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News > Latin America

Ecuadorean Academics React to Swedish Court Ruling on Assange

  • Demonstrators demand Assange's freedom outside the Ecuador's embassy in London (teleSUR)

    Demonstrators demand Assange's freedom outside the Ecuador's embassy in London (teleSUR)

  • Ramos applauded the stance the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has taken throughout the case (teleSUR)

    Ramos applauded the stance the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has taken throughout the case (teleSUR)

  • Sierra said the Assange case illustrates a contradiction between personal liberties and geopolitical interests (teleSUR)

    Sierra said the Assange case illustrates a contradiction between personal liberties and geopolitical interests (teleSUR)

Published 11 May 2015
Opinion

Assange has been given refuge in Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012.

The Supreme Court of Sweden announced Monday that it has rejected the appeal by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to drop the detention order over allegations of sexual assault, which was issued in 2010.

The Wikileaks founder is currently protected in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, due to fears that if taken to Sweden, there is the very real possibility that Assange would then be extradited to the United States, where he could be tried for the largest information leak in U.S. history.

He has been unable to leave the premises due to the possibility of arrest and extradition by U.K. authorities.

In 2010 the whistleblower released some 500,000 classified military documents on Afghanistan and Iraq, and 250,000 State Department cables, exposing U.S. military abuses in the region and around the world since June 2012.

Isabel Ramos a professor at the Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO) in Quito told teleSUR, that Ecuador’s decision to give asylum to Assange “has been absolutely impeccable,” and as since “the case has unfortunately not changed, there are no guarantees for the integrity of survival and physical well-being of Julian Assange if this detention order goes into practice. So Ecuador has been doing what it set out to do, which is defend his human rights."

Francisco Sierra to teleSUR, director of the International Center of Higher Communication Studies of the Americas (CIESPAL), "We are witnessing a contradiction between individual rights and geopolitical interests which the United States has. Ecuador has maintained a position that I would classify as being very brave, acting within international law because what is at stake here is not just the liberty of Assange, but fundamentally the freedom of information,"

Assange maintains that the case against him is politically motivated and a violation of his human rights.

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