Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my colleagues, Senators Horkan and Maria Byrne, back to the Chamber. Senator Horkan will forgive me if I extend a particular welcome to Senator Maria Byrne. It is good to have a second voice from Limerick in the Chamber. I congratulate both Senators.

This week, I attended the Council of Europe. It was good to see a motion on Alexei Navalny. I commend the speech of our colleague, Senator O'Loughlin, on that. I was happy to vote in support of the motion calling for his release. It struck me as I saw politicians from across Europe lining up to demand freedom for Alexei Navalny that there is another prisoner in relation to whose case there is absolute silence. That is Julian Assange. Julian has been in prison for two years in London. Before that, he had to be holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for a number of years. His only crime was to release horrific facts about US wars. One particularly famous video showed a US Apache helicopter slaughtering people, 18 of them. When the van came to protect the wounded and take them away, the same Apache helicopter gunned them down as well. That is one example but there are thousands of files containing torture in Guantanamo and horrific murders of civilians in Afghanistan. We would not know anything about these facts if it were not for Julian Assange, yet there has been silence across the political spectrum in relation to this man. I want to end the silence in this Chamber today and call for his release and a debate in relation to his release.

I do not know if it is because this State is complicit in relation to some of these killings through its support, through Shannon, of the US military. I really do not know, but it strikes me that the silence is more than poor. It is shameful. I call on people from across all parties to stand up for democracy. The National Union of Journalists, NUJ, has called for his release, as have The Washington Post and The New York Times. Journalism is under threat. We need freedom for journalists and for Julian Assange.