On Saturday 21st September, classconscious.org held its first Solidarity letter writing working bee, at the Belgrave Library, in Melbourne Australia. About seven people attended and letters were written and posted to Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond.
It was a simple yet effective way to demonstrate solidarity to these persecuted heroes. The act of writing a solidarity letter can also be a little intimidating and we were able to offer suggestions to each on what to write. In addition coming together in this structured way to write the letters and send them off together, meant that it actually happened!
Classconscious.org encourages everyone to put on your own solidarity letter writing working bee in your town. It simply involved someone advertising a time and place, providing the blank lined paper, envelopes and stamps.
Note: If you are providing UK stamps to put on a stamped envelope in your letter to Julian Assange, UK stamps can be bought from the Royal Postal Service website but if you are outside the UK only commerative first class stamps can be bought such as the Madonna and Child stamps.
Here are details on how to write to Julian Assange
“Knowing you are out there fighting for me keeps me alive in this profound isolation” – Letter sent from Julian Assange to a supporter from Belmarsh prison
It is imperative that as many people as possible “pierce the silence” of the mainstream press and our politicians and show our support for Julian directly, by flooding Belmarsh Prison with letters of support. Keeping Assange’s spirits up could literally be a matter of life and death. In addition by sending letters to Assange directly, it opens up the chance for Julian to reply to your letter and therefore communicate directly with the world, helping to return him the voice which has been denied to him. This must also be a central political aim of the solidarity campaign.
Chelsea Manning has now been imprisoned for over six months for refusing to testify in a secret grand jury against Assange. Jeremy Hammond, who is serving ten years in prison for hacking the Stratfor files published by Wikileaks, that exposes how private the private intelligence firm was spying on left wing activists, journalists and Wikileaks itself. Jeremey was also moved to the same facility as Chelsea Manning in Virginia in an attempt to coerce him to testify against Assange. Both Chelsea and Jeremy deserve ongoing messages of solidarity for their principled resistance to the legal witchhunting of Julian Assange.
Our next solidarity working bee will be held on Sunday October 27th at 11 AM at the Belgrave Library. Facebook event
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