Ecuador admits it has 'temporarily restricted' Assange's Internet access
Ecuador acknowledged Tuesday that it has “temporarily restricted” Internet access for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London, after his whistleblowing site published documents from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign
Ecuador's foreign ministry said in a statement that while the government stands by its decision in 2012 to grant asylum to Assange, it doesn’t interfere in foreign elections. President Rafael Correa’s government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures, the Associated Press reported.
“The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organization,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The foreign ministry didn’t give specifics on the extent of the restrictions on Assange’s access to the Internet, saying only that the restrictions on his communications wouldn’t affect WikiLeaks’ ability to carry out its journalistic activities.
WikiLeaks in tweets Tuesday morning alleged that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had asked Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton last month during peace negotiations in Colombia with the FARC rebel group.
State Department spokesperson John Kirby categorically denied the assertion.
“While our concerns about WikiLeaks are longstanding, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the State Department were involved in shutting down Wikileaks is false. Reports that Secretary Kerry had conversations with Ecuadorian officials about this are simply untrue. Period.”
The allegations from the online leaking platform, delivered in a series of tweets, come as WikiLeaks has published thousands of apparently hacked emails from John Podesta, Clinton's campaign manager.
Assange has been voluntarily holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces sex crime allegations. The Internet is one of Assange's lifelines to the outside world. Assange claims the sex crime case is a pretense for Sweden to extradite him to the United States, where he faces espionage charges for leaking sensitive diplomatic cables.
WikiLeaks released its ninth batch of Clinton-related emails on Sunday. They included information about how the candidate could appeal to black voters and deal with the media. The Clinton campaign has suggested the Russian government has been supplying WikiLeaks with the emails, a claim both Moscow and WikiLeaks deny.
WikiLeaks said Ecuador cut off Assange’s Internet link Monday, shortly after it published transcripts of paid speeches Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs.