Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy
Government accuses WikiLeaks founder of putting international ties at risk by failing to abide by deal not to interfere in other countries
Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than five years after jumping bail during extradition proceedings. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years.
The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”.
It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”.
COMUNICADO OFICIAL | El Gobierno de Ecuador suspende las comunicaciones de @JulianAssange. pic.twitter.com/sr4kArFSxw
— Comunicación Ecuador (@ComunicacionEc) March 28, 2018
One last thought on this sordid affair. Assange was made an Ecuadorian citizen sometime at the end of 2017. (See here). So why hasn't Ecuador gone to the UNO (or other international judicial venues) to protest British meddling and messing with one of its citizens? Probably because most of the UNO and international courts have been rendered useless and impotent by the US and its accomplices, and most countries represented there are too poor and vulnerable to Washington's reprisals to do much more that turn their eyes away. Not to mention the fact that corruption is also a commonplace all over the planet, at least it will be until a new political paradigm arrives to replace capitalism's reign of runaway, institutionalized selfishness and appeals to the lowest instincts. Well, come to think of it, Australia never lifted a finger for Assange either, and the Aussies are a lot more powerful and influential with their cousins in London than little Ecuador. Shame and cowardice are in ample supply here, that's for sure.
—PG
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Things to ponder
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Australia has been bought and paid for many times over by the US. That won’t change until a true Aussie becomes Prime Minister.
Exactly as the American’s planned: The British Lackeys will stall long enough for the treats against Ecuador to become effective. Another journalist political prisoner on the way to US?