TECH

Assange closer to the US

The lawyer of WikiLeaks and its founder has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the protocol that the Ecuadorian Embassy implemented to regulate the activist's political pronouncements, communications, visits and medical checkups.His lawyer Baltasar Garzón has presented in Quito a demand for "isolation and gagging" against Ecuador's foreign minister, José Valencia, and the Attorney General, Salvador Íñigo, as representatives of the Ecuadorian State. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the protocol that President Lenin Moreno's administration has implemented since last weekend, which regulates its political pronouncements, communications, visits and medical check-ups at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where it has been insured since 2012. complaint requests that the Ecuadorian judges give a response within 48 hours."(...) it is a unilateral action and, from our point of view, arbitrary," Garzón told a news conference. "(...) in this protocol, contains a series of statements and a series of terms that are unfit for a situation of good harmony and an asylum situation." He also criticized Assange for having to take care of the sanitary conditions in the embassy by the presence of his cat, which could lead "in the termination of his asylum" not to do it.In a statement, WikiLeaks has stated that the Ecuadorian Government "has violated the fundamental rights and freedoms" of Assange and has stated:The measure comes almost seven months after Ecuador threatened to take away the protection and cut off its access to the outside world, including refusing to allow journalists and human rights organizations to see it, and installing three signal interceptors at the embassy to telephone calls and internet access.According to Australian lawyers, the protocol "makes Assange's political asylum subject to censorship of his freedom of opinion, expression and association." WikiLeaks also accused Ecuador of having denied allowing Human Rights Watch's general counsel, Dinah PoKempner, to see him in several meetings with his lawyers.It also states that the document obliges any person who wishes to visit him to provide private data such as his social networks, serial numbers and IMEI codes of his smartphones and tablets to the Ecuadorian Government, which the Embassy can share with other agencies, and , in addition, may confiscate the property of the activist or his visitors without a court order and deliver it to the.

Garzon also stressed that the protocol has no signature, so the complaint filed this request that the person who issued the document be identified. He also questioned that the Ecuadorian Government released personal documents of Assange and mentioned that the health of the Australian is in a precarious state due to the prolongation of his asylum. In another press conference on Thursday, he described the situation of the asylum in the diplomatic seat as "inhumane".

According to WikiLeaks, the United States has said that Ecuador has become a "strategic ally" under Moreno's mandate and that earlier this week, US congressmen sent him a letter stating that "to advance in critical issues, "he must first" solve a significant challenge created by his predecessor, Rafael Correa: the state of Julian Assange. "The leak means that pressure has increased for Ecuador to hand over Assange to the United Kingdom, which has been ordered to arrest him for evading house arrest in 2012 since Vice-President Mike Pence's visit in June.WikiLeaks recalled that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling last July mandating Ecuador to protect the Australian activist from being extradited to the United States, where he could be tried on charges of having attacked the national security of the United States. country for the disclosure of classified documents."The UN found in 2016 that Assange was arbitrarily detained at the embassy by the United Kingdom, describing his situation as 'inhuman and degrading treatment'. Assange's legal action comes a week after UN chiefs for Freedom Expression and Refugees met with President Lenin Moreno in Ecuador, "WikiLeaks said in its statement.Finally, he points out that former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who granted Assange political asylum, said last week that "the current administration is 'trying to break it psychologically' and that an agreement had been reached during Pence's visit to Ecuador earlier this year. "

H. T.