Less than 400 protesters attend "Free Assange" Rally

Less than 400 protesters attended the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) rally against Julian Assange's detention at the State Library yesterday.

But International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) Evrim Yazgin said the numbers were irrelevant.

"The critical issue is not the number of people, the critical issue is the political line that was put forward," said Mr Yazgin.

The protest was organised to "demand" Assange's "safe" return to Australia.

“What we’re fighting to build is an international movement to oppose the persecution of Assange and fight back against censorship,” leader of IYSSE, Evrim Yazgin said.  

“What WikiLeaks and Assange did was genuine journalism,” Mr Yazgin said.

Mr Yazgin said many “vicious” news organisations tried to manipulate the public’s perception of Mr Assange.

“There’s been an entire media and political campaign to smear Julian Assange with lies regarding sexual assault allegations, regarding ties with Russia,” Mr Yazgin said.

The rally was first held in Sydney last week, among the speakers, filmmaker John Pilger and national secretary of SEP Australia, James Cogan. 

"Julian Assange is being censored out of existence," said Mr Cogan.

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks released presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton’s, classified emails to the public.

Mr Assange used WikiLeaks for “personal purposes” and “might have diminished [his] standing in the eyes of many people,” International Politics professor, Damien Kingsbury said.

Mr Assange founded WikiLeaks, a self-described multi-national news organisation, in 2006.

Mr Assange was accused of sexual assault by two women after his visit to Sweden in 2010.

“I think his personal behaviour or perceptions of his personal behaviour have probably done him the most damage,” Proff Kingsbury said.

Former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, granted Mr Assange political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, where he has since remained.