Julian Assange, Media August 20, 2019
40 rebuttals to the media’s smears of Julian Assange – by someone who was
actually there
A former diplomat who worked in the Ecuadorian embassy while Julian Assange
lived there in asylum debunks 40 of CNN’s smears against the WikiLeaks
publisher.
By Fidel Narváez
The Western corporate media has shown extreme bias against the whistleblowing
publication WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange. Nowhere is this more
evident than in a recent CNN article on the imprisoned journalist, which
completely botches the facts.
On July 15, CNN published an exclusive report that sent shock waves through the
press: “Security reports reveal how Assange turned an embassy into a command
post for election meddling.” This two-pronged hit piece mixes character
assassination with a clumsy attempt to show that he and WikiLeaks supposedly
served as agents of chaos for the Kremlin during the 2016 US presidential
election.
But the article contains numerous errors, omissions, examples of bias,
speculations, and simply false information.
CNN’s attempts to shape the narrative on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are not
new. On March 28, the TV program Conclusiones, on CNN Español, claimed —
without evidence — that Assange had published the famous INA Papers leak,
exposing the corruption of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and his family.
The fact that WikiLeaks never published a single document or image of Moreno or
his family did not matter to CNN Español. The intentions of the show were
immediately transparent from the loaded questions made by the reporters:
“How long will Julian Assange remain at the Ecuadorian embassy in London?”
“Aren’t you going to kick him out?”
“What has Julian Assange brought to Lenin Moreno’s government but headaches?”
This baseless accusation was subsequently used two weeks later by the
Ecuadorian government to justify expelling Assange from its London embassy, in
a flagrant violation of international law.
This pattern of smear pieces against WikiLeaks and its publisher begs the
question: Why CNN is shaping public opinion against Julian Assange, as he
prepares to defend himself from continued political persecution by the US
government?
Having worked as a diplomat in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six out of
the seven years that Assange lived there as a political refugee, I would like
to put forth the following rebuttals to 40 of CNN’s misleading claims.
40 rebuttals to CNN’s lies about Julian Assange
1. “New documents obtained exclusively by CNN reveal that WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange received in-person deliveries, potentially of hacked materials
related to the 2016 US election, during a series of suspicious meetings at the
Ecuadorian Embassy in London.”
None of CNN’s speculations “reveals” that Julian Assange received materials
related to the 2016 US elections at the embassy, much less “potentially” hacked
materials.
The use of the word “potentially” shows that CNN is not even sure which
materials Assange would have received at the embassy. And there is not even
evidence that he received any publication material at all.
2. “Despite being confined to the embassy while seeking safe passage to
Ecuador, Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments,
frequently for hours at a time.”
An embassy is not a jail — although in the last year, Lenin Moreno’s government
did convert his embassy in London into de facto prison.
Therefore, there is nothing unusual for Assange to have visitors for several
hours per day. He met with hundreds of people from around the world:
intellectuals, artists, politicians, journalists, dissidents, activists.
Russian nationals, such as the activist group Pussy Riot, an archenemy of the
Kremlin, were among Assange’s visitors.
The people whom CNN mistakenly refers to as “hackers” are specialists in
computer security and data protection. CNN chooses to refer to them as
“pirates”, because it is more in tune with the overall bias of its report.
3. “He also acquired powerful new computing and network hardware to facilitate
data transfers just weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from
Russian operatives.”
There is nothing unusual about the Wikileaks editor purchasing computer
equipment. CNN’s claim that Wikileaks received “hacked materials from Russian
operatives” is not proven with any evidence, not even from the report of FBI
special counsel Robert Mueller, on which CNN bases its assertions.
To say that Assange acquired new equipment to “facilitate the transfer of data”
contradicts the very central premise of the CNN report that the materials had
supposedly been delivered personally in one of those “suspicious” visits in
June 2016.
4. “These stunning details come from hundreds of surveillance reports compiled
for the Ecuadorian government by UC Global, a private Spanish security company,
and obtained by CNN.”
The stunning thing is that CNN considers the reports produced by UC Global as a
reliable source. I know, personally, that many of its reports do not reflect
reality.
UC Global produced misrepresented, exaggerated, hostile reports, loaded with
paranoia and sometimes false information. Those of us who know what was going
on inside that embassy know that the company’s reports are going in only one
direction: sowing suspicion about Assange and his visits, in order to justify
the work of the security company.
The company was spying on Assange’s every movement, leaking materials and
documents from inside the embassy, either by ineptitude or on purpose.
UC Global even went as far as to forge a document, falsifying the signature of
an ambassador, and presented it in a labor tribunal, a fact that the ambassador
himself denounced before the Foreign Ministry.
This is not the first time that leaked UC Global reports have generated media
reports that are far from reality — like several of The Guardian’s articles on
Julian Assange. More on that later.
5. “An Ecuadorian intelligence official told CNN that the surveillance reports
are authentic.”
I can’t help but wonder if this is the same anonymous “Ecuadorian intelligence
official” who caused The Guardian to publish demonstrably false reports on
Julian Assange, such as the hoax that “Manafort held secret conversations with
Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy,” or “Russia’s secret plan to help Julian
Assange escape from UK.”
The “authentic” reports used by CNN have been the mockery of embassy officials,
given that they had already been leaked, and they border on the ridiculous.
Whether the reports are authentic or not is beside the point. Even if the
reports are authentic, it does not follow that their content must be true. If a
liar signs a report containing falsehoods, the document will be authentic, but
the content will still be false.
6. “After the election, the private security company prepared an assessment of
Assange’s allegiances. That report, which included open-source information,
concluded there was ‘no doubt that there is evidence’ that Assange had ties to
Russian intelligence agencies.”
If the unspeakable UC Global reaches such a resounding conclusion, it should
explicitly include the alleged evidence in its “evaluation” report, because an
evaluation that affirms that “there is evidence” while failing to include said
evidence would be nothing short of pathetic.
Indeed, UC Global’s reports are usually pathetic (doesn’t the phrase “there is
no doubt that there is evidence” sound pathetic?). The reports are often
written by security guards with limited education, who will use any reference
found on the internet as a source for their reports.
With such standards, one can imagine a report that reads: “There is no doubt
that there is evidence that Manafort visited Assange,” because the author of
the report read it in The Guardian, or another that reads “There is no doubt
that there is evidence that Wikileaks published INA Paper,” because he read it
in CNN.
How can CNN base its stories on reports that lack all credibility?
7. “Assange sought refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in June 2012 to apply for
political asylum and avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault
allegations, which he denies.”
Julian Assange did not seek refuge to avoid being extradited to Sweden. His
political asylum has always been to protect him from persecution by the United
States, which has had an active grand jury since 2010.
Assange always said he would consent to extradition to Sweden as long as it was
accompanied by a guarantee that he would not be onwardly extradited to the
United States for his journalistic activities. Ecuador offered that possibility
to Sweden from the very beginning.
In May 2017, after Sweden closed the preliminary investigation for the second
time, Assange still did not leave the embassy, because the risk of extradition
to the US remained imminent — a fact that was proven to be correct when Ecuador
handed him over to the British.
8. “From the outset he demanded (and was granted) high-speed internet
connectivity, phone service and regular access to professional visitors and
personal guests.”
It is false that Julian Assange “demanded” anything. Moreover, it is false that
Ecuador provided Assange with a telephone connection — neither a landline nor a
cellphone.
Assange did not use embassy phones for his communications. In any case, when
CNN says “A guest with privileges,” why does CNN consider internet and
telephone privileges? What internet speed does CNN consider a “privilege”?
It is thanks to the internet connection that Assange was able to give hundreds
of conferences and interviews, including to CNN. Why is receiving visitors a
privilege for a political asylee?
A political refugee in not an inmate, and an embassy is not a prison.
9. “Assange also issued a special list of people who were able to enter the
embassy without showing identification or being searched by security. He was
even granted the power to delete names from the visitor logs.”
All persons, without exception, had to register their entry and exit in the
visitor log, including Julian Assange’s closest collaborators, who were on the
list of frequent visits to which, surely, CNN refers. The exception is that
they didn’t have to show their ID to the guards every time they entered the
embassy, simply because a copy of their ID was always at the front desk.
It is false that Assange could erase visitor’s names from embassy records. Who
claims such nonsense? Where is CNN’s evidence to support this outright lie? Is
it also a UC Global report? Is it the anonymous intelligence official who
invented “Manafort’s visit” and the “Russian escape plan”?
10. “This all leaves open the possibility that additional sensitive meetings
took place but are still secret.”
There is no possibility, not even the slightest of possibilities, that Assange
would be able to have a secret visit without the ambassador approving it,
without the security personnel knowing it, without the visit being registered
in the visitors log, without the respective copy of the identification of the
visitor stored by the security guards, without being recorded on video — both
by the internal security cameras of the embassy, as well as by the external
cameras of the British secret services, pointing to the entrance of the embassy.
For seven years, this embassy was perhaps the most surveilled place in the
world.
This absurd suggestion of the “open possibility” of unregistered visits is
neither casual nor naive. It clearly seeks to sow doubt about fictitious visits
created by the press itself, such as The Guardian’s infamous story about
Manafort and the embassy.
11. ” Assange installed his own recording devices and used noise machines to
stymie the snooping, according to the documents obtained by CNN.”
If the article refers to a video camera for video editing and online streaming,
there is nothing strange about that. Julian Assange frequently participated in
online interviews and conferences and always had and used his own recording
equipment.
The sound distorters were used by and are property of the embassy. We used
these distorters in our own meetings, since the embassy was subject to
surveillance from outside by the British, who had long-range microphones. In
addition, we did not want to be heard by the UC Global company itself that
handled the entire camera system inside the embassy.
Assange also made use of these sound distorters, both in his meetings with us
and with his visitors. He has the same right to privacy as any other person —
even though Lenin Moreno’s government, in particular, has grossly violated it.
12. ” The task of controlling Assange proved difficult. Fistfights broke out
between Assange and the guards.”
This is flat out false. Julian Assange never threw a fist at anyone, nor did he
receive any from anyone.
In almost 2,500 days of confinement there were few and exceptional isolated
incidents that occurred with security guards. On just two occasions there were
shoves, never a “fistfight” as CNN claims for sensationalistic effect.
It is false that those incidents were about trying to “control Assange,” as CNN
suggests. On both occasions Assange was subject to provocation by guards
lacking professionalism.
Security reports will never mention the multiple official complaints made
against UC Global, by not just Assange, but also by outside visitors such as
Daniel Ellsberg, French presidential candidate Eva Joly, baroness Helena
Kennedy, or actor John Cusack, to name a few, who protested against
disrespectful treatment by security guards.
Over the first six years, Assange’s stay at the Ecuadorian embassy was
characterized by mutual respect between the Ecuadorian diplomatic and
administrative staff and its guest. A few isolated incidents with private
security guards do not change the respectful nature of that stay.
It was only in the last year, under Lenin Moreno’s government, that things
changed radically. Diplomatic personnel were replaced, and a new security
company was hired. The attitude toward Assange then became very hostile.
13. “He smeared feces on the walls out of anger.”
This claim is as false as it is despicable. Julian Assange never did any such
thing.
Although this has not stopped this lie from being brazenly repeated by the
highest Ecuadorian authorities: President Lenin Moreno; the minister of the
interior, María Paula Romo; and the secretary of the presidency, Sebastián
Roldán.
These politicians are obviously lying to try to justify the crime of having
handed over a political refugee to his executioners.
But what is CNN’s excuse — why does it repeat this lie? What evidence is there
for such a claim? It is not enough to echo the accusations of President Moreno,
who has made lying into an art. How is it possible for journalists to also
stoop so low?
14. “Despite the years of strife, Assange was allowed to stay and prepared to
wield his power when the moment was right.”
Ecuador granted Julian Assange asylum to protect him from the threats to his
life and freedom, threats that continue at this very moment. It is obvious that
he should be allowed to stay at the embassy, until full protection of his
rights can be guaranteed.
The claim that Assange was allowed to stay in political refuge so that he could
“prepare” for who knows what “right moment” for who knows what “wielding of
power” is ludicrous.
15. “Assange also maintained direct contact with senior officials in Ecuador,
including former Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño, and regularly used those
connections to threaten embassy staff… He claimed he could get people fired,
even the sitting ambassador.”
It is not true that Julian Assange “regularly” threatened embassy employees
with getting them dismissed. Save for an exceptional discussion, no diplomat
received a threat of any kind.
Security guards are a separate issue, but even there, the incidents were
isolated.
It is incorrect to say that Assange maintained direct contact with senior
officials, unless this is a reference to advisers to the Foreign Minister’s
office, and still, these contacts were sporadic and exceptional. There is
nothing extraordinary about that.
In seven years of asylum, Assange never spoke to or had contact with President
Rafael Correa. And the number of times he had direct contact with Minister
Patiño can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
16. “Assange was busy back at the embassy. That month, members of the security
team worked overtime to handle at least 75 visits to Assange, nearly double the
monthly average of visits logged by the security company that year.”
Julian Assange was always busy, always working. A political asylee does not
lose any rights to do so.
In the month of June 2016, a period of special interest in the CNN
investigation, Assange was indeed busy — just not in the way that CNN suggests.
Rather, Assange was preoccupied with a series of specific events that,
curiously, the CNN investigation is either unaware of or deliberately omits:
A. On June 19, 2016, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of his entry to
the embassy, the event “First They Came for Assange” was held. This was a
series of simultaneous demonstrations held in several cities around the world:
Berlin, Paris, New York, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Athens, Belgrade, Buenos
Aires, and Montevideo, among others, with audiences present in different
scenarios. It also included the participation, face-to-face or via video, of
dozens of personalities, including Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Žižek, Yanis
Varoufakis, Vivienne Westwood, Michael Moore, Ken Loach, Amy Goodman, PJ
Harvey, Bernard Stiegler, Brian Eno, Baltasar Garzón, Sarah Harisson, Srećko
Horvat, Angela Richter, Chris Hedges, and Renata Ávila. The central feature of
this mega-event was a live online broadcast from the embassy.
B. “Julian Assange: Four Years of Freedom Denied”, a five-day day event, held
from June 20 to 24 at the International Center for Higher Communication Studies
for Latin America (CIESPAL), in Ecuador’s capital Quito. The program consisted
of several days of conferences with the participation of international
exhibitors, screenings of documentaries, visual arts exhibitions, and online
broadcasts — again, live from the embassy.
C. Brexit Club panel, a live broadcast with analysis and discussion on the
Brexit referendum, which started the night of the referendum and continued
until dawn, on June 23 and 24, streamed online from inside the embassy, with
face-to-face and remote video participation of at least a dozen panelists from
different parts of the world.
Furthermore, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Guillaume Long visited the embassy from
June 17 to 21, with a very intense agenda of press events and meetings,
including a lengthy meeting with the legal team of Assange, with the
participation of lawyers from outside the United Kingdom.
It is obvious, therefore, that this many public events, meetings, and
interviews, all in the same month, significantly increased the regular number
of visits to the embassy, many of which were not visitors of Assange, but of
the embassy itself. It is hence understandable that the guards had to work
overtime.
CNN’s suggestion that the embassy had a lot going on in June 2016 because
Julian Assange was supposedly preparing to receive material to publish is
misplaced and misleading.
17. “Assange took at least seven meetings that month with Russians and others
with Kremlin ties, according to the visitor logs.”
Is meeting Russian citizens suspicious in itself? Does every Russian citizen
have, according to CNN, “Kremlin ties”? Why does CNN not name all of these
people who supposedly have Kremlin ties? Wouldn’t that be of public interest?
18. “Two encounters were with a Russian national named Yana Maximova, who could
not be reached for comment. Almost nothing is known about Maximova, making it
difficult to discern why she visited the embassy at key moments in June 2016.”
CNN admits not knowing anything about Yana Maximova, but, since she is Russian,
then she is suspicious of something. If you don’t know anything about her, why
suggest she could be linked with the Kremlin?
Wouldn’t it have been helpful to search her name on Google and see that The
Guardian describes her as a 28-year-old Russian immigrant who “moved to the US
when she was 18” — that is, in 2008, well before Assange was known to the world
— and “worked as a volunteer journalist for a community radio station in
Portland”? Although, after all, when it comes to Assange, The Guardian is not
exactly trustworthy.
19. “Assange also had five meetings that month with senior staffers from RT,
the Kremlin-controlled news organization.”
Regardless of the editorial line of a state broadcaster, in this case RT, does
that make every journalist working at the state television station a suspected
agent? Are BBC employees also suspected of being MI5 agents? Ecuadorian public
media outlets have no editorial independence, so are their journalists also
intelligence agents?
RT has many British journalists in London, such as Afshin Rattansi, who has
visited and interviewed Assange at the embassy on several occasions, including
“at key moments of the US presidential election.” Does that make him a suspect
of working for the Kremlin and handing over compromising materials?
20. “US intelligence agencies have concluded that RT had ‘actively collaborated
with WikiLeaks’ in the past… For several months in 2012, Assange hosted a
television show on RT.”
The World Tomorrow program presented by Julian Assange was an independent
British production whose international rights were purchased by RT.
To suggest that, because someone has an opinion program on RT, there is
necessarily a dependency on the Kremlin is clearly wrong. According to that
logic, RT presenters such as former prime minister of Scotland Alex Salmond,
legendary American TV host Larry King, journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner
Chris Hedges, the American broadcaster Max Keiser, former commissioner at the
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Bart Chilton, former president of
Ecuador Rafael Correa, and even the famous Portuguese soccer coach José
Mourinho are all also secretly in cahoots with the Kremlin.
21. “Shortly after WikiLeaks established contact with the Russian online
personas, Assange asked his hosts to beef up his internet connection. The
embassy granted his request on June 19, providing him with technical support
‘for data transmission’ and helping install new equipment… This was the same
day Assange and his lawyers met with then-Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume
Long, according to surveillance reports.”
The installation of higher speed internet was clearly done on the same day of
an international mega-event “First They Came for Assange,” which was broadcast
online to a dozen cities simultaneously, with thousands of attendees and
spectators.
What data transmission operation is CNN talking about? Any new technical
upgrades or changes within the embassy must be made by embassy personnel or
workers hired by the embassy.
What technical support provisions for Assange is CNN talking about? The faster
internet speed responded to a long-standing need by the embassy itself, and not
necessarily or exclusively because it had been requested by Assange.
Moreover, upgrading an internet connection cannot occur overnight, because
regulations by the Ecuadorian bureaucracy involve requesting a modification of
budgets and their approval, something which takes at least several weeks.
22. “It’s unclear whether Assange told the Ecuadorians that WikiLeaks was
working behind the scenes to acquire documents related to the US election.”
No journalist is obliged to inform a government in advance what he is working
on. The same goes for Julian Assange.
It is absurd to say that by that date, June 19, 2016, Assange was working
“behind the scenes” to obtain information that he clearly already possessed,
given that Assange had announced it publicly a week before.
23. “As the election approached, security officials at the embassy noted that
Assange released some of the hacked emails ‘directly from the embassy,’
according to the surveillance documents.”
Really? Where is the evidence? Only the opinion of a UC Global guard, forced to
write daily reports? Did he find out on the Wikileaks website, like millions of
people did? How does he know the emails were hacked? Why could it not be leaked
emails?
24. “The Mueller report explicitly referenced that ‘Assange had access to the
internet from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, England.'”
What an extraordinary discovery!
25. “It is unclear whether Mueller ever obtained these surveillance reports as
part of his investigation.”
It is very likely that he had, given the fact that, with the Lenin Moreno
government, Ecuador completely surrendered its sovereignty, giving the United
States everything it has requested, culminating with Assange’s head.
In January 2019, Ecuador allowed more than a dozen diplomats and officials who
worked at the embassy in London to be questioned by US prosecutors. If the
Americans have requested documents from the embassy, which is very likely,
President Moreno will almost certainly have handed them over.
Although if Robert Mueller came to read the UC Global reports, he must surely
have found them to be some of the most ridiculous documents he has come across
in his career as an investigator.
26. “Mueller concluded that hackers from Russia’s military intelligence agency,
known as the GRU, attacked Democratic targets in spring 2016 and removed
hundreds of gigabytes of information. They created online personas — Guccifer
2.0 and DCLeaks — to transfer some of the files to WikiLeaks and publicly claim
responsibility for the hacks, falsely disavowing any Russian ties.”
WikiLeaks states that the sources for the various materials from the Democratic
Party are diverse, and were circulated by different actors. The Democratic
Party itself recognizes that its servers were attacked for two years before the
election. Wikileaks has said that its source is not the Russian state, nor any
state agent.
The forensic report that attributes the alleged extraction of information to
“Russian state hackers” was written by a private company hired by the
Democratic Party itself. The Department of Justice did not make its own
independent expert analysis.
On the other hand, WikiLeaks was not the initial medium that published
materials from the Democratic Party. Numerous organizations and media in the US
published material, allegedly, coming from Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. This
includes the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes,
Politico, Buzzfeed, The Intercept, and The Hill.
The materials published by WikiLeaks were reprinted and/or reported in many
media outlets, including the BBC, NBC, ABC, The Guardian, Fox News, and USA
Today. However, only WikiLeaks is being persecuted for publishing such
information, which is truthful and in the public interest.
27. “Mueller’s team noted that it ‘cannot rule out that stolen documents were
transferred to WikiLeaks through intermediaries who visited during the summer
of 2016.'”
Precisely this discrepancy in the conclusions of Robert Muller, that “it cannot
be ruled out that by visiting intermediaries,” suggests that the prosecutor
does not have evidence to support his conclusions.
It is even worse when one considers that all of the dates suggested by Muller,
either for electronic transmission or retrieval through a visit, are later than
when Assange had already announced that he had information on the Democratic
Party.
28. The special counsel named one of those associates, German hacker Andrew
Müller-Maguhn, and said he “may have assisted with the transfer of these stolen
documents to WikiLeaks… According to the surveillance reports, Müller-Maguhn
visited Assange at the London embassy at least 12 times before the 2016
election.”
Andrew Müller-Maguhn, whom CNN refers to as a hacker, is an information
protection specialist. His activism focuses on the human right to privacy in
the digital age, that is, quite the opposite of the negative connotation of
“hacker” attributed to him.
In his professional activity Müller-Maguhn organizes workshops that train
system administrators in policies and structures that facilitate data
protection. In addition, he works as a freelance journalist in cybersecurity
research.
As in the case of computer expert Ola Bini, jailed without reason in Ecuador by
Lenin Moreno’s government, Müller-Maguhn is suddenly suspicious because he has
two problems: he is too intelligent, therefore dangerous; and he is friends
with Assange!
29. “The Mueller report says that on July 6, WikiLeaks reached out to the
Russian online personas with a request to send anything ‘hillary related’ as
soon as possible, ‘because the (Democratic National Convention) is approaching
and she will solidify Bernie supporters behind her after,’ referring to her
opponent in the Democratic primaries, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”
Assuming that “request” is true, the intention would be to support the most
progressive candidate in the race, Bernie Sanders. But, according to the
conspiracy theory, wasn’t Assange supposed to be supporting Trump?
By the way, WikiLeaks had made public calls for information on Donald Trump,
and declared that they would accept leaks from any political party.
30. “Days later, on July 18, while the Republican National Convention kicked
off in Cleveland, an embassy security guard broke protocol by abandoning his
post to receive a package outside the embassy from a man in disguise.”
The security guard did not break the protocol. In the case of a strange
package, from a mysterious individual, that was precisely the protocol: receive
the package outside the embassy, in the lobby of the building, and make sure
that it does not represent a danger.
In the seven years of Julian Assange’s stay, countless strange packages arrived
at the embassy. The vast majority were gifts from those who idolize Assange,
but also threats from those who demonize him.
31. “Russian hackers, posing as DCLeaks, had reached out again to WikiLeaks and
offered more materials, writing that ‘you won’t be disappointed, I promise,’
according to the Mueller report.”
Was it not the case that according to CNN’s own account, previously Russian
hackers had already successfully established a communication channel with
Wikileaks, they had sent materials online, or through suspicious visits?
Why, suddenly, would they change their pseudonym to start a new relationship
and try to interest Assange with new material? Why would they not use the same
previous method?
32. “On at least two occasions, RT even published articles detailing the new
batches of emails before WikiLeaks officially released them, suggesting that
they were coordinating behind the scenes, which they deny.”
This false claim has already been categorically refuted in the past.
Announcements on Twitter by Wikileaks are not necessarily made immediately as
soon as the information is uploaded to their website.
Put simply, all RT had to do is monitor the Wikileaks website, discover a new
publication, and immediately do what any media outlet aims for: being the first
to publish it.
33. “Facing this ultimatum, Ecuadorian officials in the capital city of Quito
decided on October 15 to cut Assange off from the outside world, shutting down
his internet access and telephone service. Even this didn’t stop the deluge of
email releases, which WikiLeaks continued pumping out every day until the
election.”
How is it possible that Julian Assange kept publishing if he had no
communications at the embassy? Well, in the same way that WikiLeaks continued
publishing in 2018 when Lenin Moreno’s government, in a flagrant violation of
human rights, completely isolated Assange for eight whole months.
Simply put, WikiLeaks can publish from anywhere else, be it from London,
Reykjavik, Berlin, or from the United States itself. The geographical location
from which information is uploaded to the web is inconsequential.
Therefore, this obsession to discover if Assange published or not information
from the embassy is a sterile and irrelevant exercise. The only important thing
is to know if that information is true and if it is of public interest.
On the other hand, the fact that Assange was inside the embassy does not mean
that the WikiLeaks publications were made by him, personally, from the embassy.
The editor-in-chief of a media makes editorial decisions; it is not necessarily
the editor who performs the operational and technical task of editing and
uploading information on a computer.
Does CNN’s editor-in-chief also act as designer, programmer, and proofreader?
And do they personally take care of uploading the news to the web? Almost
certainly not.
34. “By 1 a.m., two WikiLeaks personnel arrived at the embassy and started
removing computer equipment as well as a large box containing ‘about 100 hard
drives,’ according to the documents.”
It is not surprising that Julian Assange takes a precautionary measure, to
protect his information, in the face of a serious crisis with the Ecuadorian
government at that time.
On the night of October 18, 2016, the internet had been suspended. And, at the
risk of an asylum termination, no matter how small, the journalist has the full
right to protect his information.
Just as it would be your right for CNN to protect its information, if there is
a risk that the government can take it.
In fact, that was exactly what happened with the Moreno government, when the
president put a cowardly end to the asylum. The government illegally seized
Assange’s belongings.
As if that was not bad enough already, Moreno then handed Assange’s belongings
over to his persecutors.
And if UC Global could not inspect the equipment, how do they know it contained
“about 100 hard drives”?
35. “Justice Department lawyers secretly prepared a criminal case against
Assange for the Chelsea Manning leaks.”
The “secret” investigation and preparation of the case against Assange did not
begin in 2016. It began in 2010, before Julian Assange applied for asylum in
2012.
It was not so secret, as it was always evident and was the fundamental reason
for the granting of asylum.
The accusations of a grand jury are normally kept secret and only made public
when the defendant is arrested.
It was always right for Assange to request that asylum, and for Ecuador to
grant it. Lenin Moreno violated every asylum rule when he let British police
enter to take force Assange out by force.
36. “Federal prosecutors even turned to a controversial law to target Assange
for actively soliciting and publishing classified materials, which is typically
protected under the First Amendment.”
It is good that CNN recognizes that the publication of classified materials is
protected by the first amendment.
How sad, however, that CNN dedicates such a long report attempting to impute
some form of criminality in relation to a publication of material that is not
even classified.
Even sadder that CNN insists on demonizing a fellow journalist, who cannot
defend himself and who is at risk of a lifelong sentence for the “crime” of
publishing information exposing war crimes.
37. “In April of this year, Moreno revoked Assange’s asylum and said Assange
had ‘violated the norm of not intervening in internal affairs of other states.'”
Julian Assange has not violated any rules. Firstly, because when journalists
publish information in an electoral campaign about a candidate from any
country, this does not intervention in the internal affairs of anyone. That is
called journalism and that is what journalists do every day.
Secondly, because no international treaty suppresses the right of an asylee to
work, nor to freedom of expression. There is no precedent in history in which
political asylum is taken away from an asylee for publishing, commenting, or
reporting on other countries.
38. “This cleared the way for British police to forcibly remove Assange from
the embassy when the first US charges were unsealed.”
It was not just Lenin Moreno’s decision on April 11, 2019 that led to the
humiliating entry of a foreign power into our embassy to kidnap a political
refugee.
The road for this crime was paved months in advance, in coordination with the
British and directly with the Americans, who are the ones who moved the strings.
As reported by ABC, at least six months before the termination of asylum, the
Ecuadorian ambassador to Berlin was the one who offered Assange’s head to the
Americans.
And according to the magazine Proceso, “British and Ecuadorian officials held
secret teleconferences with the headquarters of the State Department in
Washington to discuss the future of Assange,” from inside the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office in London, for months before the expulsion.
39. “Assange hasn’t been accused of any crimes related to his actions in 2016.”
After a fierce investigation by the US Department of Justice, which lasted some
two years, cost roughly $25 million, and included interviews with approximately
500 people, after this investigation in which Assange was always willing to
appear if guaranteed protection, he still has not been charged with anything
related to WikiLeaks 2016 publications — because, simply, publishing is not a
crime.
40. “Meanwhile, he still has allies in Russia. Within hours of Assange’s
arrest, senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s government rushed to
Assange’s defense and slammed the US for infringing his rights, declaring that,
‘The hand of “democracy” squeezes the throat of freedom.'”
Does the fact that someone condemns the arrest and possible extradition of
Julian Assange mean that they are his allies?
Within a few hours of that arrest, many international human rights and press
freedom organizations had condemned it, warning that extradition to the US
would be a violation of Assange’s human rights. These included Amnesty
International Ireland, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect
Journalists, the American Civil Liberties Union, Reporters Without Borders, the
Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and
countless civil organizations and personalities around the world.
Would CNN also refer to any of them as “allies”?
Fidel Narváez
Fidel Narváez
Fidel Narváez is an Ecuadorian human rights activist and former diplomat who
served as consul and then first secretary at the Ecuadorian embassy in London
from 2010 until July 2018, while WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was a
political refugee in the building.
