“I am delighted, as are most Australians.” John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father, responds to ANSA from Melbourne as he is returning after buying wood: “It’s very cold here”, he says on the phone, wanting to thank the “Italian people, who have supported us for 12 years” in the battle to bring the founder of Wikileaks home. “When Julian was freed again, they put an electronic sign ‘Assange is free’ in Naples. Julian is an honorary citizen of Naples but also in Rome, Bologna and other Italian cities” he recalled, saying he was impressed.
Shipton looks back on the years that saw him at the forefront of the ‘Assange team’: “We did the political work with thousands and thousands of interviews, meetings, statements and by collecting hundreds of thousands of people on a mailing list, we created a team “. But with Julian’s return he considers his mission accomplished and after many years spent fighting as a spokesperson for the cause, he announces his retirement from public life: “I’m completely exhausted”, confides the 79-year-old. “I’ll be 80 in September, I’ve never stopped but that’s enough. All these old men like Mr Trump or Mr Biden, who are still around, give us a bad name. I have no intention of doing the same”, he jokes. And he doesn’t say too much about his son’s future: “he is a world figure, especially in the Western world, I have no idea where all this will take him”, he adds, however believing that in one way or another he will continue his work. “I don’t want to interfere, there’s nothing worse than having a father around, I did what I had to.”
Shipton is keen to underline the role of the Australians who – he explains – have put pressure on their politicians, have elected a prime minister in favor of Julian’s release, strengthening Australia’s diplomatic weight on a global level on the issue: “In these times of scarcity of natural resources, Australia has vital strategic influence for China, India and the United States,” Shipton reflected.
Together with his son and filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s half-brother, they made a documentary ‘Ithaka – a father, a family, a fight for justice’, released in 2021, which talks about the work done to advance the cause of the founder of Wikileaks and for a free press. The documentary has been presented at several international film festivals and won the ‘Audience Choice Best Documentary’ award at the Soho London Independent Film Festival in 2022.
“We’ve screened Ithaka in the US, all over Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, the UK. It’s been a steady five years.” Shipton has also been to Italy several times: “We’ve done events in Verona, Florence, oh my God, so many cities I can’t even remember, forgive me,” he apologizes for fear of having forgotten to name some locations.
But Shipton reiterates that he is particularly grateful to Italy, underlining in particular the role “of the senators of the Five Star Movement, as well as the members of the Council of Europe, who were instrumental in ensuring that the Council of Europe issued declarations of support for Julian Assange”. But you are also keen to remember the role of the former British Labor leader “Jeremy Corbyn who had a strong influence in obtaining that declaration and also that of the High Commissioner of the Council of Europe”.
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