(1)
Julian Assange Takes Aim At United States As Row Deepens
Speech from balcony of Ecuador's London embassy calls on Barack Obama to abandon 'witch-hunt' against WikiLeaks
Luke Harding and Ben Quinn
The Guardian
19 August 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/19/julian-assange-takes-aim-us

[moderator: the Guardian also offers this link to
video of the statement
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2012/aug/19/julian-assange-statement-ecuadorean-embassy-video]

The diplomatic standoff between Britain and Ecuador
deepened on Sunday after WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange used an extraordinary appearance on the first-
floor balcony of Ecuador's London embassy to berate the
United States.

With Metropolitan police officers watching from metres
away, Assange called on President Obama to abandon what
he called a "witch-hunt" against WikiLeaks. He said an
alleged "FBI investigation" against his whistleblowing
website should be "dissolved" and that the US should go
back to its original "revolutionary" values.

"As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom
of expression and the health of our societies," Assange
said, standing on a white balcony just above the
pavement, and flanked by Ecuador's yellow, blue and red
flag. He added: "I ask President Obama to do the right
thing: the United States must renounce its witch-hunt
against WikiLeaks."

Assange also thanked Ecuador's social democrat
president, Rafael Correa, for granting him political
asylum. Correa's decision, announced last Thursday, has
set off a growing international row. Assange also
thanked several other Latin American countries for their
support - implicitly warning Britain that any dispute
with Ecuador could rapidly snowball into a conflict with
the entire region.

More than 50 police officers surrounded the embassy in
Knightsbridge, south-west London, on Sunday, with a
police helicopter in the skies above, but they were
clearly under orders not to try to arrest the WikiLeaks
founder. Assange addressed around 100 well-wishers, with
supporters including Tariq Ali and former British
ambassador Craig Murray making speeches from the street.

Assange spoke for 10 minutes. He appeared cheerful, if
unsurprisingly pale. This was his first public
appearance since he slipped into the embassy two months
ago and the latest surreal episode in a soap opera that
has seen him go from the High Court to house arrest in
Norfolk and now to an embassy camp-bed in genteel
Kensington and Chelsea, less than 50m from Harrods.

The 41-year-old Australian took refuge in the embassy
after the supreme court ordered his extradition to
Sweden, where he faces allegations of serious sexual
misconduct. Assange pointedly did not mention those
allegations on Sunday, instead casting his predicament
as a universal one of free speech struggling to survive
in a "dangerous and oppressive world". Britain says it
is obliged to implement EU extradition law and will
arrest Assange the second he leaves the building.

Speaking from the balcony in SW1, Assange claimed that
the Met had come close to storming the embassy late last
Wednesday. Britain sent a letter to Ecuador last week
stating that it believes it is entitled to arrest
Assange inside the building under the Diplomatic and
Consular Premises Act 1987. The claim has enraged the
government in Quito, which says the 1961 Vienna
convention protects its - and others' - diplomatic
territory.

Assange said: "Inside this embassy in the dark, I could
hear teams of police swarming up inside the building
through its internal fire escape." He said the only
reason the UK "did not throw away the Vienna convention
the other night" was because "the world is watching". He
also thanked embassy staff, "who have shown me
hospitality and kindness, despite the threats we all
received".

Despite the heavy police presence on Sunday, the Foreign
Office is clearly trying to find a diplomatic solution
to the row with Ecuador. Foreign secretary William Hague
has made it clear there is no suggestion that police
would "storm" the embassy.

But Assange's provocative balcony appearance, in which
he praised "courageous Ecuador" while disparaging
Britain, his long-suffering host country, will have won
him few new friends in Downing Street. Assange's
supporters claim that if he is sent to Sweden he is in
danger of being extradited to the US to be charged with
espionage. Sweden has vehemently denied this.

On Sunday Assange said: "Will it [the US] return to and
reaffirm the revolutionary values it was founded on, or
will it lurch off the precipice, dragging us all into a
dangerous and oppressive world?"

He said there should be no "foolish talk" about
prosecuting media organisations, mentioning not only
WikiLeaks but also the New York Times, a paper Assange
has previously bitterly criticised.

He also called on the US to end its "war on
whistleblowers", and demanded that Bradley Manning, the
US army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking
information, be released.

Manning has been charged with transferring classified
data and delivering national defence information to an
unauthorised source. He faces up to 52 years in jail.

Assange called him a hero and "an example to all of us"
- drawing cheers from WikiLeaks fans packing the
Knightsbridge pavement. "On Wednesday, Bradley Manning
spent his 815th day of detention without trial," Assange
said. "The legal maximum is 120 days."

Assange also made a rare mention of his children, "who
have been denied their father". He said he hoped soon to
be back with them and the rest of his family, adding:
"Forgive me, we will be reunited soon."

(2)
Julian Assange Row: Ecuador backed by South America
BBC
19 August 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19314618

Ecuador's decision to grant Wikileaks founder Julian
Assange asylum has been backed by foreign ministers from
countries across South America.

A document agreed at the Union of South American Nations
meeting in Ecuador said it supported the country "in the
face of the threat" to its London embassy, where he has
taken refuge.

The UK has said it could potentially lift the embassy's
diplomatic status.

Mr Assange faces extradition to Sweden over sexual
assault claims he denies.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has suggested Mr
Assange could co-operate with Sweden if assurances are
given that there would be no extradition to a third
country.

Supporters of Mr Assange - who on Sunday urged the US to
end its "witch-hunt" against the Wikileaks site - claim
he could face persecution and even the death penalty if
sent there.

'Explicit threat'

After Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino finished
reading the final declaration from the Union of South
American Nations (Unasur) summit, he joined hands with
his fellow foreign ministers and raised them aloft.

The BBC's Will Grant said it was a symbolic but
important show of unity in a region which considers the
UK government's approach over Mr Assange to have been
colonialist and threatening.

Ecuador has described a letter from the British
government drawing attention to the Diplomatic and
Consular Premises Act 1987 as "intolerable" and an
"explicit threat".

The act could allow the UK to lift the diplomatic status
of Ecuador's embassy in London to allow police to enter
the building to arrest Mr Assange for breaching his bail
terms.

Mr Assange has been at the embassy since 19 June. Five
days earlier, the UK's Supreme Court dismissed his bid
to reopen an appeal against his extradition to Sweden.

He had been on bail while the case was being considered
and, after the Supreme Court result, was given a further
two-week grace period.

It is an established international convention that local
police and security forces are not permitted to enter an
embassy, unless they have the express permission of the
ambassador.

That principle was backed by the ministers at the Unasur
summit. In their final document, they agreed on a series
of general principles, including as "the inviolability
of local diplomatic missions and consular offices".

'War on whistle-blowers'

Our correspondent said that - in the context of the UK's
perceived heavy-handed approach to the recent question
of Argentina's renewed claim over the Falkland Islands -
the British government's reputation in South America was
undoubtedly being affected by this stand-off.

But the last point of agreement in the Unasur document
called for calm, urging the parties involved to
"continue the dialogue and negotiation to find a
mutually acceptable solution".

On Sunday, Mr Assange, 41, used his first public
statement since entering the embassy - delivered from a
balcony - to call on the US to stop its "war on whistle-
blowers".

The US is carrying out an investigation into Wikileaks,
which has published a mass of leaked diplomatic cables,
embarrassing several governments and international
businesses.

In 2010, two female ex-Wikileaks volunteers accused Mr
Assange, an Australian citizen, of committing sexual
offences against them while he was in Stockholm to give
a lecture.

Mr Assange claims the sex was consensual and the
allegations are politically motivated.

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