Julian Assange's First Publicly Delivered Talk Since 2019
WebM: Julian Assange's talk in France
Julian Assange's much-anticipated talk was promoted when it was live-streamed earlier today. It was his first public talk since prior to his 'kidnapping' at the Ecuadorian embassy in London more than 5 years ago. Having listened to the entire session in real time and also had some time to digest it, we've decided to make it freely available as a WebM (needed encoding). It's quite good.
It took a very long time to extract the video from a very, very stubborn YouTube. Material of public interest really should not be outsourced exclusively to Google, certainly not in Europe. YouTube nowadays makes it exceptionally hard to download videos or play them with Free software. Principled people who preserver can make it work, but "normies" might give up. It took us hours to make this video. No more YouTube. Enjoy the raw file.
Technicalities set aside - even though Assange might have something to say about his 'Google exclusivity' - let's consider the overview of the core talk he delivered first thing on Tuesday. He spoke until about 9AM (Central European Time) before they moved on to questions from committee members.
Assange expressed deep and sincere gratitude to those attending, for they found the courage to repeatedly speak in his favour and pressure 'powers that be' to release him. Unlike other elements in Europe, they were not timid to side with the controversial (at the time and from the mainstream media's perspective) person. He explained what he endured and why he endured it. He explained what's at stake and why this should matter to many people. He urged for action, knowing that other people might face similar treatment to his (in the future) or may already be facing such treatment but don't enjoy the same level of public awareness and therefore don't have the benefit of international backlash.
Throughout his time talking, once he cleared his throat about a dozen times, the flow of arguments came out OK from the paper notes. A few awkward pauses (not too long though) and he seemed to have lost his sharpness somewhat (years in Belmarsh Prison are expected to ruin minds, no surprise there!). Judging by his handling of questions (to be covered later and separately), he can do just fine without a script in front of him, albeit his sense of hearing and ability to concentrate seem to lack a bit. Towards the end he said he had become too fatigued and asked his colleague (the Wikileaks Editor) to fill in for him, at least for one question. He'd later humour/entertain the room a bit with jokes about mothers in law, albeit he'd quickly clarify that he actually likes his mother in law.
All in all, he delivered the talk well, especially given the ordeals he had gone though. Well done. █