Your one stop shop for all of your preparedness needs and proud sponsor of Truth FrequencyJulian Assange: Ecuador grants Wikileaks founder asylum
By Chris Geo on Aug 17, 2012 with Comments
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, August 18, 2012 11:22 EDT
Britain is considering using an obscure law to extract Julian Assange from Ecuador’s embassy in London, but experts say the possibility is slim — and one says London’s actions are “stupid”.
Before it granted asylum to the WikiLeaks founder on Thursday, Ecuador made an angry rebuttal of what it saw as Britain’s threats to invade its embassy in London to arrest the Australian and extradite him to Sweden.
British officials insist that its explanations to Ecuador ahead of the asylum decision — “setting out our position”, as they put it — never amounted to a threat to “invade” the embassy.
In a meeting in Quito on Wednesday, Britain’s charge d’affaires reminded Ecuadoran ministers of a British law which can ultimately allow the government to withdraw diplomatic status from any embassy on its territory.
Under the normal rules of diplomacy, an embassy is out of bounds to the host country — but this could cease to be the case at the Ecuadoran embassy if Britain decides to invoke its Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act.
One phrase in the 1987 legislation could be key: it says an embassy enjoys protection under law unless “the Secretary of State (foreign minister) withdraws his acceptance or consent in relation to (the) land”.
After Assange was granted asylum on Thursday, Foreign Secretary William Hague dismissed Ecuadoran claims that they had been threatened with an “attack” on the building in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge district.
“There is no threat here to storm an embassy,” Hague said. “We are talking about an Act of Parliament in this country which stresses that it must be used in full conformity with international law.”
One British official told AFP that Ecuador had “twisted our words”.
Officials from across the Americas to meet regarding Assange flap
By Conal Urquhart, The Guardian
Saturday, August 18, 2012 10:10 EDT
The diplomatic row between Britain and Ecuador over the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is to be discussed by foreign ministers from across the Americas next week.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) has voted to hold a meeting next Friday following Ecuador’s decision to grant political asylum to Assange, who is currently taking refuge in the South American country’s embassy in London.
Assange has described the move as a “historic victory” but the British foreign secretary, William Hague, made it clear that the Australian would not be allowed safe passage out of the country.
The permanent council of the OAS decided that a meeting would be held in Washington DC after members voted on the issue. The US, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago opposed the resolution, but 23 members voted in favour of the meeting. There were five abstentions and three members were absent.
The OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, said the meeting would not be about Assange but the “the problem posed by the threat or warning made to Ecuador by the possibility of an intervention into its embassy in London. The issue that concerns us is the inviolability of diplomatic missions of all members of this organisation, something that is of interest to all of us.”
U.S. says it doesn’t believe in ‘diplomatic asylum’ despite having offered it in the past
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, August 17, 2012 17:50 EDT
WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday that it did not believe in “diplomatic asylum” after Ecuador offered to let WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stay indefinitely in its embassy in London.
Ecuador has turned to the Organization of American States, which met Thursday and Friday in Washington, after deciding to offer asylum to the Internet activist who is wanted in Sweden on sexual assault allegations.
Under a 1954 agreement, the Organization of American States agreed to allow asylum in diplomatic missions for “persons being sought for political reasons,” although not individuals indicted for “common offenses.”
“The United States is not a party to the 1954 OAS Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and does not recognize the concept of diplomatic asylum as a matter of international law,” the State Department said in a statement.
“We believe this is a bilateral issue between Ecuador and the United Kingdom and that the OAS has no role to play in this matter,” it said.
Supporters of Assange believe that the 41-year-old Australian is at risk of extradition to the United States after angering authorities by publishing a trove of sensitive diplomatic cables.
The United States has denied pressuring Britain to arrest Assange, who has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy since June. Washington has not commented on potential legal actions but said it has no intention of “persecuting” Assange.
British Cops Wait to Pounce on Assange
Rick Dewsbury
dailymail.co.uk
Wikileaks rebel Julian Assange remained holed up in a stuffy room at the Ecuadorian embassy today surrounded by dozens of police officers waiting pounce.
The fugitive has just a sunlamp, a running machine and internet connection in the threadbare room inside the ground-floor apartment in Knightsbridge.
The curtains are almost always closed to prevent people looking in. And a short walk down the worn corridor he can find a small water dispenser.
Without sunlight or fresh air, friends fear that he is slowly verging towards depression. Only recently has a blow-up bed been swapped for a proper mattress.
One step outside the building and the whistleblower will be arrested by one of around 40 officers, who remained on guard today.
Ecuador President Rafael “We Are Not A Colony” Correa Stands Up To The Jackbooted British Gestapo
Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
Aug 17, 2012
A coward dies many deaths; a brave man dies but once.
The once proud British government, now reduced to Washington’s servile whore, put on its Gestapo Jackboots and declared that if the Ecuadorean Embassy in London did not hand over WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, British storm troopers would invade the embassy with military force and drag Assange out. Ecuador stood its ground. “We want to be very clear, we are not a British colony,” declared Ecuador’s Foreign Minister. Far from being intimidated the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, replied to the threat by granting Assange political asylum.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/americas/ecuador-to-let-assange-stay-in-its-embassy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&emc=na
The once law-abiding British government had no shame in announcing that it would violate the Vienna Convention and assault the Ecuadorean Embassy, just as the Islamic students in the 1979 Khomeini Revolution in Iran took over the US Embassy and held the diplomatic staff captive. Pushed by their Washington overlords, the Brits have resorted to the tactics of a pariah state. Maybe we should be worried about British nuclear weapons.
Let’s be clear, Assange is not a fugitive from justice. He has not been charged with any crime in any country. He has not raped any women. There are no indictments pending in any court, and as no charges have been brought against him, there is no validity to the Swedish extradition request. It is not normal for people to be extradited for questioning, especially when, as in Assange’s case, he expressed his complete cooperation with being questioned a second time by Swedish officials in London.
What is this all about? First, according to news reports, Assange was picked up by two celebrity-hunting Swedish women who took him home to their beds. Later for reasons unknown, one complained that he had not used a condom, and the other complained that she had offered one helping, but he had taken two. A Swedish prosecutor looked into the case, found that there was nothing to it, and dismissed the case.
Assange left for England. Then another Swedish prosecutor, a woman, claiming what authority I do not know, reopened the case and issued an extradition order for Assange. This is such an unusual procedure that it worked its way through the entire British court system to the Supreme Court and then back to the Supreme Court on appeal. In the end British “justice” did what the Washington overlord ordered and came down on the side of the strange extradition request.
Assange, realizing that the Swedish government was going to turn him over to Washington to be held in indefinite detention, tortured, and framed as a spy, sought protection from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. As corrupt as the British are, the UK government was unwilling to release Assange directly to Washington. By turning him over to Sweden, the British could feel that their hands were clean.
Diplomatic cables reveal Australia expects U.S. to charge Julian Assange
By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, August 17, 2012 12:39 EDT
Declassified diplomatic cables from Australia’s embassy in Washington D.C., obtained through freedom of information requests filed by The Sydney Morning Herald, reveal that Australian officials have already begun laying the groundwork for the U.S. to pursue charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The cables show that diplomats in Assange’s home country anticipate receipt of an extradition request for Assange once a secret U.S. grand jury wraps up its investigation. They expect it so fully that embassy staff even reached out to U.S. officials for “early advice” on the potential indictment and extradition request.
The American response was redacted, the paper noted, “on the grounds that disclosure could ’cause damage to the international relations of the Commonwealth.’” Other material blacked out of the cables pertains to the prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning, who U.S. military prosecutors say participated in a conspiracy with WikiLeaks to steal and publish classified information.
The Herald also added that diplomatic briefings given to Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr and Prime Minister Julia Gillard showed they have “no in-principle objection to extradition.”
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Thursday that there is “no information to indicate” that the U.S. is behind Assange’s most pressing and current legal woes. “It is an issue among the countries involved and we are not planning to inject ourselves,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland said. “With regard to the charge that the U.S. was intent on persecuting him, I reject that completely,” she added.
Assange remains on lockdown inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he’s been granted asylum but cannot leave due to a British police blockade. He’s wanted in Sweden for questioning on allegations of sexual assault, which he believes to be a rouse designed to imprison him ahead of a potential prosecution in the U.S. for espionage or other crimes.
It’s not clear whether British authorities will stage a SWAT-style police raid on Ecuador’s embassy, but they’ve threatened to — even though it would be widely viewed as a brazen violation of international law.
——
Photo: AFP.
Assange Faces Long Stay in Ecuador’s London Embassy
John F. Burns
NY Times
In the covert existence that Julian Assange adopted as founder of the secrecy-busting organization WikiLeaks, he made a lifestyle of sleeping on borrowed sofas and fostering a legend for himself as a man without a place or a country to call home.
But now, after Ecuador’s decision on Thursday to grant him asylum and Britain’s vow to arrest him the moment he steps out of the sanctuary he has found in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the Australian-born Mr. Assange seems at last to have secured a fixed address. Considering the diplomatic impasse and the vehemence of opinion on both sides, it is one that could be his for months, or even years, if neither Ecuador nor Britain relents.
The address — 3 Hans Crescent — lies in the heart of London’s exclusive Knightsbridge district. Barely 50 yards from Mr. Assange’s safehouse is the men’s clothing section of Harrods department store, one of Europe’s most expensive places to shop.
U.K. Foreign Office: We would refuse Assange safe passage out of London
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:24 EDT
Britain has told Ecuador that it would refuse to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange safe passage out of the country even if Quito grants him asylum, official notes showed Thursday.
Police and protesters gathered outside Ecuador’s embassy in London on Thursday ahead of a statement from Quito on whether or not it has granted asylum to Assange.
Around a dozen policemen, some wearing stab vests, were positioned outside the embassy in the exclusive Knightsbridge district of London near the Harrods department store.
An official note showed that Britain’s charge d’affaires told the Ecuador government: “We must be absolutely clear this means that should we receive a request for safe passage for Mr Assange, after granting asylum, this would be refused.”
Assange, an Australian ex-computer hacker, has been holed up in the embassy since June 19, when he claimed political asylum in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex crimes.
Around a dozen protesters also stood outside the embassy early Thursday after Britain threatened to storm the building and arrest Assange, whose website published hundreds of thousands of secret US government documents.
A few activists camped out overnight outside the embassy.
The protest’s Facebook page claimed another 600 more demonstrators were expected later at the embassy and have threatened to “occupy” it.
“This situation is contradictory in a country which heralds free speech,” an 18-year-old protester who gave her name as Ella told AFP.
“What he (Assange) did is beautiful and important. We need to show solidarity.”
Julian Assange: Ecuador grants Wikileaks founder asylum
Ecuador has granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange two months after he took refuge in its London embassy while fighting extradition from the UK.
Its foreign minister accused the UK of making an “open threat” to enter its embassy to arrest Mr Assange.
Ricardo Patino said there were fears Mr Assange’s human rights may be violated.
U.K. Foreign Office: We would refuse Assange safe passage out of London
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:24 EDT
Britain has told Ecuador that it would refuse to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange safe passage out of the country even if Quito grants him asylum, official notes showed Thursday.
Police and protesters gathered outside Ecuador’s embassy in London on Thursday ahead of a statement from Quito on whether or not it has granted asylum to Assange.
Around a dozen policemen, some wearing stab vests, were positioned outside the embassy in the exclusive Knightsbridge district of London near the Harrods department store.
An official note showed that Britain’s charge d’affaires told the Ecuador government: “We must be absolutely clear this means that should we receive a request for safe passage for Mr Assange, after granting asylum, this would be refused.”
Assange, an Australian ex-computer hacker, has been holed up in the embassy since June 19, when he claimed political asylum in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex crimes.
Around a dozen protesters also stood outside the embassy early Thursday after Britain threatened to storm the building and arrest Assange, whose website published hundreds of thousands of secret US government documents.
A few activists camped out overnight outside the embassy.
The protest’s Facebook page claimed another 600 more demonstrators were expected later at the embassy and have threatened to “occupy” it.
“This situation is contradictory in a country which heralds free speech,” an 18-year-old protester who gave her name as Ella told AFP.
“What he (Assange) did is beautiful and important. We need to show solidarity.”
Ecuadorians rally around decision to offer asylum for Assange (+video)
Britain’s forceful demands on Ecuador over Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has rallied Ecuadorians around their country’s decision to grant him asylum.
By Irene Caselli, Correspondent / August 16, 2012
A placard is held by a supporter of Julian Assange outside the Ecuador embassy in west London, August 16.
Olivia Harris/Reuters
London
Julian Assange was not a household name in Ecuador until Wednesday night, when Ecuador’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patiño read out a letter delivered to Ecuador’s embassy in London.
In the letter, technically an aide memoire in diplomatic speak, the UK government explained that it has the right to enter Ecuador’s embassy if the Ecuadorean government were to decide to grant asylum to Mr. Assange, the founder of the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
The letter was seen as a direct “threat” to the country, said Mr. Patiño. “We are not a British colony,” he said. “The days of the colony are over.”
UK Threatened to Raid Embassy to Get Assange, According to Ecuador
- By Kim Zetter
Photo: inventorchris/flickr
The Julian Assange saga didn’t seem like it could get any more bizarre, but Ecuador now claims that UK authorities threatened to raid the Ecuadorean embassy to nab the WikiLeaks leader if the country didn’t hand over the fugitive.
“Today we’ve received a threat by the United Kingdom, a clear and written threat that they could storm our embassy in London if Ecuador refuses to hand in Julian Assange,” Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters.
Patino expressed outrage over the threat, suggesting that the sun indeed has set on the British empire.
“We are not a British colony,” he said in an angry statement given to Reuters.
Ecuador, which has denied an earlier report by the Guardian newspaper that it had already agreed to grant Assange asylum, stated that it would be revealing its decision about his asylum request on Thursday.
The UK Foreign Office issued a statement saying that it has “a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we are remain determined to fulfil this obligation. We have an obligation to extradite Mr Assange and it is only right that we give Ecuador the full picture.”
The office added that it is “still committed to reaching a mutually acceptable solution.”
Assange fled to the Ecuadorean embassy on June 19, just as the deadline was approaching for him to turn himself over to authorities to begin extradition proceedings to Sweden, where he faces questioning on sex-crimes allegations. He’s been sequestered in the embassy ever since, awaiting the decision of the Ecuadorean government.
Even with a grant of asylum, however, it remains to be seen how Assange will manage to leave London without being arrested by UK police, who have staked out the Ecuadorean embassy for weeks while Assange has been holed up there. He faces arrest for breach of bail if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy, so passage for him out of England, under diplomatic cover, would have to be negotiated with UK authorities.
As part of his bail conditions, granted by the High Court in December 2010, Assange was required to remain at his bail address between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. each night, which he violated from the night he sought asylum at the embassy.
Metropolitan police have been stationed outside the embassy, waiting to arrest Assange if he left the premises. They have authority to stop any vehicle or helicopter he might travel in to get out of the country.
An Ecuadorean source told the Guardian that the Latin American government sees Assange’s request “as a humanitarian issue.”
“The contact between the Ecuadorean government and WikiLeaks goes back to May 2011, when we became the first country to see the leaked US embassy cables completely declassified,” he told the newspaper. “It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal. We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratisation of international relations.”
Assange, in seeking asylum, asserted that Australia, his native country, appeared to have no plans to protect him, which put him in a state of “helplessness,” according to a statement that statement from Ecuador’s foreign ministry made at the time of his request.
Assange requested diplomatic protection and political asylum under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” However, the second clause of the article states that “the right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
Assange is not, in fact, accused of political crimes. He is being sought for questioning in Sweden on rape and coercion allegations stemming from separate sexual relations he had with two women in that country in August 2010. One woman told police that Assange pinned her down to have sex with her and that she suspected he intentionally tore a condom he wore. The second woman reported that he had sex with her while she was initially asleep, failing to wear a condom despite repeated requests for him to do so. Assange has denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the sex in both cases was consensual.
His attorneys have been fighting extradition to Sweden because they say the investigation is a ruse to make it easier for the United States to further extradite him to the U.S. to face criminal charges over the publication of millions of U.S. classified diplomatic cables.
Julian Assange can be arrested in embassy, UK warns Ecuador
Ahead of decision on WikiLeaks founder’s asylum claim, Quito accuses Britain of threat to trample international law
The diplomatic and political minefield that is the fate of Julian Assange is expected to come a step closer to being traversed when Ecuador‘s president, Rafael Correa, gives his decision on whether his country will grant the WikiLeaks‘ founder asylum around lunchtime on Thursday.
The decision – if it comes – will mark the end of a turbulent process that on Wednesday night saw Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, raging against perceived threats from Britain to “storm” the embassy and warning that such a “dangerous precedent” would be met with “appropriate responses in accordance with international law”.
The dramatic development came two months after Assange suddenly walked into the embassy in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Patiño released details of a letter he said was delivered through a British embassy official in Quito, the capital of the South American country.
The letter said: “You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy.”
It added: “We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations.”
On Wednesday night appeals were tweeted for Assange supporters to occupy the embassy to prevent British police from arresting him, and while there was a police presence outside the embassy, Scotland Yard insisted that officers were simply there to “police the embassy like any other embassy”.
Patiño said he was “deeply shocked” by the diplomatic letter. Speaking to reporters later, he said: “The government of Ecuador is considering a request for asylum and has carried out diplomatic talks with the governments of the United Kingdom and Sweden. However, today we received from the United Kingdom a written threat that they could attack our embassy in London if Ecuador does not give up Julian Assange.
“Ecuador, as a state that respects rights and justice and is a democratic and peaceful nation state, rejects in the strongest possible terms the explicit threat of the British official communication.
“This is unbecoming of a democratic, civilised and law-abiding state. If this conduct persists, Ecuador will take appropriate responses in accordance with international law.
“If the measures announced in the British official communication materialise they will be interpreted by Ecuador as a hostile and intolerable act and also as an attack on our sovereignty, which would require us to respond with greater diplomatic force.
“Such actions would be a blatant disregard of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and of the rules of international law of the past four centuries.
“It would be a dangerous precedent because it would open the door to the violation of embassies as a declared sovereign space.” Under international law, diplomatic posts are considered the territory of the foreign nation.
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