{"id":81562,"date":"2024-07-07T11:56:59","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T01:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=81562"},"modified":"2024-07-07T11:57:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T01:57:00","slug":"cr-dr-olivia-ball-calls-to-celebrate-julian-assanges-homecoming-at-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=81562","title":{"rendered":"Cr Dr Olivia Ball calls to celebrate Julian Assange\u2019s homecoming at Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The City of Melbourne could honour convicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and welcome him to Town Hall to promote the council\u2019s commitment to human rights and celebrate his \u201ccontribution to humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an agenda item seen by the Sunday Herald Sun, Cr Dr Olivia Ball will put forward a motion to the Future Melbourne Committee to commemorate Assange\u2019s \u201cfreedom from arbitrary detention\u201d on Tuesday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Assange returned to Australia last week after pleading guilty to the single charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information under the US Espionage Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His homecoming follows an extraordinary, more than a decade-long legal battle, which included five years in London\u2019s Belmarsh Prison.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr Ball said the 53-year-old\u2019s long-awaited release was a \u201cgreat occasion for Melbourne to celebrate the homecoming of one of its citizens\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-25.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-81563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-25.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-25-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/image-25-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Cr Dr Olivia Ball is pushing to host a civic reception for convicted WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c(It\u2019s also a time to) reaffirm Melbourne\u2019s commitment to human rights, not just in defence of freedom of the press, but in defence of whistleblowers who take huge personal risks to expose the truth about serious wrongdoing,\u201d she wrote in the motion.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNo-one should be treated as Mr Assange has been: in solitary confinement for years, in conditions the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as torture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Herald Sun Extract<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>His homecoming follows an extraordinary, more than a decade-long legal battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":81567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,6822],"tags":[10842,993],"class_list":["post-81562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-melbourne-events","tag-julian-assange","tag-melbourne"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81568,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81562\/revisions\/81568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}