Assange's Appeal to Ecuador is No Surprise

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Assange's appeal to Ecuador is no surprise







The WikiLeak's founder won admiration and gratitude in the South American nation back in 2010.

Julian Assange's attempt to gain asylum in Ecuador is just the latest turn in one of the biggest media stories of our time. The WikiLeaks co-founder is currently in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, which issued this statement on June 19:

"This afternoon Mr Julian Assange arrived at the Ecuadorean embassy seeking political asylum from the Ecuadorean government. We have immediately passed his application on to the relevant department in Quito. While the department assesses Mr Assange's application, Mr Assange will remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorean government."

This story goes back to 2010, which news junkies may come to remember as the year of WikiLeaks, Assange's online whistle blowing machine.

In April of that year, WikiLeaks released footage of 18 civilians in Iraq shot dead by troops on board a US helicopter, cockpit video the Pentagon had insisted was no longer in existence. A few months later, the site began posting hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Then came the diplomatic cables, which provided an insider's view of American diplomacy, and uncensored views of US diplomats on the countries they deal with.

It was also the year that Mr Assange began to be pursued by Swedish and, eventually, British authorities.

Assange has been accused of raping one woman and sexually assaulting another during a trip to deliver a lecture in Sweden in August 2010. He was arrested in London in December of that year, after a European arrest warrant was issued. After eight nights in prison, he was granted bail at $315,000. Since then he's been under house arrest at, at least, two addresses in the UK.

Throughout his legal ordeal, Assange has maintained the sex was consensual and that he was being persecuted for reasons of politics. He also said he feared the Swedish authorities would simply hand him over to the Americans, who might already have a cell at Guantanamo with his name on it.

In February 2011, a British court ruled that Assange be extradited to Sweden. He has been embroiled in battles in the British courts ever since. In November last year, the High Court ruled that Assange's extradition was not unfair or unlawful, and last week the country's highest court backed that decision.

With his legal options in the UK exhausted, Mr Assange had one more appeal route open to him. He had until June 28th to file an appeal at the European court of human rights.

But instead he walked into the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, and requested political asylum.

Why Ecuador?

Anti-American sentiments run high there. In April last year, Ecuador announced that it was expelling US ambassador Heather Hodges, over claims she made in diplomatic cables of widespread corruption within the Ecuadorean police force. The cables were written with the frankness that comes when the author believes their work is confidential. But they were released to the world via Wikileaks.

The country's deputy foreign minister first raised the prospect of sheltering Assange in 2010, when American politicians were calling him an enemy of the state.

In mid-2011, I attended a WikiLeaks event at the stately manor house where Assange was under house arrest. Many people spoke that day, but I remember one in particular.

He was Ecuadorean, an official at the embassy in London. Of Assange, he said something along the lines of: "We Ecuadoreans always knew Washington did not approve of our president, the same way it does not approve of Hugo Chavez or other leftist leaders in Latin America. But we never knew the extent of American animosity or interference in our country's affairs. WikiLeaks and the almost 1,500 diplomatic cables originating for the US embassy in Ecuador changed all that. They made the murky world of diplomacy crystal clear. Our country will always be grateful to Julian Assange. That is why I am here today, to support him and his organization."

Last month, Assange interviewed President Rafael Correa on his talk show, which is broadcast on the state-funded Russian news channel, RTV. Correa happens to be locked into a Chavez-like struggle with Ecuadorean media, most of which is owned by right-wingers. He has attracted criticism for going too far in his response.

But the two men appeared to get on well during their 25 minute online chat. Assange described Correa as "a leftwing populist who has changed the face of Ecuador."

Toward the end of their discussion, Correa told Assange: "Cheer up. Welcome to the club of the persecuted."

That chummy exchange doesn't quite square with the official tone of the statement from the government in Quito, the one about passing Assange's asylum application to the relevant department.

Because Julian Assange is no stranger to the Ecuadorean government. He is no ordinary asylum seeker. They know who he is; what he's done; how Wikileaks has affected Ecuador and other countries that live in the long, cold shadow of a superpower.

Assange is considered a renegade, but he's no fool. I very much doubt that he would walk into that embassy without knowing precisely how his asylum application would turn out.

Incidentally, he saw this coming. When I interviewed Assange for The Listening Post, in November 2010, we talked about the legal net closing in on him. I asked where he saw himself living in five years.

Assange replied, "Well, I joked the other night. The way things are going, what do I do? Apply for refugee status in Cuba?"

Right neighbourhood; wrong country.

He might even be able to see Guantanamo from the plane. Although it would be unwise of him, at this stage, to fly through American airspace.



June 21, 2012
Richard Gizbert
Al Jazeera

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Julian Assange asylum application may take time, says Ecuador president







Rafael Correa says officials will 'discuss with and seek the opinions of other countries' before decision is made

Ecuador's president has acknowledged the diplomatic and political minefield created by Julian Assange's application for asylum, and indicated that a decision on the WikiLeaks founder's appeal is likely to take longer than first thought.

Speaking to reporters in Quito, Rafael Correa said: "We are going to have to discuss with and seek the opinions of other countries. We don't wish to offend anyone, least of all a country we hold in such deep regard as the United Kingdom."

Once a decision is made, Correa said, "we can talk about safe passage and such things".The WikiLeaks founder requested asylum at the country's embassy in London on Tuesday, citing the UN declaration on human rights. He is on bail after losing the last of his appeals against extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual offences, but insists such a move could place him at greater risk of possible future prosecution by the United States over the WikiLeaks cable releases in 2010.

Ecuador's deputy foreign minister, Marco Albuja, said on Wednesday that the country would make a decision within 24 hours, but Correa said: "He [Assange] presented his reasons. We are going to verify them. We will take the time necessary. Ecuador is a country which defends the right to life. We have to see whether there is a threat to Julian Assange's life."

The president's comments are an acknowledgement of the scale of the problem with which lawyers, diplomats and government officials are grappling. While discussions between the country's ambassador, Ana Alban Mora, and Foreign Office officials on Wednesday were described as "cordial and constructive", British government sources have stressed that Assange, who is now in breach of his bail conditions, will be liable for immediate arrest should he step out of the front door of the embassy; they know of no such protocols for negotiating "safe passage".

It has raised the prospect of a lengthy stay at the embassy for the Australian if he is offered asylum. Assange may for now have escaped a prison cell in Sweden (where, though he has not been charged, he can expect to be held on remand while under investigation over the alleged sex assaults), but for the time being, his home is a small office with makeshift sleeping facilities.

Ecuador's embassy consists only of the ambassador's office and a handful of other small rooms, according to those familiar with the layout. The WikiLeaks founder has supplied an approved list of associates who can visit him, according to the embassy; asked about his access to showers and food, a spokeswoman said: "We have everything for him here." He is still wearing his electronic ankle tag.

"He will stay until this matter is settled," said Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks's spokesman, downplaying suggestions of an imminent judgment. "I don't get the feeling that they [embassy staff] are in a hurry to get rid of him," said Assange's Swedish lawyer, Per E Samuelsson. "He's welcome there." Both men have visited Assange, along with the journalist John Pilger and others.

In his interview on Thursday Assange told the Australian broadcaster ABC that he had sought asylum in London, rather than fighting any possible future extradition bid by the US from Sweden, because his remand status there would mean "my ability to exercise an asylum right would be at an end". No such application has been made or indicated by the US to date.

He accused the Crown Prosecution Service of "trying to cancel" the period of 14 days he understood he was entitled to, after the 28 June deadline for his extradition under British law, in which to appeal to the European court of human rights. The CPS, which has acted on behalf of the Swedish prosecutor in the extradition proceedings, denied this.

Vaughan Smith, Assange's former host and one of the suretors of his £240,000 bail payment, said even given the threat of arrest, there could be a way forward, with sufficient political pressure: "I believe that if he was to get political asylum there's a way out. We have to accept that we would then have a dissident. Assange is a western dissident."



June 22, 2012
Esther Addley
Guardian