Julian Assange supporters demand charges be dropped in vigil outside Merrick Garland’s home

Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gathered outside Attorney General Merrick Garland's home in Maryland on Sunday for a vigil urging him to drop the charges filed against the Australian journalist for publishing classified U.S. military documents leaked by a whistleblower.

Garland was spotted leaving his residence in a motorcade shortly before 4 p.m. on Sunday, riding by the Assange supporters who set up posters demanding an end to the prosecution. Some at the vigil gave speeches arguing the charges against the journalist are an attack on press freedom.

"I think the Julian Assange case is extremely important," said Martha Allen, director of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. "We need media, democracy, freedom of the press for the individual, not just the five corporations that pretty much run everything. So this case is crucial for independent media, for freedom of the press, for all of us, not just the rich and the powerful and those running what's going on in this country and elsewhere … This is an injustice and it needs to end. Free Julian Assange."

Assange is accused of publishing cables more than a decade ago detailing war crimes committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. The hundreds of thousands of documents, which were leaked to Wikileaks by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, also exposed instances of the CIA engaging in torture and rendition.