WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange on Monday marked 1,000 days of confinement, mostly spent under house arrest.
Since June 2012, Assange has been holed up in a room five meters
wide, in London's Ecuadorian Embassy, where he is reportedly
working 17 hours a day.
"We see the escalating war against those who commit the act of
journalism. This is escalating from month to month,"
WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson told RT. "The
argument is this: that Bradley Manning was the first
whistleblower in US history; he was prosecuted and found guilty
on the basis of espionage. Journalists will come next. It could
possibly be WikiLeaks and all the media organizations. It's a
real possibility and we know about the ongoing investigation in
the US into WikiLeaks which has been now going on for three years
and probably cost quite a sum of money. So it is a very worrying
situation."
Assange has said he is sure that the minute he sets foot outside
the embassy, he would be arrested and handed over to Sweden,
where he is wanted on sexual assault charges. He believes he
would then be extradited to the US, where he would most likely
face trial and a possible death sentence for releasing thousands
of classified US diplomatic documents, including about the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today, Julian Assange has been detained 1000 days without charge - 550 days house arrest, 10 days Wandsworth Prison, 440 days in Embassy.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 2, 2013
"We know there is an ongoing investigation in the US and we
know I am a target of a Federal Grand Jury,” Assange told a
group of reporters in June. “There is a 99.97 per cent chance
that I will be indicted. So if the Swedish government drops their
request tomorrow, I still cannot leave the embassy."
Since November 2010, Assange has been subject to a European-wide
arrest warrant in response to a Swedish police request for
questioning in relation to a sexual misconduct investigation.
Assange has denied any wrongdoing and called the charges
politically motivated.
The whistleblower fled to the UK where he was taken into custody
after voluntarily attending a police station. After spending 10
days in Wandsworth prison, Assange was freed on bail with a
residence requirement at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England.
In February 2011, a court ruled to extradite the whistleblower to
Sweden, with Assange’s lawyers appealing against the verdict to
various British judicial authorities.
While remaining on house arrest in 2012, Assange hosted a
political talk show, The World Tomorrow, which was broadcast on
RT.
After the British Supreme Court upheld the extradition warrant,
the WikiLeaks founder sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in
London.
The move sparked a standoff between Ecuador and the UK
authorities, who warned that they could raid the embassy and
arrest Assange if he wasn’t handed over.
The Ecuadorian Foreign Minister replied this would be a
“flagrant violation” of international law. But Britain has
pledged to do everything in its power to block Assange’s passage
to Ecuador, despite him being granted political asylum by the
Latin American country in August 2012.
In writing to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa over a year ago,
Assange explained he was being persecuted and could not return to
his native Australia for fear he could be extradited to "a
foreign country that applies the death penalty for the crime of
espionage and sedition." Ecuador concluded his fears were
"legitimate."
Assange claims the same imperilment is why he has been avoiding
the return to Sweden for questioning. He has previously expressed
his willingness to answer questions from Swedish investigators on
condition that he receives strong guarantees that he won’t be
extradited to the United States. No guarantees have ever been
given, however.
"While I remain hopeful that a diplomatic solution can be
reached, or that the Swedish and US authorities will cease their
pursuit of me, it remains the case that it is highly unlikely
that Sweden or the UK will ever publicly say no to the US in this
matter," Assange told the journalists in June.
On July 25, Assange declared he was running in the elections for
the Australian Senate and launched the Australian WikiLeaks
Party.
The party aims to serve as an independent watchdog, keeping the
Australian government accountable to the public, he said. “My
plans are to essentially parachute in a crack troop of
investigative journalists into the Senate and to do what we have
done with WikiLeaks, in holding banks and government and
intelligence agencies to account,” Assange said.
Should the WikiLeaks Party be successful in the polls, Assange
would have to take his seat within one year of being elected,
according to Australian law. However, the UK government has
stated that in accordance with the European arrest warrant issued
against Assange, he would be detained once he leaves the
Ecuadorean Embassy.
However, it is not clear whether the US and the UK would drop
their plans to detain Assange if he wins an Australian Senate
seat, granting him protection by the country’s parliamentary
privilege rules.