Ecuador partly restores internet access for WikiLeaks founder Assange

[webfact]

Ecuador partly restores internet access for WikiLeaks founder Assange

 

FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/FIle photo

 

(Reuters) - Ecuador has restored partial internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who took refuge in the country's London Embassy more than six years ago, WikiLeaks and an Assange lawyer said separately on Sunday.

 

The move comes nearly six months after the Ecuadorean government suspended Assange's communications in March, after he discussed issues on social media that could damage the country's diplomatic relations, including a diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow as well as Catalonian separatism.

 

"Ecuador rolls back @JulianAssange isolation," WikiLeaks said in a message on Twitter. The change was also confirmed by Assange's Australian legal adviser, Greg Barns, who called it "a welcome development."

 

An Assange spokesman said his communications have been only partially restored.

 

Assange took refuge in Ecuador's London Embassy after British courts ordered his extradition to Sweden to face questioning in a sexual molestation case. That case has since been dropped. But friends and supporters say Assange now fears he could be arrested and eventually extradited to the United States if he leaves the embassy. WikiLeaks, which published U.S. diplomatic and military secrets when Assange ran the operation, faces a U.S. grand jury investigation.

 

"The main issue, the requirement for the UK to give an undertaking that Julian would not be extradited to the U.S., remains unresolved," Barns told Reuters.

 

Friends and supporters of Assange say he has had contact only with lawyers since Ecuador suspended his communications with the outside world. WikiLeaks recently announced that one of Assange's longtime associates, Kristin Hrafnsson, had taken over from him as WikiLeaks editor in chief. 

 

As a 2016 presidential candidate, President Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks for publishing hacked emails that embarrassed his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

 

But Trump administration officials have condemned Assange, while a federal grand jury continues a long-running criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and its personnel, a U.S. official recently confirmed. 

 

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Michael Holden; Writing by David Morgan; Editing by Sandra Maler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-10-15

[car720]

if I were him I would stay in there because some patriotic yank is bound to tap him otherwise.

[meinphuket]

Regretable decision, they should have completely cut him off, and nail the balcony door shut as well. Better still,j ust turn him out and face the consequences. This is a despicable person who endangered and possibly caused death and torture to people mentioned in his leaks, and no, I am not a yank !

[Mises]

I am British and the treatment of this honourable man by the UK is appalling. He has committed no crime in the UK and the fact that the UK will not guarantee not to extradite him to the US is despicable. He is not a US citizen and has committed no crime in the USA.

 

A free press - yeah right, that vanished long ago. See D-notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice

used lately to keep the British public in the dark about the murky details of MI6 involvement in the Skripal affair.

 

 

[Srikcir]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Ecuador partly restores internet access for WikiLeaks founder Assange

What a coincidence - just in time for the mid-term US elections.

One can only hope that NSA has that connection thoroughly under "surveillance."

I'm sure hacked emails are ready to roll out - to protect the Republican majority in US Congress?

[Srikcir]

1 minute ago, Mises said:

has committed no crime in the USA

One does not have to be in a country to commit crimes against the country.

But Ambassador Assange is welcomed to walk out of the embassy whenever he pleases.

No one is confining him.

[Mises]

1 minute ago, Srikcir said:

One does not have to be in a country to commit crimes against the country.

But Ambassador Assange is welcomed to walk out of the embassy whenever he pleases.

No one is confining him.

So, as a for-instance if someone in the UK were to criticise, say, the Cambodian head of state would you expect the UK to extradite this person to Cambodia?

The minute Assagne walks out of the embassy he will be arrested and imprisoned for breach of bail, then rendered to the USA.