Some observers also expressed surprise that Mr. Assange, who shot to fame as a fighter for transparency and press freedom, had chosen Ecuador as a potential refuge. He and the country’s president, Rafael Correa, shared warm laughter and a disdain for the United States government in an interview Mr. Assange conducted for his talk show recently on the Kremlin-funded Russia Today network . But Mr. Correa has presided over a crackdown on journalists in Ecuador, according to several reports.
In February, the publisher of the Ecuadorean newspaper El Universo took refuge in the Panamanian Embassy in Quito, and was granted asylum, after the newspaper was ordered to pay $40 million and he was sentenced to three years in prison for defaming Mr. Correa.
The court’s decision was “a serious attack on freedom of the press and gagging of independent journalism,” the Miami-based Inter American Press Association told Agence France-Presse at the time. It criticized “a judicial and legal structure that is used to make reprisals against those who dissent from official policy.”
HN is an interesting subculture, but most Americans would like to Assange in US prison, trying to explain to Red Rope and Benteye why he should keep his tennis shoes.
Some observers also expressed surprise that Mr. Assange, who shot to fame as a fighter for transparency and press freedom, had chosen Ecuador as a potential refuge. He and the country’s president, Rafael Correa, shared warm laughter and a disdain for the United States government in an interview Mr. Assange conducted for his talk show recently on the Kremlin-funded Russia Today network . But Mr. Correa has presided over a crackdown on journalists in Ecuador, according to several reports.
In February, the publisher of the Ecuadorean newspaper El Universo took refuge in the Panamanian Embassy in Quito, and was granted asylum, after the newspaper was ordered to pay $40 million and he was sentenced to three years in prison for defaming Mr. Correa.
The court’s decision was “a serious attack on freedom of the press and gagging of independent journalism,” the Miami-based Inter American Press Association told Agence France-Presse at the time. It criticized “a judicial and legal structure that is used to make reprisals against those who dissent from official policy.”