Ecuador cuts Julian Assange's internet access
Government officials say they want to prevent the WikiLeaks founder from interfering in other countries' affairs and comes after Assange questioned whether Moscow was responsible for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in England.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been cut off from the web after Ecuador’s government said his recent social media posts put relations with Europe "at risk."
Assange has been living at Ecuador’s London embassy since 2012 when the country first granted him asylum. He has not been allowed to leave the grounds over threats from the British government that he would be arrested for escaping bail and possible extradition to the U.S. over leaked State Department documents.
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In a statement released on Tuesday, government officials say that Assange’s recent posts "put at risk" the good relations Ecuador maintains with nations throughout Europe and had decided as of Tuesday to suspend his internet access "in order to prevent any potential harm."
As a part of his agreement to stay the embassy, Assange is forbidden from sending any messages that would interfere with Ecuador’s diplomatic relations with other nations.
Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, Maria Fernanda Espinosa said that “he violated that agreement” and that a group of diplomats would meet next week with Assange’s legal team in order to resolve “an inherited problem.”
Assange’s unverified Twitter account was last active on Tuesday when he shared a Reuters report about a British official who called him a “miserable little worm” over his unwillingness to turn himself into British police.
Assange fired back with a Tweet, calling himself a “political prisoner” who has been detained “without charge.”
Assange is vocal on social media. He recently posted about the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the U.S. and more than a dozen more European nations, calling the move “poor diplomacy.”
Hs recent posts could be what Ecuador’s government regards as putting its diplomacy “at risk.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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