Ecuador on Wednesday said it had stopped Julian Assange’s ability to communicate with the outside world from its London embassy, where the WikiLeaks frontman has been holed up since 2012.
The decision was taken because the Australian had broken a promise made last year to not interfere in other nations’ affairs while in the mission, an Ecuadoran government statement said without elaborating.
Under that deal, Assange had pledged “to not send messages that could be seen as interference in relations with other countries,” the statement said, adding that it could take other unspecified measures if he persisted.
The move to cut off Assange came after he used Twitter on Monday to challenge Britain’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the March 4 nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent in the English city of Salisbury.
Assange also questioned the decision by Britain and more than 20 nations to retaliate against the poisoning by expelling Russian diplomats deemed spies.
The comments prompted a British Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Alan Duncan to brand Assange a “miserable little worm” who should leave the embassy and turn himself over to the British authorities.
In another tweetstorm on Tuesday, Assange attacked the arrest in Germany of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont under an EU warrant issued by Spain over Puigdemont’s failed bid last year to declare independence for his region.
Assange’s “behavior, with his messages on social networks, puts at risk our good relations” with Britain and the EU, the Ecuadoran government text said.
Assange, 46, has spent much of his time in his small room in the embassy tweeting and at times contributing to RT, a Russian state-owned TV channel that broadcasts Kremlin messaging, as well as taking part in media conferences via video links.
In 2016, Ecuador briefly suspended his Internet connection for posting documents online that were seen as having an impact on the US presidential election.
In May last year, Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno asked Assange to refrain from commenting on the separatist crisis in Catalonia region, after he tweeted that Madrid was guilty of “repression.”
Simon Bolivar Andean University analyst Michel Levi said he believed the decision to render Assange incommunicado “isn’t a change of policy in terms of his asylum, but rather to keep him to his conditions” of staying in the embassy.
Assange took refuge in the embassy in 2012 after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault.
Assange claims the accusations were politically motivated.
Ecuadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs Maria Fernanda Espinosa on Wednesday said that a delegation would meet with Assange’s lawyers in London next week “to explore what alternatives” existed to have Assange be able to leave the embassy.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese