SIREN WAILS DISTANTLY
INDISTINCT CHATTER
Breaking news out of the city - police have confirmed reports
that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
has been arrested.
One of the most notorious and controversial figures in the world
is finally in custody.
I can't even remember how I feel about Julian Assange.
WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks.
WOMAN: 10 years ago, Assange shot to fame
when WikiLeaks began publishing secret documents
provided by former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
MAN: WikiLeaks first caught the attention of most Americans
when it released this video.
At least a dozen people were killed in the attack...
GUNFIRE
..some of them innocent civilians.
..that the Metropolitan Police have arrested Julian Assange.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
Arrested for breach of bail
after nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
He has also been arrested
in relation to an extradition request
from the United States authorities.
The Obama administration couldn't figure out how to charge him
without him being able to get journalistic protection.
I think it's pretty amazing,
and the Trump administration should be, like,
"Look at us. "We figured it out."
MAN: Now, after eight years of cat and mouse,
Julian Assange is on the precipice of extradition to the United States.
You've said that you're proud of your son.
You've now, if you like, broken cover,
because we didn't really know about you
until this morning, actually.
Why have you decided that now is the time to speak up for him
and to call for his repatriation to Australia?
Well, he... Julian can no longer speak for himself,
and so we... his family and friends must speak for him.
MAN: Can we talk about the day Julian asked you to help?
Can you talk me through that?
I don't really remember.
What I remember is that he got arrested,
and so I came here and...
went and saw him in the...
..went and saw Julian in the jail.
Anyway, he was in a very bad way.
OK. Yeah. Just... just tell me, how was Julian Assange?
Oh, well, he's lost about 10 kilos' weight,
and he's psychologically under a lot of stress and pressure.
The visiting hours are very, very precious.
SNIFFS Sorry. I'm a bit upset.
Yes. This is my first visit. Yes.
Yes. Yes. That...
MAN: How was that?
It's pretty moving, as you would expect.
CAMERA CLICKS
Pretty tough. For him, you know?
CAMERA CLICKS
I guess that'll do. Thank you.
JOURNALISTS: Thank you.
So I said, I'll... I'll be back."
"I won't stop coming until you can come home."
And I... I don't much like the media, but...
it seems as though there was an avenue
where I could contribute.
MAN: Can we talk about your contact with Julian
through his childhood?
Well, I don't think it's a...
You know, I don't think it'll help, will it?
Well, just understanding
that you didn't connect for a long time.
Yeah. So why do we...?
I mean, frankly, why do we have to go over that again?
It's a serious question.
Why do I have to go over the fact
that I may not feel comfortable with your question?
Mmm. Well, it's part of the story.
It ISN'T part of the story.
The story is that... you know,
I am attempting, in my own humble -
I don't like that word -
modest way, to get Julian out of the shit.
What does it involve?
Traipsing around Europe,
building up coalitions of friendship.
And I have the feeling that
the desire for a narrative about Julian
is stronger than the desire
to understand the person that you're speaking to,
and what you're indirectly doing
is making sense of life
by imposing on life, as it flows past, a narrative,
because that's what you want to see -
a beginning, a middle, and an end and a conclusion -
which is a convenient,
or what I would call a Hollywood way of looking at life.
But, you know, life's not really like that at all.
So, what you can do with these things...
..is that you can give it a destiny.
I would prefer the difficulty of destiny
over the ease of narrative.
It's good to see you. Yeah.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Julian is suffering
from years of psychological torture,
increasing to the extent of damaging him.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Julian, of course, is not well. Um...
WOMAN SPEAKS GERMAN
NILS MELZER: So, I'm an independent human rights expert
who's appointed directly by the United Nations.
Well, Julian Assange's case,
it does involve my mandate on several levels,
although I...
I at first didn't think so, and...
that's the deceptive nature of psychological torture.
That's the purpose of psychological torture.
It wants to torture people without the environment realising
someone is being tortured.
Doesn't want to leave traces.
Now, you DO leave traces, but it's in the mind.
Torture is used to break people,
very often to make them say what you want them to say,
or not to say anything.
But in Julian's case,
it's about intimidating everybody else.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
'I started this thing...
'Oh, what was it? '73, I think.'
Oh, oh, thank you.
'And if I had...
'you know, had that in my nature,
'I would have been there already.
'But I wasn't. You know, I liked building things.
'Particularly liked building homes.
'Cos a... a home, you know,
'is a stage for the theatre of life.'
And it gathers the inhabitants under its roof
like a hen gathers its chicks.
So I liked that.
That was what I liked doing, making those things.
So, please have a seat. Ah.
Thank you. All right.
Just have to put this a little bit closer.
Oh. That's OK for you?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Well, I last saw Julian at three years of age,
and then we re-met when he was in his 20s,
so, as a child, I can only go by what his mum says.
I think his nickname was "Wizard"
and... and shortened to "Wizzy",
because he was precocious and inventive and... Yeah.
Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
He called in one day,
and we made tea and avocado toast,
and we talked about secrecy, its benefits and its failures.
And he said that the quality of a society
is founded upon the information that it can get access to
in order to build something that is more sturdy
and has deeper knowledge of itself,
and consequently can move to a higher plane of existence.
They are... That is his, but paraphrased,
because the conversations extended over days, you know?
MAN: Ready to go live on the fly here on 99.5 FM in New York City.
Today, I'm talking with Dr Niraj Lal,
about Julian Assange.
So, when did you first meet Julian Assange, Dr Niraj?
First met Julian in 2002,
in my first physics lecture at the University of Melbourne.
And the question of whether Australia would go to war in Iraq
was a topic of discussion.
Julian was very much a passionate advocate
for fairness, for justice.
And millions of citizens were marching,
to see if we could stop this war taking place,
that I think people of the time
knew that it wasn't actually
about the safety of the Iraqi citizens themselves,
or the safety of other nations around the world.
And we saw this, and we marched, and we protested.
And nothing happened.
It didn't lead to anything. We still went to war.
And Julian asked the question,
"Well, if marching civilians can't do it,
"if letters to our politicians don't do it, if...
"Well, what WILL change?
"What WILL enable us to prevent going to an illegal war?"
And Julian's idea, with WikiLeaks,
was that the goal is justice and the method is transparency,
to show the public what's really going on.
This movement is not about the destruction of law.
It is about the construction of law!
MAN: In July 2010, WikiLeaks and its collaborators
went public with a massive leak.
The Afghan War logs came from a trove
of 90,000 incident and intelligence reports.
MAN: WikiLeaks released this video.
It shows a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq
opening fire on a group of men.
Some of them were journalists from Reuters.
GUNFIRE Come on. Fire.
Keep shooting.
We have clear evidence for war crimes having been committed.
WOMAN: His appearance has changed dramatically since April,
when he was dragged by police
from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
MAN: A thin and confused-looking Julian Assange
has been seen for the first time since his April arrest,
the WikiLeaks founder
struggling to remember his birthday
as he was told his extradition hearing WILL go ahead.
WOMAN: Fronting Westminster Magistrates' Court
in a navy suit and clean-shaven,
the WikiLeaks founder was noticeably thinner,
struggling to remember his birth date,
saying, "I can't think properly."
Assange will remain behind bars
until that full extradition hearing,
which has been set down for the end of February.
ANNOUNCEMENT: We will shortly be arriving at Farringdon.
STELLA MORIS: I met Julian
because I had responded to an email from Jennifer Robinson.
The legal defence team needed more people.
The case was developing very quickly,
and I was brought on to work on the US investigation.
In the beginning of Julian being in prison,
he could only call a few times a week,
when he was in the unit for desperately suicidal
or terminally ill people,
and most of the time, they're in isolation.
So that's where Julian was for about six months.
I mean, Julian's had a...
a very... difficult time in the prison.
CHILD CHATTERS
JOHN: Yes, but that's not very nice.
You have the nice one, the big one...
WOMAN: Stella...
WOMAN SPEAKS SWEDISH
Did you rest well? I did.
Oh. Yourself?
Yes, I did. I feel... I feel human.
Dad? Yeah?
I took off my shoes already.
'Severine, she asked when...
'when I'm gonna get Julian out of jail, yeah.
'Severine thinks it's an immediacy.
'We're just coming to pick him up, you know?
'Get in the cab and...
'She doesn't really see that we might end up in America
'fighting this battle.'
You know, I find myself very different,
in that I have cultivated within myself a love of family,
because when I left school,
or my father died, after he died,
I got all the family photographs -
oh, there was a fucking heap, I tell you -
and I burnt them.
I wasn't going back there, not for quids.
What...? Er...
What was going on when you did that?
Oh, who knows? You know? Humans are complex.
Um... And... so I built...
..copying from books and plays and...
..mentors...
the elements of families in myself.
Yeah, so I built it.
It's a hou... my mansion, you know?
And it has all these rooms, which I've...
decorated, and put furniture in,
and I move into them.
No, that was me.
It's still bottoming out somewhere.
SOBBING: I want to stay with you.
Darling, we have to go.
We have to go. OK?
SOBS: I want to be with you.
Huh? Becau... You can't...
Because we can't get in the jail.
We're going to places no children...
It's just an awful place I'm going to today.
OK.
For whom?
For the lawyers?
When you say "us", I don't understand.
Oh.
OK.
about
'how he... when he was... when he was a child,
'growing up, he always...'
knew he was different.
And he says...
that he wasn't...
He wasn't afraid of an alien abduction.
He was hoping that it would happen soon
because he felt like an alien.
This must be the explanation, right?
So it was very funny to...
to know that Julian and John had only reconnected
when Julian was already a...
you know, a mature adult.
Because they are very similar in some ways.
I mean, I think it's very...
In ways that are noticeable,
even to people who don't know them personally.
Their thought processes are recognisable,
ability to abstract...
storytelling.
And kind of a cheeky sense of humour.
And he's been really, really good.
LAUGHTER AND CHEERING
JOHN SHIPTON: 'I get upset in that fuckin' place.
'Three suicides and one murder this month.'
MAN: And when did you first know about Julian and Stella?
Generally speaking...
SIGHS
..unlike other people...
..I don't invade people's privacy.
Nor I am curious as to what, who's going out with whom...
Um...
So...
If I saw anything that intimated...
..intimacy...
I... ignored it,
or put it under the list of familiarity.
They've spent 10 years
being pursued by four powers,
one of them being the foremost power on Earth.
In an extraordinary twist to the WikiLeaks story,
Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blower website,
has taken refuge in the Ecuador Embassy in London.
Assange is seeking asylum
because he fears extradition to Sweden
may lead to his transfer to the United States,
where he could potentially face charges relating to WikiLeaks.
STELLA: It was around 2015
that we got together in the embassy,
and we discussed
the impossibility of having children for a long time.
And we experienced this both as...
as a massive tragedy, because we had found each other.
And in 2016...
It seemed like 2016 was a turning point,
because the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
had just ruled in favour of Julian and against the UK,
saying that they were holding him without any legal basis
and that they were actually violating international law
by keeping him in the embassy, and... and...
And it just seemed like...
clearly, it was just a matter of time
before Julian could walk free.
So when we decided to start a family,
it was in a context where there were no charges,
there was no investigation,
there was no reason for Julian to be stuck in that embassy.
So we had Gabriel in mid-2017,
and then I would bring him into the embassy
with my friend Stephen,
and... and that way, Julian was able to see our baby.
And that continued for about six months.
INDISTINCT CONVERSATION
WHOOSHING
STELLA: You know, the whole place was basically bugged by the CIA.
Beginning of 2018,
there was a grab team posted outside the embassy
during the Christmas period.
You know, the streets were deserted outside,
and there this was car that was there, conspicuous,
for... for us to see.
And I remember John was there, and we had...
we had Christmas dinner and...
And we... you know, we knew these guys were sitting out there.
We found out that there were plans to kill Julian
by poisoning him and...
..abducting him from the embassy.
Um...
They grew...
..increasingly aggressive.
It got so bad that I had...
I was afraid about walking home at night.
Because I thought, you know...
..I could just be beaten up and assaulted, or even killed,
just as a message to Julian.
And that's why towards
the final three months of my second pregnancy,
we decided it was best for me not to go in.
And then Julian was arrested.
CHILD CHATTERS
STELLA: No?
Oh, wow. We have a lot of stories to get through tonight.
I will help you, Mama!
Thank you.
All right. Shall we start with The Gingerbread Man?
Yeah.
All right.
"Once upon a time, there was a little old man.
"One day, the little old woman made a gingerbread man."
Maybe Fergus Finds A Friend?
The Saggy Baggy Elephant?
'That's quite good.'
And the Going On A Lion Hunt? Did you say you knew that one?
Mmm.
It's the... the bear hunt one. They know the bear hunt one.
"We're going on a bear hunt." 'Oh, yeah.'
"We're gonna find... a big one."
Can we come in?
Ah.
She cannot talk cos we've got to keep still.
STELLA: Extraditions are 99% politics and 1% law.
It's entirely the political climate around the case
that decides the outcome,
and that is shaped by the... by the media.
And for many years, there was a climate that was created,
deliberately created, through false stories,
through smears, through kind of a character...
relentless character attacks on Julian,
to try to reduce that support
and make it more possible, um...
more likely, to successfully extradite him
to the United States.
'And... I think it took about a year
'to really feel like I was in a place
'where I could go public.'
Oh, where are those notes? Can I just have a look?
Thank you very much for talking to us.
I want to ask you first of all how you first met Julian Assange
and what you thought of him
when you first met him nine years ago.
I met Julian in Paddington, at the Frontline Club.
I thought he was intriguing, a man with a... with a mission.
Julian Assange went into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
because he wanted to avoid being extradited to Sweden
to face questioning about allegations of sexual assault.
You know that case very well.
What did you think of the allegations made
by Miss A and Miss W against him?
What has to be understood
about the Swedish preliminary investigation -
because it was always a preliminary investigation -
was that Julian always cooperated.
He did not go into the embassy because he was avoiding questioning.
In fact, he was offering questioning.
Julian was never charged.
None of their names should have been leaked, including Julian's.
I think the Swedish prosecution...
It's too long.
I told him it's too long,
but they don't take any notice of me.
One hour, maximum.
These stupid PR people. Just sick of them.
Earlier this year, you said, "Everyone has failed Julian.
"We've all failed Julian."
What did you mean?
I mean that Julian...
..is... extremely vulnerable.
Now physically in the country's highest-security prison,
he's in there because he exposed torture.
The contrast...
..just the... Sorry.
The injustice is overwhelming.
And it's hard, year after year.
I don't think this is people's values.
I don't think they think that people who expose war crimes
should go to prison for the rest of their lives.
SNIFFS
Uh, perhaps...
SNIFFS
Do you want some tissue, yeah?
Are you OK?
Use this one. Thanks.
Pear. You're eating pear.
How do you deal with the fact that...
..your fiance may lose his fight against extradition,
he may be sent to America,
he may be tried, he may be jailed?
How do you cope with that?
It's not a... It's not a choice.
Um... You love who you love, and...
I love Julian for the courageous person he is,
and I'll stand by him.
Open the door.
NILS MELZER: When Julian's legal team contacted me,
I have to admit, I mean, I just saw the message
kind of coming up on my screen,
"Julian Assange's legal team asks for your protection."
And I immediately had this reaction of,
"No, I'm not gonna get into this."
But this reaction was not based on an objective evaluation,
and I have to admit today, to my shame,
it was just an emotional reaction based on prejudice
that I had in myself I wasn't even aware of.
Why am I admitting to my prejudice?
Because I think
all of us had them at some point, maybe.
All of us who had not been in personal contact
with Julian Assange
have been affected by this,
because this is the public narrative
that has been spread in the media for 10 years,
and no-one has been able to
actually see how much deception there is.
Why is this being done?
For 10 years, all of us have only focused on Julian Assange,
when he never wanted it to be about him.
It never WAS about him.
It was about the States
and their war crimes and their corruption.
That's what HE wanted to put the spotlight on.
And he did.
And that's what made them angry.
They put the spotlight on him.
JOHN: You know, over the last 10 years,
journalists, for some reason or other,
have seen fit to service the government's attacks on Julian
at the collapse of their own self-interest
and their stature.
After so many years of smearing and lobbying,
this is... a good sign,
that the newspapers...
..realise that the extradition of Julian Assange
and the destruction of WikiLeaks
is the collapse of THEIR power.
The mass media serves only power and money, really.
Each outlet serves a different cohort of the society.
That's their function.
And if they drift from that, then they will no longer exist.
WOMAN: 'In 1971, Ellsberg was a high-level Pentagon analyst
'when he leaked a top-secret report
'on US involvement in Vietnam
'that became known as the Pentagon Papers,
'which documented how officials had lied to the public about the war.'
If Julian is extradited to the United States
to face these charges,
he will be the first journalist and publisher,
but not the last.
New York Times probably won't be the second either.
It might be the third or the fourth.
Really, the American press has remained
in kind of a state of denial for 40 years, really,
since my case,
that the Espionage Act has wording in it
that could be aimed directly at them,
at the journalists and publishers,
although until this case, it hasn't done so.
So the stakes here are enormous,
and for freedom of the press all over the world, in this.
PROTESTERS: Free Assange! MAN: Free! Free!
Free Assange! Free! Free!
Free Assange!
Free! Free! Free Assange!
WOMAN: Julian Assange is preparing to head to court,
where a hearing will begin into whether he'll be extradited
to the United States.
Protesters have marched across Central London,
calling on Britain to reject the WikiLeaks founder's deportation.
JOHN: Thanks for waiting, ladies and gentlemen.
What's at stake?
For Julian, his life.
For you guys...
..any prestige that you can gather, as a journalist,
protects you.
So this'll be the end.
Nobody, ever again,
will be able to get the assistance
of 100,000 people worldwide to defend them,
100 lawyers,
six jurisdictions,
in order to defend Julian Assange.
It'll never happen again.
If he goes down, so will journalism.
APPLAUSE Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Can we get one? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK.
Everybody... we're here...
We're here until everybody's satisfied.
Yeah. Perfect.
WOMAN: How does it feel to be the father
of such a controversial figure,
somebody who's known around the world?
Well, I don't see Julian, myself, as controversial.
I see him as a... a good man.
I support Julian Assange because he's my son,
and this is what a father does
when their children are in difficulty or in trouble.
We are...
..very trusting of our governments,
because we believe we elect them.
And I'm sure that governments all over the world
will begin to realise
that they're faced with a tremendous credibility gap.
Just want to shake your hand. Thank you for Julian, honestly.
Thank you. Thank you.
You've done a really good job.
So proud. Thank you.
Could I just do a quick...? I can't do 15 minutes.
No, you can't. I know. OK. We'll just be... I'll be five.
I'll be dead.
My name's Fionn O Lochlainn. Fionn. Fionn.
Fionn O Lochlainn. OK.
My first album is called Spawn Of The Beast.
I should have been on that stage today,
but for some reason,
your organisation won't get in touch with me.
It's not MY organisation.
I'm not even in it! Of course.
WOMAN: ..seconds. WOMAN 2: Sorry. I'm so sorry.
Just please let him know when you see him tomorrow
there are many people from Australia,
me being one of them, that are deeply thinking of him.
Go?
My name is John Shipton. I'm Julian Assange's father.
I've come to the rally here today in Parliament Square.
Yeah, let's sit down. I mean, I'm fuckin' worn out, you know?
MAN: Britain enters lockdown.
Now people can only leave their homes for very limited reasons.
From this evening, I must give the British people
a very simple instruction.
You must stay at home.
That is the critical thing we must do
to stop the disease spreading between households.
WOMAN: The Australian Parliament
have called on British officials and the judge
to release Julian Assange
due to the rapid spread of coronavirus
among the prison population
and the workers at Belmarsh Prison,
where Assange is being held
23 and a half hours a day in a solitary-confinement cell.
Yeah. OK. Yeah. OK. Yeah, all right.
I just... you know,
I've got the young family back in Australia
I haven't seen now for months.
So that's a bit awkward.
And Julian's now 23 hours a day in the cell,
because it's locked down,
and half the staff are off
because they're all sick with COVID
or too frightened to come to work.
The jail's in lockdown.
I don't know how they're getting papers
backward and forward.
They say that they have only had one hour with Julian
in five weeks.
"According to prosecutors..." Yeah.
This is why we need you on bail.
We need... Yeah.
I mean, I... I can't see how we can possibly...
..prepare a defence on these fucking phones that are...
Anyway.
"According to prosecutors, Assange obtained evidence...
"..access to..." Sorry.
You have to call me back.
Call me back.
JOHN: Did you hear the story I sent you?
SEVERINE: 'No.'
It's about the Snoceros and Rapunzel.
SNIFFS
And Jill and Princess Mouse.
'Do you want to talk to me all day or...
'would you... Or have a little rest?'
I want to talk to you forever.
No! I can't talk forever. I need to eat food.
OK. All right.
I'll talk to you tomorrow, then.
How do we communicate this to Julian?
Because...
we're 10 days away from the evidence deadline.
We can't give him documents. We can't go to see him.
Basically, what we'll have to do is we'll have to read out
this 49-page document over the phone.
He can't even take notes on a laptop,
because he doesn't have a laptop.
Hi.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's where I work to fit in,
as I'm an old man, and I... You know.
Um... JULIAN: 'Yeah.'
OK. OK.
Your question to my answers always gets a raised eyebrow.
'Yes.'
'Yeah. Yeah.'
Was that him on the phone before?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
What are you talking about on a kind of regular basis?
What sort of things?
'Mmm.
'I think it must be nearly 11 years since Julian...
'was in the company of a tree or a plant...
'..or a caterpillar or a butterfly, and...
'So he asked me, you know,
'did we have a walk in the forest?'
LAUGHS
'And, yeah, it was pleasant enough.'
'It's a sunny day out here.
'Bonding, I suppose, you know,
'when walking with his family and so on, yeah.
'I think if you applied you know, your understanding
'to what it would be like
'to live in a room for seven and a half years...
'You'd just know every nook and cranny and...
'Ugh.
'Everything would be familiar with. And it's still ongoing.'
So, yeah, the challenge is to make him laugh, you know,
when he...rings up.
Which I do, you know?
WOMAN: A happy family relaxing in a London park,
but there's a hole at the heart of it.
Stella Moris was part of Assange's legal team
before she got engaged to him.
Today, Stella will be at the Old Bailey
for the start of up to four weeks of legal arguments
over whether her fiance should be extradited to America.
Julian hasn't seen his lawyers for six months.
The first day that he'll have seen his lawyers
will be today.
SPEAKS SWEDISH
CHILD CRIES
Bye, sweetie.
SPEAKS SWEDISH
Julian Assange is in our headlines.
He's in a London courtroom this morning
finally facing an extradition hearing.
The court is to decide if Assange
should be extradited to the United States
to face a trial over the publication of secrets.
MAN: The Trump administration wants the Australian
to face charges of espionage.
Legal observers say it's an unprecedented breach
of US free speech protections.
The US Department of Justice is going after him
under a different law now - the Espionage Act.
That law has been used against whistle-blowers before,
but never against a publisher.
WOMAN: We've never in this country
successfully charged somebody for publishing secret material.
There is a reason - it's called the First Amendment -
that the US government
has never successfully made that a crime before.
But here, with Assange, they are trying to do it.
If Assange's publishing of classified information
runs afoul of the law,
so does the work of just about every single serious press outlet,
this one included.
The First Amendment protects the basic right
of a free press - and a free people -
to publish truthful information about matters of public import,
whether the government likes it or not.
SHOUTING
All good?
Morning, John. Good morning.
Good morning. Good to see you.
Good morning, Stella.
Please move, please!
Please. Move round these people.
Let the ladies through, please.
Free Julian Assange!
When did you last speak to him and see him face-to-face?
Six months ago, when COVID locked down.
They're not allowed to see anybody.
Have you seen him today?
Only in the glass box. Oh, OK.
Yeah. Yeah. And how is he?
Uh... is he...
I can't answer that. How do I know?
I was sitting upstairs. He's in the glass box downstairs.
I would love to go and see him, but it's not allowed.
I'll bring you a coffee here.
I'm going to go and have a coffee.
Yeah. I... I met you and I know you.
I have to go. I have to go. I have to look after...
Can I ask one question for the news?
No. No. No! I just did 10 questions.
You have to come to this...
Thank you so much for this. Thank you.
Free Julian Assange! I'm done. I'm done. I'm done.
Just one thing. I'm done.
PROTESTERS SHOUT
Oh, dear.
Yeah. Oh, yes.
Well, you know...
Thank you.
Oh, you... you... Yeah?
If you were fighting for your kids, you would.
Yeah. I... I hope so.
Bit scared.
MAN: Scared?
Running out of juice.
MAN: But Julian Assange, right now, today,
is in court in the UK,
fighting an extradition trial to the United States.
Now, he really fell out of favour in 2016
because he published the Hillary emails
and everything like that, or Podesta emails.
But he's not being charged for that.
The extradition trial has nothing to do with that.
Actually, the US government is trying to extradite this guy
and put him in prison for the rest of his life
for the BEST work that WikiLeaks ever did,
which is the Iraq and Afghanistan War logs, right?
Detainee records in Guantanamo Bay.
Things that are about explicit war crimes and abuses of power.
JOE ROGAN: There's many things that are disturbing about this case,
but another thing that's been disturbing was,
he was a guy who the left supported up until 2016,
and then it became inconvenient.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: When he was dragging Bush, it was great.
Then when he's dragging... Yes!
..Clinton, it's not so great.
He was the darling of the left.
I mean, they were all, "Free Julian Assange."
And it's so interesting
how that narrative can shift so completely,
to, all of a sudden, he's a puppet of Russia.
It's amazing how that kind of propaganda,
when you just get at the surface veneer
of whatever the narrative they're trying to push,
how well it spreads.
Snowden was across the material really well.
Yeah.
One second, John. Yeah.
What happened today, John?
It was a very strong day for the defence.
There's nobody, in the last 10 years,
been harmed when the files were released,
and all of the cables, 15,000 cables, were redacted,
so overall, the intensity of the week
is demonstrating the thoroughness of redactions
and the care for people and treasuring and cherishing life.
We've covered... OK.
..the case for a long, long time. So...
OK. OK. ..an update from you...
Here's John. Hi. How are you?
Hi. Nice to meet you.
Keir? Keir. Yeah.
Keir? Oh. Yeah.
Your son is somebody that everybody thinks they know
and has an opinion about.
But he's YOUR son.
JOHN SHIPTON: Yep. Must be...
Generally... Generally, I don't...
Yeah, I keep away from commentary about Julian.
Do you think that he has been naive at times?
Naive?
Expecting states to obey their own laws is hardly naive.
Are you proud of what he did there?
I'm proud of his endurance and courage, intelligence.
Do you think that Julian is a journalist?
Well, of course.
He now has, I think it's 26 journalism awards.
And what are your worst fears?
That he...
..that he just collapses under the strain, I mean, yeah.
Yeah. Good. Good? Yeah. WOMAN: Mm-hm.
Great. WOMAN: Yep.
We'll need a walk-in shot, if that's OK.
Do you need a shot of them... There's a...
..standing by, one listening to the other?
JOHN SHIPTON: Listen, why don't you people wind this up?
You must do...
Oh, yeah, OK. Sorry. Just wondering.
Worried about your crew? Yeah.
Like, he's looking at the computer.
He should be over here winding you up
and saying, "You've had enough."
MAN: Did you feel that interview was too soft?
No. No?
No, it was fine.
Just too long.
MAN: Will you watch things like that back, or you're not...?
Or you just wait?
Like, how do you monitor the interviews that you do?
Or do you at all? Can you keep up with them now?
Oh, I've never watched one, ever. No?
Sometimes I listen to Seven Stories,
to remember what the characters are doing,
but I...I've never watched an interview.
And why is the reason for that, for you?
Mmm... I don't like them. LAUGHS
I guess what I was getting at is,
how hard are you on yourself?
Cos such a big part of what you're doing
is to be clearly understood.
Well, my...
Great-Uncle Vivian,
he died youngish, you know,
at 35 or 38, something like that.
On his gravestone is the...
his name and the date he died
and the inscription "Not understood."
Yeah.
I don't much like talking about myself,
because it's always sectional,
and a life is really a rich thing, you know?
But I find myself...
distinct...
and...
consequently, not understood.
You know, the more distinct you are,
you just become more lonely, until...
you are faced with the abomination of desolation
and existential panic
as you become more and more distinct,
and so you become silent, you know?
And this is your burden, the essence of your being.
Situations like this, you know, erm...
..it's sort of an interior conflict for me.
MAN: But if people walked away from this film
understanding you...
Well, got the sense of understanding you
a little bit more deeply.
How would you feel about that?
Oh. Well, I'd be very grateful and moved, you know?
That'd be nice. It'd be more than nice.
But...
We're here, and this has only come about
because we have a problem, you know?
We have a child in the shit.
Mmm. And...
..I want to get him out.
The energies aren't with me.
It's not John Shipton, you know?
The energies are with US and the,
you know, "Cometh the hour, cometh the man."
The Greeks always say, "Of gods, there are many.
"Of men, there are few."
Mmm.
You'll give it to somebody...
I bought them because Ai Weiwei was here today.
And he's a man of peace. Yeah, yeah.
Now, come on.
You're always cranky. You have to have a flower.
Cranky? Me? JOHN LAUGHS
Good morning. Good morning.
How are you?
It's good to see you. You look well.
Huh? You look well.
I...Yeah.
Yeah. We...we go in together.
Yes. Yeah.
OK.
Yes.
No. No. Yeah. Yeah. In the fight. Yeah. Yep.
Yep.
WOMAN: Why do you think
there's not a great public love of Mr Assange?
MAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SIREN WAILS, SHOUTING
Oh, God. Here we go.
I don't like to start too early,
but what can you do?
INDISTINCT SHOUTING
Well, the big ones were the dispute over sentencing.
Then they went on to the sort of jail
that Julian would be held in
and the conditions in the jail.
One of the wardens did go as much to say
that time in his jail is worse than death.
MAN: Thank you very much, John. Thank you.
MAN: Supermax is life after death.
It adds punishment to the crime.
Today, there's 420 inmates in the prison.
They've killed staff. They've killed guards.
They've earned, if you will, the right to go to supermax.
You're designing it so the inmates can't see the sky, intentionally.
And it's far... much worse than death.
So today, the three days of medical evidence begins.
It will start with...
the US will try to argue that...
yes, that he has, um...
..mental health problems,
but that these can be managed in the US setting.
Um...
So it kind of dovetails with the US prison conditions as well.
When I was speaking to Julian yesterday,
he said, "They're burgling my mind,
"and they're doing it in a judicial setting."
MAN: And, John,
did this psychological cross-examination of Julian's...
..state at the moment, was this something that...
that you had a similar feeling towards?
Oh, in some senses, I don't think it matters much.
There's so...
There's, er...
So many opinions about Julian.
It just joins them, you know...
..in the layer of opinions,
that Julian's this, that or the other.
It matters in the legal context.
But in a...in a spiritual sense, it is...depraved...
..tearing the liver, over and over again, from...
the person, the...
that brought the gift of fire to people.
Do you know that legend? Prometheus.
It's extraordinary.
Very hard to explain to people.
SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY Yes.
Let's go? Yep.
Yep? Oh, gee. It was torrid today.
Oh.
Are you OK from that? Yep.
MAN 2: Can we talk about his health at the moment
and his autism diagnosis?
JOHN SHIPTON: I'm not interested in that.
He is as he is to me.
MAN: Yeah. Yeah.
Can you explain how that...
I have no interest in it. ..manifests itself?
I have no interest in it. He is as he is.
What do you understand of autism? What do you...?
Oh, I've no idea what it is.
You know, I don't relate really well to people myself.
In fact...
generally speaking, I...
I had no idea what people were like until quite late in life.
But I just was always throwing myself up against ideas that...
Well, people said I was angry, you know,
but I'm mild-natured, so I can't have been too angry.
When's your earliest memory of that occurring?
I suppose the earliest memory was 11 and 12,
writing the works of Voltaire on the blackboard
while everybody was...in chapel,
because I knew their beliefs are otherwise.
You know, I...
I think, from the age of...
..15 onwards
suffered from varying depths of depression
until about 28 or 29.
Erm...
So I was pretty quiet, you know?
Mmm. Mmm.
I was a hermit for a while. That's not much fun.
But I found myself riddled with fractures
and objections and...
guilts and shames and...
all of those devilish things.
What brought you out of that period, then?
Well, I don't know.
You know, just... you just learn techniques
of how to relate to people. Yeah.
Also, my curiosity, you know, was boundless,
so I gradually discovered ways to be with people
without collapsing into nervous distress, erm...
You might say one was Aspergic
and, through suffering, learnt technique.
Mmm. You know? So...
I had a burning desire, still have it,
to be able to...to give love.
I just wanted to do that. I wanted to love people.
But people are funny creatures.
Erm...And in order to love them,
you have to find what they want,
how they want love to come to them.
And so learning that was a bit of a craft.
But did you feel that came easier to others than you?
Or is that something you sense...?
Oh, no, no. I don't... People don't do it.
You know, they only do it out of...
They do it as a transactional exchange,
that they WANT love,
so they give it in order to get it.
I just wanted to be able to... to love.
Mmm. Erm...
Yeah.
MAN: Have you just stepped into the film now?
Me? Yeah.
Yeah. That's...
This is our routine in the morning. Oh, right.
SHOUTING, DRUMS BEAT
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.
Are you well today? Good morning.
Yes, yes. Good morning. Well, thank you.
This is Gabriel, Julian's brother.
Hi. How are you?
This is Gabriel. This is Julian's brother.
INDISTINCT CHATTER
This is Gabriel, Julian's brother.
MAN: Julian Assange has been suffering terrible deprivation,
and all because he published the truth.
And much of that truth revealed terrible crimes -
war crimes and crimes against humanity,
and lies and corruption by government.
And not one of the people who committed those war crimes
is on trial anywhere.
Instead, we have the man
who had the courage to reveal those war crimes
is the one whose liberty is at stake,
and that is not right.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I mean, I think this is an important...
..process overall that you're going from...
..that the criminality is not Julian.
Julian is, like, the...
..he's the victim, right,
and there's all this criminality surrounding him,
and he's the one exposing the criminality and so on.
Erm...So you have to shift the...
perception of where the crime is.
MAN ON TV: ..concerned about how he will handle
the end of his presidency.
President Trump's brazen and delusional push
to overturn the 2020 election
is alarming some senior officials
and people close to the President,
who say they're concerned about how he's handling his final weeks...
STELLA MORIS: My parents were engaged in
the apartheid struggle in South Africa.
We were living in Botswana,
and, as a child, growing up,
we would be going to the rallies and singing the...
the freedom, the liberation, songs
and have these stories about
the heroes and the martyrs, I guess,
the ones who...who didn't survive.
And that kind of shaped a lot of my early years,
my early political education.
You know, there was a very clear sense of right and wrong
and of...clear oppression,
of things that were being done to good people.
So I studied politics and law,
and it was definitely because I was drawn to...
issues to do with justice and power, I guess.
Should I go for the rest?
Wait, wait.
Hold on.
OK.
So this one in Belmarsh a few minutes ago, outside Belmarsh.
CHOIR SINGS It's a gospel choir.
And they're standing outside, like, the main entrance,
where you're not supposed to film.
That's Daddy.
I think they sang two songs. That was Daddy.
Daddy. It's Daddy, isn't it?
CHOIR SINGS
My daddy. It's Daddy.
# Something inside so strong
# I know that I can make it
# Though you're doing me wrong So wrong
# You thought that My pride was gone
# Oh, no
# Something inside So strong...#
STELLA MORIS: Well, they're all in...
you know...
winter jackets and...
CHUCKLES
There was a lot of singing in South Africa as well.
This too much?
Mama! Look!
It's time to get ready for bed.
But, look... Toys in the box.
GABRIEL: It was so good, the music.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Mm-hm. STELLA MORIS: Music?
It was good, that music.
Do you want to show Daddy
how you can sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?
GABRIEL: # Twinkle Twinkle, twinkle...#
SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY
Keep going. Keep going.
# Twinkle, twinkle Little star...#
GABRIEL BABBLES # How I wonder what you are
GABRIEL: # Twinkle Twinkle, twinkle...#
BELLS
Hi.
JULIAN ASSANGE: How are you?
All right.
So... Yes?
..there's someone else using...
Purple Visits next to you?
Oh, OK.
Erm...
..how are you?
Are you covering your neck beard?
A power nap? You see?
I can tell.
SHE LAUGHS
Well, I'm in the kids' room.
Well, where I sleep as well.
See? Yeah.
And it's a sunny day outside. Want to see?
It's the inner yard.
Yeah.
Do you want me to go out?
HOOVES CLOP
Yeah.
HORSE WHINNIES
Yeah.
BABBLES Come here.
I think many people who have had a family member with a...
you know, a depressive disorder or severe depression,
you just don't know how you can help.
And especially in this situation, where you're not even there,
you don't really know what's going on,
only what they tell you, erm...
It can be really, really tough. Er, so...
Yeah, I mean, it's...
Without the phone calls, it would be...
..enormously...
..challenging and difficult. Er...
With the phone calls, it's still challenging and difficult,
but it's...
..it's really important, for both of us.
No, it's OK. I have to go. I have everything.
All the important stuff is in this...
BABBLES CHILDISHLY, YAWNS
You OK? Yeah.
SEVERINE BABBLES IN SING-SONG VOICE
So...
..how long...when are...
How longer are you gonna be in...
in...in London?
It won't be long now.
Just another 60 story times.
LAUGHS
'If I could give, illustrate, something about us,
'in Moby-Dick, they would spot a whale pod from the mast,
'and they'd launch the boats.'
Now, if the whales are disciplined,
they can probably outrun the rowing boats
that are after them.
But the rowing boats keep on coming,
keep on coming, keep on coming,
keep on coming, keep on coming.
And this translates to a...
a fear...in the pod.
And the fear...
generates urgency,
and urgency generates panic,
and the panic...
causes them to break form.
Once they break in form,
they fall victim to the hunters.
MAN: Mmm.
You learn, through practice after practice after practice
to keep form.
As long as you keep to form...
MAN: For publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents,
he faces a maximum jail sentence
of 175 years under the Espionage Act.
He's already spent 21 months in a UK prison.
On Monday, a judge at London's Old Bailey
will decide whether he can be extradited to the United States,
but both sides can appeal a decision that goes against them,
so either way, Julian Assange's legal struggles are set to continue.
More police this time, huh?
It's fascism! Get that into your heads!
I am giving you a warning.
Are you going to give my property back?
I have been a loud voice for Julian Assange!
We could have been there, but this...
is a really strong opportunity
to put Julian's case before...
..people in the United States
that are responsible for these decisions.
SHOUTING Free Julian Assange!
Julian's just entered the courtroom.
Ah.
Is that Twitter? Yeah.
MAN: Free Julian Assange!
PROTESTERS: Free Julian Assange!
Free Julian Assange!
Judge enters. Judge giving her na...his name.
PROTESTERS: Free Julian Assange! Free Julian Assange!
Judge says that she found
that notwithstanding his support from family,
Mr Assange has remained either severely or moderately
clinically depressed during detention
and that he is at risk of suicide or self-harm.
He has the intelligence and determination
to circumvent suicide protocols.
No extradition.
No extradition? That's what Mary's saying.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yeah! Free Assange!
Free Assange! CHEERING
LAUGHS PROTESTERS: Free Julian Assange!
Free Julian Assange!
Yeah, good work, all those people.
PROTESTERS: Free! Free, free, free Assange! Free, free...
Developing news - this is coming out of the UK
just in the past few minutes.
A court has denied a request from the United States...
A very significant decision made
to refuse this extradition of Julian Assange.
Well, the judge ruled against extradition
because she said she was concerned about Assange's mental health.
MAN: She said, and to quote her words,
"I'm satisfied that the procedures described by the US
"will not prevent Mr Assange from finding a way to commit suicide."
PROTESTERS: Free Assange now! They're coming out now.
Keep to the side. Keep it to that side.
Let's have some room, guys. Come on.
Keep moving back, please.
Move back. Keep moving back. Keep moving back.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
STELLA MORIS: Please bear with me,
because I've had to rewrite my speech.
LAUGHS Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
I had hoped that today
would be the day that Julian would come home.
Today is not that day.
But that day will come soon.
WOMAN: Yeah.
We are extremely concerned
that the US government has decided to appeal this decision.
It continues to want to punish Julian.
We will never accept that journalism is a crime,
in this country or any other.
I ask you all to shout louder, lobby harder until he is free.
Free Julian.
Free the press.
Free us all. SHOUTING
CROWD: Free Julian Assange!
Free, free! Now!
Free Julian Assange! Now!
CHEERING
SHOUTING
CHANTING CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY
Oh, Dad, do you... How do you feel, not being there?
Huh?
How do you feel not being there?
Oh, OK. OK. I...I...
I like to...to, erm...
build the house and see other people move in.
It's my nature.
PROTESTERS: Free Assange now! Free Assange now!
FIDEL NARVAEZ: Every journalist should be concerned
about what was said today in court.
Because...
the political arguments provided by the United States
were upheld by the British judicial system.
I repeat, it's only the doctor's assessment
of the fragile health condition of Julian Assange
that have saved him from extradition.
So, what does this case mean for media freedoms,
and especially in light of today's judgement?
ANDREW FOWLER: Well, it looks as though
what journalists do for a living
is seen by the British courts to be a criminal act.
In a sense, the system has succeeded
in intimidating the world
and in passing the message that,
"This is what's going to happen to you
"if ever you have the idea of publishing our dirty secrets."
We're wrong to think
that it's about who wins the extradition case.
As long as Julian Assange is silenced,
in solitary confinement,
this proceeding can last as long as it wants.
The US has won.
I can guarantee you that already today,
people who might otherwise leak secret information
are now very careful about this,
because they can see with their own eyes what's going to happen.
And that's... THAT'S the dangerous thing.
We have to control our government.
That's what democracy is about.
How can you be controlling your government
if you don't know the truth?
VACUUM CLEANER WHIRRS
Can I show you around?
I guess as long as there's no...
no-one in the frame, right?
Your books. Oh, tent?
Yep.
Your books are here,
and your awards, a few of them.
And a Australia map.
MAN: Now, good morning to you, Stella,
and it is a very good morning for you.
You're his fiancee, but you're also his lawyer.
What was going through your mind when that verdict was given?
Erm, well, I...I had prepared myself for the worst, and...
but once I realised that Julian has...had won,
I...I wept with relief,
and it was a very emotional moment.
Erm, so I'm...I'm hopeful that what follows from that
is that he'll be released today from Belmarsh,
because the conditions in Belmarsh are absolutely atrocious.
INDISTINCT CLAMOURING
This is a huge disappointment.
Julian should not be in Belmarsh Prison
in the first place.
I urge the Department of Justice to drop the charges
and the President of the United States
to pardon Julian.
OK.
I'm just so tired.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
Trump supporters have stormed the US Capitol Building.
MAN: The peaceful transfer of power,
the cornerstone of American democracy,
seemed a highly abstract concept today...
SHOUTING
..as Trump supporters clashed with police
as they tried, and succeeded, to storm the Congress,
where America's elected leaders
had gathered to certify the election victory of Joe Biden.
Leading Republicans have distanced themselves
from the President, who has not condemned the rioters,
and now there are growing calls
for President Trump to be removed from office,
with just 13 days to go before the end of his term.
Donald Trump will reportedly issue
around 100 pardons and commutations
on his final days in office.
Free press advocates are calling on the President
to pardon WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange.
OK.
Yep.
STELLA: 'Hi.' JOHN: Hi.
'Erm, Trump might get...
'..er, removed before the 20th.'
Yeah, I think on balance, it's a good idea to...
to hire this, or appoint this, lobbyist.
Oh. Well, er, erm, if you say so.
But I don't know. I can't see what's in it for Mr Trump.
People say that it'd be great to get up Hillary's nose on the way out.
Well, that's not much of a motivation
for a president,
you know, to...to, er...
No, it's not about that.
It's about his base wanting the pardon.
'Well...'
The base that he needs to be able to go for...
run for president in four years' time.
Well, that's not an argument for him doing it.
That's a description of the situation.
Yes. I hadn't finished.
I hadn't finished. Oh, sorry.
Yes? Erm...
He says he can put something in front of Trump,
you know, within 24 hours, so if that's true...
What's he going to... I mean, what's he going to say?
And I'm not sure we have anyone who CAN do that.
You don't need to look desperate.
It's not desperate.
Everyone does it. Everyone does it.
Anyway, er...
It...it doesn't smell good.
Hi, Julian.
Yep.
Erm, he's a little bit spooked, because they've threatened him.
They're threatening his family.
Erm...
He says he's been called a traitor, that he should leave America,
he's betraying his country...
Erm...
That the National Security apparatus
is pushing back very strongly.
And while he was optimistic 24 hours ago or so,
there are very powerful forces that want to...
stop it from happening.
And then I said, "Well, my view is that
"the legal case is just a pretext.
"They're just finding any way they can
"to keep Julian in prison for the longest amount of time."
And he said, "I would go further than that,
"and I'm afraid to say that... that people want him dead."
MAN: Mr President!
You lose this election fair and square!
So, how are things there?
Mm.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah.
SIGHS
JOE BIDEN: My distinguished guests, my fellow Americans,
this is America's day.
This is democracy's day.
A day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve.
What are the common objects we as Americans love,
that define us as Americans?
I think we know.
Opportunity. Security.
Liberty. Dignity, respect, honour.
And, yes, the truth.
APPLAUSE
Recent weeks and months
have taught us a painful lesson.
There is truth and there are lies.
Lies told for power and for profit.
And each of us has a duty AND a responsibility,
as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders,
to defend the truth and defeat the lies.
Truth is, er, very vexatious, yeah.
I mean...
You know, you see people writing all the time
"The truth will set you free."
Well, that's probably correct.
But the truth may be
that human beings are collective animals
and always will act in a collective group to a...
And that collective group will be guarded and guided
by an ideology, so your uttering an actuality
and your favoured insight into things as a truth is...
can be awfully misleading, you know?
I suppose that's our only thing, you know,
I really would like to reveal to you.
I don't mind the truth, yeah.
The truth is, it can on...
things can only get worse for Julian.
It cannot get better.
That time has gone. It's all gone away.
He's 49.
It's all gone.
And the same for me.
It's all...it's used up,
cos, well, me more so than him,
but his situation is parlous, parlous,
because it might take his sanity as well.
That's the destiny.
And that's the hard bit that
you guys won't face in your filming,
because it's not popular.
Yeah.
MAN: You must believe things are going to get better.
I know they can't.
I'm 76. What the fuck?
I've got a five-year-old daughter.
Mmm.
I'm here, and she's there. How can that get better?
Is there any...
way that I can reclaim the year,
and go and spend it with my daughter,
who'll never have that year again?
So it can only get worse.
I don't know.
I don't think you'd be doing it unless you thought
it WOULD get better, in some way.
Mm.
The strongest...
..justification of life is to say,
"Look, I'd do it all again, the same."
Yeah. OK.
Well, that's where I am.
Look! Mama! Big squirrel!
STELLA MORIS: Come here!
Sweetheart. Squirrel.
Squirrel! He's coming down. PHONE RINGS
LAUGHS
Mama? STELLA MORIS: Yep.
Erm, how are you doing?
JOHN SHIPTON: Yeah, OK. OK.
Er, tomorrow, erm...
PHONE RINGS
Oh, goodness.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, John.
Let me...let me call you back. It's Julian.
Sorry. Sorry.
Bye. Hi.
OK.
Mmm...
"What Julian stands for goes to the very heart
"of what it means to live in a democracy."
I'd like to thank everyone for being here,
in the city that embodies the values that Julian defended.
Erm...it's...it's the first time
that I see the statue in person,
and it's also the first time
I see Julian's likeness...
EMOTIONALLY ..in three dimensions...
..since 6 January.
We're in a situation now where
the only two outcomes that will happen
is either Julian regains his freedom
or he loses his life.
I am here to remind you
that Julian isn't a name, he's not a symbol.
He's a man, he's a human being, and he's suffering.
He has children. He has a family.
SNIFFS
They're hiding him from view. They're silencing him.
It is an aberration that Julian is not a free man.
In no sane world can this be normalised.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
HOOVES CLOP
INDISTINCT CHATTER
CHILD WHINES
What keeps you calm
is a particular sort of energy,
an energy that comes from...
..return on energy that you invest...
..in...
..in what you're doing.
You find yourself not procrastinating...
..and...
..just taking...
..what comes towards you in the stream of life
without opinion and prejudice.
And just doing what you can with that,
that comes towards you.
Not being frightened...
is a great help.
HOOVES CLOP
Oh. Here's another horse.
HOOVES CLOP
A lovely sound, that.
CLOPPING CONTINUES
CLOPPING FADES, CHUCKLES