By Stephan Kueffner
Jul 27, 2021, 10:40 PM
Word Count: 259
The three-judge tribunal listed several breaches of the rules in its ruling published Tuesday, including failing to live in Ecuador and to pay fees. The court also said that ministry officials carried out an “undue and illegal” application interview to grant him citizenship.
Carlos Poveda, Assange’s Ecuadorian lawyer said he would file for an annulment of the decision, in a reply to written questions.
Assange is currently in a British jail fighting extradition to the U.S. where prosecutors have charged him with espionage for the leaking of classified diplomatic cables.
In 2010 Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange in a case of sexual abuse, which they eventually dropped in 2019. To avoid extradition, he fled to a London apartment housing Ecuador’s U.K. embassy. Ecuador granted him asylum based on the risk that extradition to Sweden might be followed by extradition to the U.S., where he said he could face political persecution and even the death penalty.
In 2018, he obtained citizenship through naturalization from Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa in a failed bid to resolve the standoff by moving him to Moscow as an Ecuadorian diplomat. But in 2019 Ecuador withdrew his asylum status and allowed him to be arrested.
Under the immigration law in effect at the time, the foreign ministry suspended his citizenship but had to request court confirmation for it to be revoked.
© 2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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This report is decidedly biased. It gives the court’s reasons for stripping Julian of his citizenship without mentioning the rights that he was denied. The report doesn’t mention that Poveda specifically stated that Julian’s rights were ignored. Julian was not given the materials he needed to prepare for the case and, even if he had been given the materials, not all the documents presented in court were translated into English, both in blatant disregard of his rights. Because Julian was unable to appear physically in the Quito court, and only after Poveda requested a videolink, was he provided with a URL to link to the proceedings, which he could not use as his conditions of imprisonment deny him access to the internet. He was thus denied the right to defend himself. No-one should be denied the right to a fair trial.
Sweden’s trumped up charges of sexual assault are mentioned with no reference to the fact that the two women had merely asked the Swedish police if they could legally request him to undergo an HIV test.
See the UN Special Rapporteur on torture … punishment’s mandate of 19 Sep 2019 to Sweden.
The Daily Maverick and other newspapers should be shouting from the rooftops in defence of Julian’s human and journalistic rights; shouting from the rooftops in every issue to defend the press’ freedom to speak truth to power.
Daily Maverick should retract the Bloomberg article and replace it with an article that exposes what is actually happening.
Kathy Brookes
Correction to above post:
Sweden’s trumped up charges of sexual assault are mentioned with no reference to the fact that the two women had merely asked the Swedish police if they could legally COMPEL him to undergo an HIV test.
Kathy Brookes