A live discussion with Julian Assange via videolink; present at the Volksbühne in Berlin will be: William Binney (U.S. intelligence official), Sarah Harrison, Angela Richter, Michael Sontheimer and Hans-Christian Ströbele. Special Guest: PJ Harvey

Discussion in German and English, simultaneous interpretation provided.

Surveillance does not stop at the national border. Online data of millions of citizens worldwide are stored in databases and state archives of intelligence services. Julian Assange was one of the first net activists to make this new form of global surveillance and information control public introducing the platform WikiLeaks as a counter-project to secure transparency.

On June 19th 2016 a worldwide network of resistance will mark the 4th anniversary of his refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The event will be taking place simultaneously at venues in Berlin, London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Quito, Naples and Geneva focussing on the crucial significance of freedom of information for all and the important work whistleblowers and investigative journalists do. And of course there will be a case for supporting the over 500 organisations and law professionals who have called on the Swedish and British authorities to free Assange and respect the recent decision of the UN Working Group that he has been arbitrarily detained.

WikiLeaks activist Sarah Harrison, William Binney (U.S. intelligence official), Hans-Christian Ströbele (politician Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and the journalist Michael Sontheimer will debate the challenges of big data, the ethics of “breaches of secrecy” and the responsibility of policy makers live at a round table at the Volksbühne hosted by the German theatre director Angela Richter, who has met with whistleblowers for several years and uses these experiences in her directorial work.

Followed by this, Julian Assange will join the conversation via video link presented in all these places simultaneously. Special guest in Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz: PJ Harvey

There will also be a livestream of the event without simultaneous translation via our website! A video recording of the event including the simultaneous translation will be published 1-2 days after the event via our website and Vimeo-channel. http://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de/