In a special comment written for Consortium News, John Pilger describes the disturbing scene inside a London courtroom last week when the WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange, appeared at the start of a landmark extradition case that will define the future of free journalism.

John Pilger describes the meaning of Julian Assange's brutal arrest at the Ecuadorean embassy in London and says it is not only the extraordinary story of one man's struggle but an echo of a past that carries a lesson for us all.

John Pilger invokes George Orwell in calling on his compatriots to stand up for the freedom of 'a distinguished Australian', the founder and editor of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and for 'real journalism of a kind now considered exotic'.  Image © George Burchett 2019

I set out at dawn. Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is in the flat hinterland of south east London, a ribbon of walls and wire with no horizon. At what is called the visitors centre, I surrendered my passport, wallet, credit cards, medical cards, money, phone, keys, comb, pen, paper.

Newspapers and other media in the United States, Britain and Australia have recently declared a passion for freedom of speech, especially their right to publish freely.  They are worried by the "Assange effect".  It is as if the struggle of truth-tellers like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning is now a warning to them: that the thugs who dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in April may one day come for them.

In a major essay to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, John Pilger describes reporting from  five 'ground zeros' for nuclear weapons - from Hiroshima to Bikini, Nevada to Polynesia and Australia. He warns that unless we take action now, China is next.

A battle to disclose the content of secret letters between the Queen and the Australian Governor-General at the time of a coup against a reformist government in 1975 has been won - almost. But the most revealing story of the overthrow of Gough Whitlam's government lies elsewhere.

In this seminal essay, two NHS doctors, Bob Gill and Sarah Gangoli, reveal why the sixth richest country on earth, home to the world's first public health service, is near the top of the league of deaths and suffering from COVID-19. 

John Pilger describes the invisible weapon of past and current wars, and the threat of nuclear war, under cover of the Covid pandemic. This is propaganda, aided by censorship by omission.

In his foreword to a powerful new book by David Edwards and David Cromwell, the founders and editors of Media Lens, Propaganda Blitz, John Pilger asks what happened to an age of eyewitness reporting and to journalism that relied on evidence.

Listen to John Pilger interviewed on KPFA by Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico. Also, listen to this interview on Sputnik Radio.

In this analysis, John Pilger looks back over the Chavez years in Venezuela, including his own travels with Hugo Chavez, and the current US and European campaign to overthrow Nicolas Maduro in a 'coup by media' and to return Latin America to the 19th and 20th centuries.

In a wide-ranging interview with Dennis Bernstein on Radio KPFA's Flashpoints, John Pilger talks about the wider meaning behind his new film, The Dirty War on the NHS; on America's violent attempt to restore its dominance over Iran; and on the spectral fires that ravage his homeland, Australia, and are a warning to all of humanity.

In two separate major interviews - the first published in India's leading news magazine, Frontline, the second broadcast on RT - John Pilger describes the rise of a second cold war and the conversion of much of journalism to unconscious satire - 'beckoning a real, unreported danger'.Read the Frontline articleWatch RT's Going Underground

In his latest essay, John Pilger describes the changes in the reporting of war crises such as the 'imminent invasion' of Ukraine, and the rise of what he calls 'raw propaganda'.

In the crudest, most political judgement in memory, two High Court judges in London have ordered the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, where a trial in a kangaroo court awaits him, followed by a life lost in a barbaric prison system.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has handed down a momentous judgement that says Britain's colonial authority over the Chagos Islands is no longer legal. John Pilger, whose 2004 film, Stealing a Nation, alerted much of the world to the plight of the islanders, tells their story here. 

The new John Pilger film, The Dirty War on the NHS, will be released in cinemas in the UK on 1 December and broadcast on the ITV Network on 17 December.The film's launch will straddle an extraordinary period in Britain, especially an election campaign which, for the first time for years, offers voters a genuine choice. The film's theme, the privatisation and destruction of the NHS, is already a major election issue."The Dirty War," says Pilger at the beginning of the film, "is about democracy. Above all, it is a warning."For screenings and tickets, go to www.thedirtywaronnhs.com

On Saturday, 22 February, in London, people will march to the centre of British democracy: Parliament Square. They will set out at the Australian High Commission, which represents Julian Assange's homeland. The silence on Assange and the meaning of his extradition hearing, starting 24 February, for justice and the freedom of all of us, must be broken.

Phillip Adams interviews John Pilger on ABC Radio National on the plight and hope and courage of Julian Assange ahead of his courtroom struggle to prevent extradition to the the United States. CLICK HERE to listen. 

Next week Curzon Home Cinema will be streaming John Pilger's film The Dirty War on the NHS, which was first released last December. This re-release could not be more timely. The government is telling us to stay at home and "protect the NHS". John's film spells out the reason why the NHS might be overwhelmed by the impact of the coronavirus: the lack of resources which are the direct result of the policies of the last ten years and the devastation caused by sustained privatisation. At the end of the film Professor Danny Dorling foresaw what we are now going through: "The NHS gave us freedom from fear .... now that fear has returned."  This is a film to enrage, but also to inspire: to make sure that when the pandemic is over, the NHS is rebuilt as a properly funded public health system.The film will start streaming on Curzon Home Cinema on 13th April. And on the 15th April the screening will be followed by discussion with two of its main contributors - Professor Allyson Pollock and Dr John Lister at 8.30 pm.WATCH THE TRAILER