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The New York Times reported early Thursday Ecuador was prepared to let Assange stay in the embassy indefinitely under a type of humanitarian protection. The newspaper cited an Ecuadorian government official as saying London made clear it would not let Assange leave the country to travel to Ecuador, so even by granting asylum or similar protection he would probably remain stuck in the embassy. Ecuadorian officials said they would announce President Rafael Correa's decision at 7 a.m. Quito time (8 a.m. EDT, 1 p.m. in London) Thursday. The tight surveillance outside the embassy -- with five police vans surrounding the embassy, police tape and tactical officers blocking the embassy's entrance and other police patrolling outside the red-brick building near Harrods department store -- followed a threat by Britain to barge into the embassy if Ecuador did not hand over Assange.
Assange walked into the embassy two months ago in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault. Ecuadorian Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters in Quito Wednesday his left-leaning country "received from the United Kingdom an explicit threat in writing that they could assault our embassy in London if Ecuador does not hand over Julian Assange." "We are not a British colony," he said defiantly after meeting with Correa. "The move announced in the official British statement, if it happens, would be interpreted by Ecuador as an unfriendly, hostile and intolerable act, as well as an attack on our sovereignty, which would force us to respond in the strongest diplomatic way," Patino told reporters. "This is a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention," the Ecuadorian Embassy said on its Web site.
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It says a host country may not enter the premises of an embassy without the represented country's permission. The BBC reported Wednesday British officials raised the possibility of revoking the embassy's diplomatic immunity, allowing British officials to enter. Embassies are not fully exempt from the jurisdiction of the countries they're in and are not sovereign territory of the represented state. In its letter to Quito, Britain cited the 1987 Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act as letting it "take actions in order to arrest Mr. Assange in the current premises of the Embassy," the letter Patino showed reporters said. "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," said the letter, quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian.
Britain's Foreign Office followed Patino's news conference with a statement saying it had "a legal obligation to extradite Mr. Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offenses, and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation." London is "still committed to reaching a mutually acceptable solution," the statement said. Assange has been holed up in the embassy since June 19 in a bid for political asylum in the South American country, to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual molestation, coercion and rape made by two women. Assange has consistently denied the accusations and suggested they are part of a global conspiracy to silence him. He has not been charged with any crime. Unconfirmed reports cited by the Times indicate a secret grand jury hearing in Alexandria, Va., was considering a U.S. Justice Department bid to charge Assange with espionage. Leaked e-mails from Strategic Forecasting Inc., a global intelligence company commonly known as Stratfor, suggest a sealed indictment is ready to be made public when U.S. officials determine the legal proceedings against Assange in Britain and Sweden have come to a close.
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Assange, who is Australian, has sought asylum in Ecuador as he seeks to avoid extradition from Britain to Sweden, where he is accused of sexual assault. Assange has expressed a fear that if he is sent to Sweden, the United States will seek to have him extradited in the investigation into WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of leaked diplomatic documents.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said a British Embassy official in Quito, Ecuador, delivered a letter outlining Britain's position regarding Assange, The Guardian reported. "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the U.K., 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," the letter said. "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." Patino told reporters at a news conference Ecuador would announce its decision on Assange's request Thursday morning, the British newspaper said.
An unidentified spokesman said the Ecuadorian government was "deeply shocked by the British government's threats against the sovereignty of the Ecuadorean Embassy and their suggestion that they may forcibly enter the embassy." "This a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention," the spokesman said. "Throughout out the last 56 days Mr. Julian Assange has been in the embassy, the Ecuadorian government has acted honorably in all our attempts to seek a resolution to the situation. "This stands in stark contrast to the escalation of the British government today with their threats to break down the door of the Ecuadorian Embassy. "Instead of threatening violence against the Ecuadorian Embassy, the British government should use its energy to find a peaceful resolution to this situation which we are aiming to achieve."
A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said Britain "has a legal obligation to extradite Mr. Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offenses and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation."
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Doing Amerika's bidding for her. UK is just as guilty of war crimes as the U.S. is. I really hope he can manage to get to Ecuador.
Doing Amerika's bidding for her. UK is just as guilty of war crimes as the U.S. is. I really hope he can manage to get to Ecuador.
We need a quirky name for the assange fan-boys. Ron Paul has Paulbots,
What about assange-holes?
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.
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.
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.
How about patriots? That's what I am and that's what he is IMO. The U.S. lied to us and 1 man with balls of steel decided to tell us the truth. That takes guts to stand up to the world's biggest war monger and war crimes criminal to tell the truth.
Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
Ecuador to grant Assange asylum
Fuck 'em.Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
How about patriots? That's what I am and that's what he is IMO. The U.S. lied to us and 1 man with balls of steel decided to tell us the truth. That takes guts to stand up to the world's biggest war monger and war crimes criminal to tell the truth.
He does not have any balls whatsoever. Look how he sucks off Correa. Why does he not attack Correa's crimes? Hmmmmmm...
Actions speak louder than words. He's a commie lover. So he is very selective in which countries he attacks and which ones he adores regardless of their crimes. That's not a sign of courage. That's a sign of extreme left wing worship.
You are one of the blindest idiots I have ever seen.
Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
What are you...12?
Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
an enemies list on a message board, how paranoid.
Aw poor diamond dave suck at posting a reply so he just neg reps me. Ill return the favor butt lick...I am keeping track of everyone who neg reps me.
