The drama surrounding the fate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has taken a new twist after the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Jose Valencia was quoted as saying that refugees are prohibited by international law from making political comments. Many on social media were quick to ask which particular law the Ecuadorian dignitary might be referring to. Famed American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who in 2013 exposed the US and UK global surveillance programs using documents provided by Edward Snowden, was quick to point out it is ludicrous to pretend asylum seekers like Assange lose their freedom of speech the moment they’re granted refugee status. (On the other hand, looking at what’s happening to Alex Jones it is doubtful whether freedom of speech is still a basic human right in a democracy?)
Much more blunt in his response was Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, a legend in the torrenting community, who said “Ecuador is now run by intestinal worms living in the anus of US Empire,”
Besides being colorful, Kim Dotcom statement is extremely accurate as far as many small despondent countries around the world are concerned (mine included). You either do what the Washington overlords tell you to do or else we’ll see to it you’re no longer in power.
The bizarre statement by Jose Valencia comes a few days after the Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno posted on Twitter that Julian Assange was told he is not allowed to make political statements. If he does, he will face the consequences.
It seems Assange is being forced to choose between to (almost) equally bad alternatives - keep your mouth shut and you may stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London (which is just a more humane form of detention) or keep publishing embarrassing files and you might find yourself out on your ass with a one-way ticket on a plane bound to a US jail.