g5000
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- Nov 26, 2011
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/americas/ecuador-to-let-assange-stay-in-its-embassy.html
Mr. Assange claims to be all about free speech, but I think his choice of asylum betrays his true motivations and how selective he is on which governments he chooses to criticize.
World Report 2012: Ecuador | Human Rights Watch :
One can't help but wonder what a guy like Correa would do to a guy like Assange if he exposed any state secrets. But Correa doesn't have to worry about that since Assange couldn't swallow enough of Correa's tool when he interviewed him.
Assange ignores things like this:
More: Ecuador's free speech record at odds with Julian Assange's bid for openness
You can only hide your true colors for so long. Assange clearly was not motivated by openness, but by extreme left wing beliefs.
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Ecuador announced Thursday that it was granting political asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who has been holed up for two months in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London awaiting the decision.
The move leaves Mr. Assange with protection from arrest only on Ecuadorean territory. To leave the embassy for Ecuador, he would need cooperation that Britain has said it will not offer.
Mr. Assange claims to be all about free speech, but I think his choice of asylum betrays his true motivations and how selective he is on which governments he chooses to criticize.
World Report 2012: Ecuador | Human Rights Watch :
Ecuadors Criminal Code still has provisions criminalizing desacato (lack of respect), under which anyone who offends a government official may receive a prison sentence up to three months and up to two years for offending the president. In September 2011 the Constitutional Court agreed to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of these provisions submitted by Fundamedios, an Ecuadorian press freedom advocacy group. A new criminal code presented by the government to the National Assembly in October does not include the crime of desacato, but if approved would still mandate prison sentences of up to three years for those who defame public authorities.
Under the existing code, journalists face prison sentences and crippling damages for this offense. According to Fundamedios, by October 2011 five journalists had been sentenced to prison terms for defamation since 2008, and 18 journalists, media directors, and owners of media outlets faced similar charges.
President Correa frequently rebukes journalists and media that criticize him and has personally taken journalists to court for allegedly defaming him. In July 2011 a judge in Guayas province sentenced Emilio Palacio, who headed the opinion section of the Guayaquil newspaper El Universo, and three members of the newspapers board of directors, to three years in prison and ordered them to pay US$40 million in damages to the president for an article the judge considered defamatory. In an opinion piece Palacios had referred to Correa as a dictator and accused him of ordering his forces to fire on a hospital, which was full of civilians and innocent people, during the September 2010 police revolt.
One can't help but wonder what a guy like Correa would do to a guy like Assange if he exposed any state secrets. But Correa doesn't have to worry about that since Assange couldn't swallow enough of Correa's tool when he interviewed him.
Assange ignores things like this:
In a draft decree announced in December 2010, domestic NGOs, including those working on human rights, would have to re-register and submit to continuous government monitoring. The decree would give the government broad powers to dissolve groups for political activism, and compromising national security or the interests of the state, ill-defined terms that could seriously compromise NGOs legitimate activities. At this writing the proposed decree had not been adopted.
More: Ecuador's free speech record at odds with Julian Assange's bid for openness
Julian Assange is seeking asylum in Ecuador a country whose practices have been criticised by several human rights groups
Assange faces extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes after Britain's top court said last week that it had rejected a legal request to reconsider his case.
But Ecuador, a country with a tenuous respect for international human rights law, is counter-intuitive refuge for the free speech and transparency crusader.
Ecuador's justice system and record on free speech have been called into question by Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Amnesty International.
"I think this is ironic that you have a journalist, or an activist, seeking political asylum from a government that has after Cuba the poorest record of free speech in the region, and the practice of persecuting local journalists when the government is upset by their opinions or their research," José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division, told the Guardian.
You can only hide your true colors for so long. Assange clearly was not motivated by openness, but by extreme left wing beliefs.
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