Dame Vivienne Westwood joins Julian Assange’s partner and two children in Parliament Square as supporters celebrate his 50th birthday while he remains behind bars
- Dame Vivienne Westwood gathered to celebrate Julian Assange’s 50th birthday
- She joined his supporters in Parliament Square today as he remains behind bars
- The event featured a giant picnic blanket stencilled with a Free Assange slogan
- Assange’s partner Stella Morris and the couple’s two young sons cut the cake
Dame Vivienne Westwood joined Julian Assange’s partner and two young children today to celebrate the Australian activist’s 50th birthday as he remains behind bars.
The fashion designer, 80, was seen wearing a T-shirt reading ‘I fought the law’ as she joined Assange’s supporters in Parliament Square on Saturday.
The event featured a giant picnic blanket stencilled with a Free Assange slogan, while Assange’s partner Stella Morris and their two sons, Gabriel, four, and Max, two, cut the cake.
It is the third birthday which the WikiLeaks founder has spent behind the bars of London’s Belmarsh Prison as he awaits possible extradition to the US for releasing confidential military records.
Dame Vivienne Westwood (pictured) joined Julian Assange’s partner and two young children today to celebrate the Australian activist’s 50th birthday as he remains behind bars
The event featured a giant picnic blanket stencilled with a Free Assange slogan, while Assange’s partner Stella Morris and their two sons (pictured), aged four and two, cut the cake
Dame Vivienne didn’t shy away from tucking into the birthday cake and was seen grinning as she had frosting and pieces of the cake smeared all over her face.
The fashion designer is one of a number of Assange’s high-profile supporters who have thrown their weight behind the campaign to free him.
An attempt to extradite Assange to the United States was rejected in January, but he continues to be held in prison pending an appeal.
Earlier this week, campaigners sailed past Parliament and the US Embassy earlier this week calling for his release.
His partner Ms Morris said that the US case had ‘sunk’, adding there is growing support across the world for the WikiLeaks founder to be released.
She said: ‘The longer this goes on the clearer it is that this is a political case. Julian should be at home with me and our two children.
The fashion designer (pictured), 80, was seen wearing a T-shirt reading ‘I fought the law’ as she joined Assange’s supporters in Parliament Square on Saturday
It is the third birthday which the WikiLeaks founder (pictured in 2017) has spent behind the bars as he awaits possible extradition to the US for releasing confidential military records
‘This has gone on far too long – it has to stop. He is not a criminal.’
Ms Morris has asked the authorities in Belmarsh if the couple can get married, saying it should be a right for anyone.
She hopes Assange will be granted permission to get married outside the prison.
‘We will celebrate his birthday and have cake,’ she added.
Mr Assange started a secret relationship with South African lawyer Stella Morris, 38, while confined to the Ecuadorian embassy, fathering two sons, Gabriel, four, and Max, two, while claiming political asylum to avoid deportation.
The pair got engaged in 2016, and Ms Moris revealed they want to get married as soon as possible rather than waiting for the legal proceedings to go on any longer.
At a visit to Belmarsh Prison last month, her first for eight months due to Covid-19 restrictions, Ms Morris said her partner’s life was at risk due to the pressures on his mental health in prison.
She said at the time: ‘They’re driving him to deep depression and into despair.’
On Saturday, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: ‘Today Julian Assange will spend his 50th birthday in a maximum security prison.
An attempt to extradite Assange to the United States was rejected in January, but he continues to be held in prison pending an appeal. Pictured: Dame Vivienne with Assange’s supporters
Dame Vivienne didn’t shy away from tucking into the birthday cake and was seen grinning as she had frosting and pieces of the cake smeared all over her face
Dame Vivienne is one of a number of Assange’s high-profile supporters who have thrown their weight behind the campaign to free him
‘The jailing of a journalist by the UK (and the ongoing efforts by the US to extradite him) show these governments are determined to suppress inconvenient truths.’
A number of Australian politicians have appealed to the US Government to drop its Espionage Act charges against Assange.
The MPs and senators urged US president Joe Biden to take the ‘opportunity for urgent reconsideration’, following a UK court’s decision to deny the US extradition request earlier this year.
John Rees, who organises events to keep up the pressure for Assange’s release, said: ‘Momentum is building across the world for our campaign.
‘The case against Julian is collapsing.’
Ms Moris is urging US President Joe Biden to let her fiancé go free to show that the country is a ‘beacon of press freedom’.
Washington has sought the extradition of Mr Assange over his role in one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information, accusing him of putting lives in danger by releasing vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood speaks as she attends the picnic at Parliament Square to mark the 50th birthday of Julian Assange
His partner Ms Morris (pictured) said that the US case had ‘sunk’, adding there is growing support across the world for the WikiLeaks founder to be released
Ms Morris (pictured with their sons Gabriel [left] and Max) has asked the authorities in Belmarsh if the couple can get married, saying it should be a right for anyone
He has now spent nine years in jail or self-incarceration in Britain, and both Ms Morris and the British judge overseeing the extradition request have warned he may not survive a process to send him across the Atlantic.
US prosecutors and Western security officials regard Mr Assange as a reckless enemy of the state whose actions threatened the lives of agents named in the leaked material.
Supporters pit him as an anti-establishment hero who exposed US wrongdoing in Afghanistan and Iraq and say his prosecution is a politically-motivated assault on journalism that gives a free pass to oppressive regimes around the world.
WikiLeaks came to prominence when it published a US military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
An effort to extradite him was launched in 2019 after he was detained in London after taking refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in the British capital for seven years to avoid being extradited to Sweden.
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