Moscow: Fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden slammed Thursday the arrest in London of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, calling it a ‘dark moment for press freedom’. Snowden fled to Russia in 2013 after leaking thousands of classified documents to the media about the US government’s extensive surveillance activities.
“Images of Ecuador’s Ambassador inviting the UK’s secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of – like it or not –award –winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books,” the former contractor with the US National Security Agency said on Twitter. “Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom,” added Snowden.
Meanwhile in a separate development, Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said that he had taken a guarantee from Britain, that Assange will not be extradited to any country where he could face ‘torture or the death penalty’.
“I asked Great Britain for the guarantee that Mr Assange will not be extradited to any country in which he could suffer torture or the death penalty,” Moreno said in a video message posted on social media. “The British government has confirmed in writing that they will meet this requirement,” Moreno added.
Snowden also denounced Ecuador’s decision to withdraw asylum from Assange, who had been living in its London embassy since 2012. He called the decision an ‘extraordinary and very likely unprecedented revocation of what at least the United Nations considers a legitimate ‘grant of asylum’.
Like Snowden, Assange remains a polarising figure, with some calling him a heroic campaigner for openness, while others accuse him of being an enemy of the US trying to avoid justice.
Moreno had earlier tweeted that Ecuador was within its ‘sovereign rights’ to withdraw Assange’s asylum ‘for repeatedly violating international conventions and the protocol of co-habitation’.
Assange has been living at Ecuador’s embassy in London since 2012 when he sought refuge there after being accused of sexual assault in Sweden.
Rafael Correa, Moreno’s predecessor who was instrumental in granting Assange asylum, slammed the reversal of policy as ‘a crime’. “Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget,” tweeted Correa, who now lives in Belgium.