Ciaron O’Reilly reflects on his time as a friend of and bodyguard to Julian Assange.

A REFLECTION ON ACCOMPANING JULIAN ASSANGE THROUGH HIS 22 YEAR SLOW MOTION CRUCIFIXION, AND SLEEPING ROUGH ON THE STREETS OF LONDON FOR MONTHS SPREADING THE WORD ON HIS PESECUTION.

I hadn’t met anyone like Julian since living and working with & being mentored by Phil Berrigan.

Like Julian, ‘Dan & Phil Berrigan went from the front page of Time Magazine into ignominy- a place reserved for those who refuse to compromise & be co-opted by the 3 temptations of the desert -power, wealth & status! As their contemporaries from the broader anti-war movements internally migrated into self medication, psycobabble & the rat trap of atomised existence -these three kept going, regrouping & reflecting after every failure of community, nonviolent resistance efforts & acts of solidarity with the poor.

Phil, Dan & Julian are people like us, who suffered very much like them – the Indigenous, the Vietnamese, Timorese, Chileans, Colombians, Papuans … the list is endless.

Julian has endured 11years of sensory deprivation & now 4 years of 23 hour a day cell lockdown . Julian is being tortured with total isolation. As Malcolm X observed, “The chickens have come home to roost!”. We permit such torture of “the other” at Guantanama Bay & then they turned it on members of the U.S Military, their own Like Chelsea Manning & real journalists in the heartland like Julian Assange.

Julian never encounters or sees another prisoner in His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh -with the exception of the rare permitted visits from his wife Stella & kids Gabriel & Max and his lawyer Gareth Pierce whose legal gifts helped to gain the release of the Birmingham 6/ Maguire 7/ Guilford 4 & British citizens renditioned to Guantanamo!

The Brits, in sychophantic service of the U.S. Empire, are killing Julian Assange like they killed Oscar Wilde & Bobby Sands – SLOWLY!

Julian’s present abode Is located on the ruins of Woolwich Arsenal – an institution that visited so many cannons and much death & destruction on the Irish & all the other colonies that followed from the Americas, Asia, Middle East, Caribbean, Australia, Africa!

HIS MAJESTY’S MAXIMUM SECURITY CATEGORY A PRISON/ BELMARSH should be a place of contemporary pilgrimage of repentance for the colonisation & the suffering that continues long after the US/UK orgies of death, torture & rape conclude!

Also, His Majesty’s Prison should be a place of pilgrimage of celebration & wonder that this Aussie kid – committed to “privacy for the individual & transparency for the State” – continues to be steadfast in his nonviolent resistance & truth telling to the US/ UK Empires that presently stumble to destruction in a nuclear bang or an ecological whimper!

When the US/ UK societies finally crumble & resemble the ruins of Woolwich Arsenal – they won’t be missed!

At the centre of Empire, they have raised a deaf (earpods in their ears constantly), dumb (incapable of speaking any truth to power or giving accurate street directions when asked!) & blind (face in their phone & heads up their arse!) they celebrate technocratic fascism & can’t even ” play pinball!”.

They embrace the counter to the Wikileaks principles – privacy for the State!

If Julian Assange was back online -we would know a lot more about who is profiting by the NATO/ Russian war in the Ukraine & who will be in the “first chopper out of Saigon” when NATO once again loses another engagement on the battlefield!

Those running these wars don’t care if their side wins, loses or draws as long as their high theft in both blood & treasure continues apace.

The reasons young people fight wars are very different from why wars are fought! Those who call the shots in our society never risk facing a ballot, let alone a bullet. Biden, Sunak & Albanese are merely clowns in the circus distracting our gaze from the ringmasters as they do a costume change l!

The Julian Assange I knew as a friend, as a bodyguard is long dead after this treatment. His head as yet to be delivered on a platter – but don’t rule that out!

I chose to believe in the resurrection! I choose to believe that the Julian I knew will rise again, that life will triumph over death, that the truth that those who have endured rather than inflicted will have their day

.Tiocfaidh Carla

Ciaron O’Reilly
July 28th 2023

About the Author

Ciaron O’Reilly (born 1960) is an Australian anti-war campaigner, peace protester, social justice campaigner and Catholic Worker, having been engaged in protests, acts of civil disobedience and trials in England, Ireland, and his native Australia, and is well known in West End where he began his activist career.

He has also become one of the most visible and active practical and theoretical exponents of the ideas of Christian anarchism, arguing that this is not an attempt to synthesise two systems of thought that are hopelessly incompatible, but rather ‘a realisation that the premise of anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the message of the Gospels.’

For the last several years, Ciaron has spent much of his time in London as witness to the suffering and unlawful imprisonment of Julian Assange.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciaron_O%27Reilly