Mr Terpestra whoever said that Ecuador was the bastion of free speech and liberty and why should Assange care? Unlike America and Britain both countries are hypocrites in the extreme I'm sure he knows where he stands in Ecuador.

Let America and Britain publicly explain what is there in wikileaks that they fear so much that they are chasing a man on trumped up charges to jail and silence him.

America and Britain have a reputation of practicing rendition a particularly odious and most ugly form of behavior and it is against all the tenants of the Geneva Convention and is legal in America. It gives the State right to pick up anyone, without charge, without informing their family or lawyers and whisk them to a 3rd country where they can be held and tortured indefinitely without a single charge laid against them.

We have seen how they treat these prisoners. They strip them naked urinate on them tie them up with a dog leach and with an M16 pointed at them they drag them around. They apply electricity to their genitals and other parts of their body. They also stimulate anal sex with two of the inmates. They can be held indefinitely without charge or representation. For all purposes they become non people.

Mr. Assange is right to take refuge in Ecuador rather than face American or British law. Ecuador may not be a human rights paradise but it is better than American and British law who make up charges against Assange simply to silence him. When it comes to rights and freedom od speech you are thinking of an America and Britain pre-9/11 since then freedom and democracy no longer exist and if I was Assange I would take the lesser of two evils which today is Ecuador.

Yep, terrible terrible mob these Ecuadorians. So what does this say for all the countries that wouldn’t dream of sheltering a whistleblower in their embassies? What does it say about Australia House which is in the middle of London? No offer of asylum for an Australian whistleblower from that quarter, eh Mr Terpstra?

Yeah, Assange may have made a bad decision about Ecuador.

But keep in mind that it is a long way away from the nuking of Iran so perhaps he's not so silly after all.

It's a funny thing that the approaching nuking of Iran, surely a huge issue, is not really covered on OLO. Surely it is the most important issue facing the world today.

P.S. What about mentioning it, Graham, give it the same prominence as Julie and the Singer and the gaggle of Gay activists.

All of this is so far built on an assumption, that Assange will end up in America. He has charges to answer, and Ecuador have taken it on them self to pervert the course of justice.
Why should he be given asylum, was he in danger in England.

Assange is in trouble for exposing the murder of civilians and journalists by the US army in Iraq. The US jailed Sami Al Haj for 7 years merely for being a journalist for Al Jazeera.

The NYT let the state department vet the wikileaks cables before they published.

Here we can't even get one journalist to ask one moron lying politician what would happen if all refugee convention signatory nations pushed refugees to island jails in a fit of pique.

Here we have Murdoch propaganda sheets and not much else.

Free speech here or the US?

And Assange is NOT FACING ANY CHARGES YOU MORONS.