WikiLeaks says pressure saw internet access cut
BRITAIN: Ecuador’s government has acknowledged that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access at its embassy in London, after the whistleblowing website published a trove of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The foreign ministry said that while it stood by its 2012 decision to grant Assange asylum, based on legitimate concerns that he faced political persecution, it respected other nations’ sovereignty and did not interfere or support any candidate in foreign elections.
``The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organisation,’’ the ministry said.
Ecuador had cut off Assange’s access to the internet on Sunday after the publication of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In messages yesterday, the group claimed that US Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing ``multiple US sources’’, WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of a visit by Kerry and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa last month to Colombia to show their support for a peace deal with leftist rebels.
The US State Department denied the allegation. Correa’s leftist government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures.
The foreign ministry didn’t specify the extent of the ``temporary restrictions’’ on Assange, saying only that they wouldn’t affect WikiLeaks’ ability to carry out its journalistic activities.
Assange has been holed up in the embassy for more than four years after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations.
WikiLeaks said unspecified ``contingency plans’’ were in place. Yesterday it released another tranche of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
In targeting Clinton, Assange may have run afoul of Correa’s own preference for the Democratic candidate and a renewed effort to repair strained relations with Washington.
The president recently said that while a win by Donald Trump would energise Latin Americans to reject overhanded US policies in the world, much in the way George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq did, he personally would like to see Clinton prevail.
-AP