A week after Julian Assange’s release from Belmarsh prison, a boisterous gathering of 200 very happy Assange supporters packed the St Kilda Bowls Club in Melbourne to celebrate Julian Assange’s 53 birthday on July 3. Assange, who was in seclusion still recovering from his ordeal, did not attend.
In his place, his father John Shipton praised the supporters for their ceaseless campaigning for Assange’s freedom and congratulated them on their hard-fought victory. Julian Assange, John Shipton said, was in the pantheon of great contrarian Australian journalists like John Pilger and Wilfred Burchett, maverick journalists who should be honoured because they had the courage to reveal uncomfortable truths.
From the victory celebrations at Julian Assange’s fifty-third birthday party, Bay FM reporter John Jiggens sent this report.
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Dr John Jiggens is a citizen journalist. He was the founding editor of The Westender and The Cane Toad Times and currently works in the community newsroom at Bay-FM in Byron Bay. His PhD was Marijuana Australiana: Cannabis use, popular culture and the Americanisation of drug policy in Australia. He has published several books on the history of cannabis prohibition.