to do just that, with totalitarian disregard, for Julian Assange!
From the BBC: “US urges China (in this instance Ned Price, the official blowhard, ignoramus mouthpiece of government) to free jailed (Chinese) citizen journalist… In May she (the accused) was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge that is commonly levelled against activists and whistle blowers seen as undermining the government’s efforts to control information in the country… She was given a four-year jail term over her reporting of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan when the pandemic began… The US moves comes after reports that she is perilously close to death.”
However, when it comes to reporting on matters about the plague of deceit afflicting publisher/journalist, Julian Assange, the ear shattering screaming of silence – reverberating on the deaf ears of the narrowcasters (defined by special interest) of Britain’s Brazen Coward, is not enough to shatter and penetrate the ‘stoned’ consciences of the occupants in the glass houses of imperial privilege!
The aforementioned, but one example of the brazen hypocrisy and double standards, in this one particular instance, of Western mainstream media’s manipulation of the global narrative; of the pot calling the kettle black!