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Ecuador Cutting Off WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange's Communications Outside London Embassy (suntimes.com)
The government of Ecuador said on Wednesday it has cut off internet access in its embassy in London to Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, saying that he was putting the country's international relations at risk. In a statement released on Wednesday, Ecuador said that the step had been taken because Assange had failed to abide by an agreement not to interfere in the South American country's relations with other states. From a report: As part of an agreement between Assange and the Ecuadorean government, he is not permitted to send any messages that could interfere with the South American nation's relations with other countries. Assange has been living in Ecuador's embassy for more than five years.
The current Ecuadorian government inherited Assange, and it's no secret that they don't agree with his staying at the embassy. It's not the first time they have cut his access, and overall, making it undesirable for him to stay and get him to leave on his own there is likely the overall strategy, avoiding any backlash from actually tossing him out.
Someone like Assange will go stir-crazy without net access. He'll have to resort to having memory cards smuggled in and out. I wonder how they plan to keep him away from cell phones? Confiscation of guest phones and periodic room sweeps?
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
British Judges and several Assange supporters would disagree with you, as his bail backers lost their 300,000 GBP bail sureties (in total) when he skipped bail and took up residence in the embassy...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...
Yeah, several million pounds to capture a non-violent bail jumping non-citizen who won't spend a day in a British jail (he'd be deported to his home country for essentially a misdemeanor) while tens of thousands of actual British bail jumping criminals including murderers, rapists, child abusers, thieves, etc. go free and continue break the law because the local police departments don't have the resources to track them down. Yeah, that makes sense.
And there is no abuse of "diplomatic rules". Ecuador granted Assange political asylum because it concluded that he was being politically persecuted and that the Swedish and British charges against him was a ruse to extradite him to the US where he would be illegally charged with crimes and would not receive a fair trial. Under international law which has been upheld by a ruling of the UN, Ecuador had every right to do that.
There's not even an extradition warrant for him, why would the UK send him to the US? Why would the US even want him? Yes, he's damaged the US, but he hasn't broken any US laws.
The only outstanding charge against Assange is related to evading arrest over the extradition to Sweden. He wont even be extradited to Sweden, he'll just have to pay a fine. The only "prison time" he'll do will be the few hours between being arrested and being released on bail.
Honestly, at this point his reasons for not leaving the embassy amount to extreme paranoia on his part.
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