Julian-AssangeAndrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, said the day before that Julian Assange, creator of WikiLeaks, is “a Quixote of freedom of expression and does not deserve to be in jail.”

In his morning press conference yesterday at the National Palace, the president made the comment when referring to the lies and misrepresentations in the opposing press and social networks about his government and civil society.

He asked young people to investigate why they have Assange in prison, who does not deserve to be in jail and, on the contrary, should become a cause celebre for all the world’s journalists and the media.

He explained that the powerful have him behind bars because he revealed scandals that reveal the operation of the bad policy of the United States and other countries such as Mexico, where he denounced officials of the National Electoral Institute (INE) in the 2012 elections when Felipe Calderón stole the presidency from him.

Assange revealed the documents and evidence from the US embassy talking about those elections, the fraud perpetrated between former president Vicente Fox (2006-2012), and how INE officials visited the US embassy before the elections to inform them how they were going manage the election results.

It is because of facts like these and many more revealed by WikiLeaks that Assange is a victim of repression and not of the fabricated crimes for which he is accused. He made revelations and denunciations in favor of freedom of information and expression, and what he did is something sobering.

Based on this reasoning, the president made a very severe judgment of the number of autonomous entities in numerous public sectors to protect and cover corruption by duplicating those organizations that replicate those constituted by the secretariats of State, with the objective that They will act as covers for the corrupt.

They created a swarm of autonomous entities for that purpose, they bureaucratized everything to hinder investigations and facilitate crime and structurally they even went above the Legislative Power and took refuge in an autonomy to be untouchable.

He gave as an example the Institute that has to do with the defense of taxpayers, full of irregularities, but in his four years of government he has not been able to remove its director due to the swarm of regulations, rules and allegedly legal laws that protect him. It was created to benefit private taxpayers and avoid tax obligations, he charged.

(With information from Prensa Latina)

“I think the solution should come from Sweden, with a way, a light, in order to prevent Assange for being extradited to the United States or make what Ecuador is proposing,” the diplomat said in an interview with Prensa Latina in this capital.

Assange is waiting for a London’s safe-passage to travel to Quito and take the political asylum given by Ecuador. However, the United Kingdom is insisting in his extradition to Stockholm for an investigation on alleged sexual crimes.

Salvador said that though the US government has not requested the extradition of the Australian journalist, “something dark, which is not clear,” is being planned, and it would represent a risk for Asssange if he is tried and sentenced in that country for releasing Washington’s secret cables.

The Ecuadorian representative to OAS considered difficult a way-out to the bilateral dispute by the judicial system, and said that Swedish authorities should accept the Ecuadorian proposal of interrogating Assange in London.

Salvador said that a United Kingdom-Ecuador dialogue is complex because they are two countries with different juridical systems.

The meeting was called on Friday, August 17, at a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council with 23 votes for, including all South American countries, five abstentions, and three against: United States, Canada, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Discussion will focus on the situation between Ecuador and the United Kingdom concerning the inviolability of Ecuadorian diplomatic premises in London, under the international law.

Quito’s representative at the OAS, Maria Isabel Salvador, said that if the United States and Canada voted against, it means that they do not agree with the defense of the principle of the inviolability and that is serious for everyone, not only for the OAS, but also the whole world.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa seeks the continent’s support to the British executive’s threat of entering its embassy in London, where Assange took refuge on June 19 to avoid his extradition to Sweden, a country which claims him for alleged sex crimes.

Ecuador granted the founder of WikiLeaks political asylum on August 19, considering that he did not receive assurances from the UK and Sweden that will not be extradited to the United States, where Assange believes that his life is in danger.

“As established by the most elementary international practices of diplomacy and the principle of international law,” he added.

In statements to Prensa Latina, Rodriguez referred to the UK’s threat to raid Ecuador’s embassy in London to arrest the Australian citizen Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, and expressed Quito’s rejection of that threat.

The top leader of the integration bloc added that this situation, which poses a risk for a South American nation, further consolidates regional unity.

“It is happening, it is being demonstrated and it is being proved,” he said when alluding the UNASUR’s support for Ecuador, contained in the Guayaquil Declaration, approved last weekend in that city.

Rodriguez noted that if the UK is interested in maintaining good relations with the UNASUR and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), it must acknowledge the practices on asylum implemented in the region in an unalterable and consecutive manner.

However, he suggested, before that, the UK must withdraw the document containing the threat and create the conditions that existed before, so that negotiation can flow in terms of mutual respects between sovereign countries.

The UNASUR would contribute to guaranteeing peace and finding a solution to this situation, he stated.

Rodriguez concluded that there are enough arguments and foundation for the UNASUR’s unanimous support for Ecuador.

The right to asylum, he noted, is a common tradition that must be accepted in other regions for peaceful coexistence in the world.

“Everyone knows he is a fighter for freedom of expression without limits,” Correa said in reference to the founder of Wikileaks, who faces extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes rejected by him.

The president noted that Assange is under protection of Ecuador’s diplomatic mission in London, while performing talks, at the highest level, to find a solution to his requirement.

He said Ecuador rejects the death penalty, so could not risk a person who has applied for asylum, especially for political offenses, to face that possibility.

“We can not accept that there is a political persecution due to the ideas expressed by Assange, and if he has committed a legal offense in terms of Wikileaks, those are the charges that should be presented, he added.

Correa explained that his country lives under a state of law, loves peace and justice, and would not accept breach in the process because of the political ideas of this Australian citizen.

He said his government will take the necessary time and take a decision in the appropriate moment.

“We do not want to offend anyone, especially a country like the United Kingdom, but we will not give up taking sovereign decisions,” he stated.

On Thursday, Michael Ratner, lawyer for Assange, said in an interview on national television that his client chose Ecuador to seek political asylum because he knew that can not be manipulated by the United States (U.S.).

Assange had two options, be extradited to Sweden or to U.S. territory and therefore he had to find a place where he could receive protection and that was not manipulated by the U.S., he said.

Wikileaks founder fears that once in Stockholm, where he is accused of sex crimes he denies, he will be extradited to U.S. territory for political offenses and sentence there to death.

The ecuadorian minister made a press realease and said

that Ecuador will study the request because Assange is considered a politically persecuted person who needs protection.

Assange is requesting asylum based on Article 14.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and

on Article 41 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, besides many other international treaties.

It was also known that Ecuador has officially informed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom and its embassy in Quito on this subject.

She claimed that governments are not doing anything, but in the search of protection for Julian is supported by Senator Scott Ludlam and the Greens (green political movement of Australia), and she also counts with the support of ordinary citizens and civil rights organizations.

Christine statements occur after the British High Court authorized the extradition of the founder of Wikileaks to Sweden, with a margin of 14 days to assess the report and consider the possible reopening of the case.

Assange became a worldwide celebrity and made Washington furious in 2010 when Wikileaks showed secret filming and U.S. diplomatic cables on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the world.

Supporters of the journalist plan demonstrations in several cities in Australia to show their sympathies to the founder of Wikileaks, who was awarded in this country for the contribution to the sector.

Five of the seven judges agreed that in the case of an order of detention for the entire European Union, the signing of a prosecutor was enough.

However, the implementation of that decision remained pending for two weeks since the court gave the defense time to request a reopening of the process.

Assange, 40, became a worldwide celebrity and angered the government of Washington in 2010 when Wikileaks released secret filming and thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He is detained in London since December 2010 and is opposed to his extradition to Sweden, as well as strongly defend his innocence, accused U.S. authorities of being behind the legal process.

Assange´s detention was responding to an European order issued by prosecutors in the Scandinavian nation for questioning on suspicion of four alleged offenses of sexual assault, which has not yet been formally charged.

The founder of Wikileaks appealed to the Supreme after in November 2011 the High Court approved his extradition to Sweden, confirming the decision taken in February of that same year by a lower court.

Bradley Manning

Soldier Bradley Manning, alleged author of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, is one of the 231 candidates for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, an award that many people believe it has lost discretion over time.

The list of nominees, which is officially closed for this year, is secret and members of the Nobel Committee did not comment on its content. But several experts have begun to speculate about who is on the list, and some people who are entitled to nominate candidates have posted their suggestions.

On Friday, the Committee announced the last names for consideration.

While including 188 people and 43 organizations, the list is close to the nominees’ record of last year, when there were 241 nominations for the Prize, which was finally awarded to the female trio composed by Liberians Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni Tawakkol Karman.

According to the Committee, the Prize was awarded to the three women for “their nonviolent struggle for women’s safety and their right to fully participate in the work of building peace.”

The list of candidates also includes former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who ran the war against Yugoslavia, and the European Union, which is undergoing a debt crisis and internal conflicts.

Other well-known candidates are U.S. political scientist Gene Sharp, theoretician on non-violent struggle that inspired some figures of the Arab Spring,

President Moncef Marzouki of Tunisia, who took power after encouraging the revolts started in this country in late 2010, and the Al Jazeera news channel, famous for its bias in the NATO invasion of Libya.

While having a great international impact, the Nobel Peace Prize is not exempt from controversy, as in 2009, when Barack Obama received the award just a few months after his inauguration.

The Swedish authorities, entitled of ensuring the Nobel Prize foundations, are currently investigating to determine if the Norwegian Committee complies satisfactorily with the task entrusted by Swede Alfred Nobel more than a century ago.

The decision comes after repeated critics of Norwegian lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl, author of the book “Nobel’s Will.” According to him, the award has lost sight of its original target. In his will written in 1895, Alfred Nobel wanted the Prize to reward “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding

and promotion of peace congresses.”

The winner will be announced in October and the Prize will be awarded on December 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel, who invented the dynamite.

Taken from www.cubadebate.cu
Translated by Osmany Gonzalez Tocabens

The questionnaire was answered by officials at the U.S. Interests Sections in Havana, and then sent to the White House on August 28, 2009 and it took about 4 months to return, according to the source.

The message was returned with a high degree of coincidence with the original version, including almost exactly the same introduction in which Obama congratulates Sanchez for the Maria Moors Cabo prize of the University of Columbia.

The changes, as in the rest of the interview, were minimal, said the TV news program when referring to the cable of the SINA chief, Jonathan Farrar.

Farrar’s document also included the questions that Sanchez would send to the Cuban president, Raul Castro, and that she herself acknowledged she never sent.

What was a questionnaire for the Cuban President Raul Castro doing in a cable of the US diplomatic representation in Havana, questioned the TV news program.

(Prensa Latina)