Courtesy of ABC Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-21/us-denies-assange-claims/4211574
Julian Assange
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Statement by Julian Assange August 2012
Official
Statement by Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy Sunday August 19th,
14:30 BST
(This
version has been proofed)
I am here
because I cannot be closer to you.
Thank you
for being here.
Thank you
for your resolve and your generosity of spirit.
On Wednesday
night after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on the
building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you
brought the world’s eyes with you.
Inside the
embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming into the building
through the internal fire escape.
But I knew
that there would be witnesses.
And that is
because of you.
If the UK
did not throw away the Vienna Conventions the other night, it is
because the
world was watching.
And the
world was watching because you were watching.
The next
time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend the rights
we hold
dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark outside the Embassy of Ecuador, and
how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world, and a courageous
Latin American nation took a stand for justice.
And so, to
those brave people:
I thank President
Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and
granting me
political asylum.
And so I
thank the government and the Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patio, who have upheld
the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration
of my case.
And to the
Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending their
constitution.
And I have a
debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy whose families
live in
London and who have shown me hospitality and kindness despite the threats that
they have received.
This Friday
there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of
Latin
America in Washington D.C. to address this situation.
And so I am
grateful to the people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico,
Nicaragua,
Peru, Venezuela and to all other Latin American countries who
have come to
the defence of the right to asylum.
To the
people of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and
Australia
who have supported me in strength while their governments have not. And to
those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice. Your day
will come.
To the
staff, supporters and sources of WikiLeaks whose courage, commitment and loyalty
have seen no equal.
To my family
and to my children who have been denied their father: forgive me. We will be
reunited soon.
As WikiLeaks
stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of our
societies.
We must use
this moment to articulate the choice that is before the
government
of the United States of America.
Will it
return to and reaffirm the values it was founded on?
Or will it
lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and
oppressive
world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of
prosecution
and citizens must whisper in the dark?
I say that
it must turn back.
I ask
President Obama to do the right thing.
The United
States must renounce its witch-hunt against WikiLeaks.
The United
States must dissolve its FBI investigation.
The United
States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or
our
supporters.
The United
States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue
journalists
for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.
There must
be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media
organization,
be it WikiLeaks or the New York Times.
The US
administration’s war on whistle-blowers must end.
Thomas
Drake, William Binney, John Kirakou and the other heroic US
whistle-blowers
must - they must - be pardoned and compensated for the
hardships
they have endured as servants of the public record.
And the Army
Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth Kansas, who was
found by the UN to have endured months of torturous detention in Quantico
Virginia and who has yet - after two years in prison - to see a trial, must be
released.
And if
Bradley Manning really did as he is accused, he is a hero, an
example to
us all and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.
Bradley
Manning must be released.
On
Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815th day in detention without
trial. The
legal maximum is 120 days.
On Thursday,
my friend, Nabeel Rajab, was sentenced to 3 years for a tweet.
On Friday, a
Russian band was sentenced to 2 years in jail for a political
performance.
There is
unity in the oppression.
There must
be absolute unity and determination in the response.
Timeline of Wikileaks & Assange to August 2012
*As always,
a good timeline lessens confusion
*December
2006:* Julian Assange, a former Australian computer hacker,
founds
Wikileaks.org <http://wikileaks.org/>.
The website aims to provide a platform for whistleblowers to post sensitive and
secret political
documents
while keeping their identity anonymous.
*February
2008:* Wikileaks exposes Swiss Bank, Julius Baer, for involvement in money
laundering. It publishes internal documents to show that the bank was helping
clients launder funds via the Cayman Islands. This leads to the first of many
legal charges against Wikileaks.
*November
2009:* Wikileaks releases a comprehensive archive of text pager messages
recorded in the US on September 11,2001, the day when hijacked airplanes
crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
*April
2010:* Wikileaks releases a video of a 2007 US military helicopter
strike on
Baghdad, Iraq, and the casualties that resulted from this.
Bradley
Manning, an American soldier, is charged and arrested for leaking
the
information.
*July 2010:*
Wikileaks releases classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-war-logs>
revealing details of civilian victims and alleged links between Pakistan and the
Taliban.
*August
2010:* A Swedish court issues an arrest warrant for Assange on
charges of
rape made by two Swedish women, who were also former employees of Wikileaks but
then decides to postpone the warrant until November.
*October
2010:* Wikileaks releases some 400,000 accounts written by
American
soldiers from 2004 to 2009 revealing that the US decided to ignore cases of
torture by Iraqi authorities on civilians.
*November
2010:* Swedish prosecutor re-issues European arrest warrant for Assange. Ten
days later, Wikileaks releases classified US diplomatic
cables,
revealing assessments of American officials on a range of issues
together
with views of other governments.
*December
2010:* Assange hands himself over to London’s police and is
placed in custody
pending a Swedish court’s ruling on the extradition
request. A
few days later, Assange is released on bail and tells media that
the rape
allegations are part of a politically-motivated campaign to
undermine
him. He was ordered by the court to live at a supporter’s country side mansion
in eastern England.
*February
2011:* A British judge rules Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face sexual
assault allegations. He dismisses claims made by Assange’s lawyers who argued
that Assange would not receive a fair trial in Sweden. The 39-year-old denied
three allegations of sexual assault and one allegation of rape in Stockholm
last year.
*July 2011:*
Assange appeals against the extradition ruling.
*September
2011:* Assange’s unauthorised biography is released in England in which he
completely denies the sexual assault allegations made against him.
*October
2011:* Assange announces Wikileaks will temporarily stop
publishing
classified US diplomatic files to concentrate on fundraising for
the website
after incurring a 95% loss in its revenue due to a financial
blockade by
credit card companies such as MasterCard and Visa.
*November
2011:* British High Court judges reject Assange’s appeal against his
extradition to Sweden.
*January
2012:* Assange appeals his extradition at British Supreme Court.
*May 2012:*
British Supreme Court rejects Assange’s extradition appeal and rules that he
must be tried in Sweden.
*June 2012:*
Assange makes a plea for asylum in Ecuador after seeking
refuge at
the South American nation’s embassy in London. Ecuador’s foreign
minister
announced that they would be evaluating Assange’s request
according to
international law.
*June 28th
2012:* Assange ordered by British police to turn himself in on
an extradition
notice.
*June 29th
2012:* Assange refuses to turn
in
to British
police and officials say they will arrest him as soon as he
leaves
Ecuador’s embassy. Ecuador delays decision on Assange’s request for
asylum.
*July 2012:*
Wikileaks hires Spain’s former human rights judge, Baltasar
Garzon, to
lead the legal team fighting for Assange. Garzon is said to have met Assange at
the Ecuadorian embassy in London. read
*August
2012:* UK warns Ecuador it may raid its London embassy if it
Doesn’t hand
over Assange to the British police. Ecuador condemns such a threat and few
hours later, announces that it will grant Assange political
asylum.
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