Assange Praises Courageous and Independent Ecuador

The founder of the alternative site Wikileaks, Julian Assange, presently a political refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, praised Ecuador today, after thanking Quito for granting him political asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden.

It was not Britain or my home country, Australia, that stood up to protect me from persecution, but �a courageous, independent Latin American nation", said Assange referring to the gesture of the government of President Rafael Correa.

A political refugee since June 19 this year at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, following his arrest by British authorities in 2010, Assange opposes his transfer to Sweden for alleged sex crimes and defends his innocence facing what he considers a U.S. move to arrest him for leaking secret information from that country.

Assange felt that despite this historic victory, the battle is just beginning, because the unprecedented US investigation against WikiLeaks must be stopped. Wikileaks revealed in November 2010 about 25,000 State Department cables, which have threatened U.S.diplomacy.

In that sense, he considered important to remind Bradley Manning, the U.S. military 'who has been detained for more than 800 days without trial', on charges of being a source of Wikileaks.

The task of protecting WikiLeaks, its staff, supporters and alleged sources, continues. he added

Assange's situation in the UK is tense. Although Quito granted political asylum for fonding there are risks to the journalist's life due to the revelations of his website, the British government insists on carrying out the extradition process.

In this regard, the United Kingdom threatened Ecuador to intervene and get Assange out of its embassy in London by force if necessary.