Author: Karen Zraick / Source: New York Times
Julian Assange announced on Friday that he was suing the Ecuadorean government for “violating his fundamental rights,” claiming that his longtime hosts at the country’s embassy in London are limiting his contact with the outside world and censoring his speech.
His legal team in the matter, led by the former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, revealed the suit at a news conference in Quito, where the lawsuit was filed. The action aims to prevent strict new rules governing Mr. Assange’s visitors and online activity from taking effect.
The policies were laid out in a nine-page memo that was published by a news site this month. (They include directives to clean his bathroom and look after his cat.)
Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has lived at the embassy since 2012, when he sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden in connection with rape accusations. That case was dropped last year, but he remained there, fearing prosecution in the United States over WikiLeaks’s publishing of leaked government documents.
In a statement, WikiLeaks asserted that pressure had mounted on Ecuador to hand over Mr. Assange to the British authorities, who could arrest him for skipping bail in 2012. Ecuador has a new president, Lenín Moreno, who is more open to engaging with the United States than his predecessor, the leftist Rafael Correa. Mr. Assange’s supporters worry that this means his long stay at the embassy could come to an end.
The new memo called on Mr. Assange to avoid speech or activities that could be considered political or could damage relations between Ecuador and other countries. And it threatened to revoke his asylum if he did not comply with the terms.
The rules stated that he must seek permission to have visitors, and provide their social media profiles and the…
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