Accused Serial Rapist Granted Asylum By Oppressive Regime

[g5000]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/americas/ecuador-to-let-assange-stay-in-its-embassy.html

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 :

Ecuador’s 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 newspaper’s 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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[Dissent]

Bullshit. Made up charges to get him to Sweden who will then give him to the U.S. where he will be charged,convicted,executed for treason or some other asinine charge because he dared challenge the authority of the mighty U.S. and expose its war crimes.Go Assange! The people are behind you!

 

[g5000]

Actions speak louder than words.

Assange is a commie-loving serial rapist.

You cannot hide from that simple truth.

Just watch Assange's interview of human rights violator Correa and then keep trying to delude yourself he is anything other than that. He labors over Correa's penis like a backstage groupie.

You got played.


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvln3emd4NQ]Julian Assange and Ecuador's President Correa - The World Tomorrow: Episode 6 - YouTube[/ame]

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.

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[Dissent]

Sure he is. U.S. is just big of a pussy nation to just kill him on foreign soil. I don't see why they don't they don't seem to mind murdering U.S. civilians and 16 year old boys on foreign soil. They want a show trial.

 

[occupied]

Just shows you why Anonymous is anonymous, I expect he will end up dead at our hands and people such as yourself will cheer like shrill schoolgirls, his "insurance" files are probably the only thing keeping him alive as it is.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Den what's all the hub-bub, bub?...

Britain says Assange Ecuador asylum wouldn't change a thing
16 Aug.`12 - Britain said on Thursday that any decision by Ecuador to give Julian Assange political asylum wouldn't change a thing and that it might still revoke the diplomatic status of Quito's embassy in London to allow the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder.

The high-profile Australian former hacker has been holed up inside the red-brick embassy in central London for eight weeks since he lost a legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over rape allegations. Britain's tough talk on the issue takes what has become an international soap opera to new heights since Assange angered the United States by publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables on his WikiLeaks website. It may also raise difficult questions for London about the sanctity of embassies' diplomatic status.

The Ecuadorean government, which said it would announce whether it had granted Assange's asylum request on Thursday at 7 a.m. (1200 GMT), has said any attempt by Britain to remove the diplomatic status of its embassy would be a "hostile and intolerable act". "It is too early to say when or if Britain will revoke the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "Giving asylum doesn't fundamentally change anything." "We have a legal duty to extradite Mr Assange. There is a law that says we have to extradite him to Sweden. We are going to have to fulfill that law." Outside the embassy, British police tussled with protesters chanting slogans in support of Assange and at least three supporters were detained.

Quito bristled at Britain's warning.

"We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony. The colonial times are over," Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in an angry statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa. Britain's threat to withdraw diplomatic status from the Ecuadorean embassy drew criticism from some former diplomats who said it could lead to similar moves against British embassies. "I think the Foreign Office have slightly overreached themselves here," Britain's former ambassador to Moscow, Tony Brenton, told the BBC. "If we live in a world where governments can arbitrarily revoke immunity and go into embassies then the life of our diplomats and their ability to conduct normal business in places like Moscow where I was and North Korea becomes close to impossible."

LONDON EMBASSY