[10/18/16] Ecuador’s government acknowledged on Tuesday that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published a trove of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The foreign ministry said that while it stands by its 2012 decision to grant Assange asylum based on legitimate concerns he faces political persecution, it respects other nations’ sovereignty and doesn’t interfere or support any candidate in foreign elections.
“The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organization,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
In follow-up messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing “multiple US sources,” WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of a visit by Kerry and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa last month to Colombia to show their support for a peace deal with leftist rebels.
The State Department denied the allegation and Correa’s leftist government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures. The foreign ministry didn’t specify the extent of the “temporary restrictions” on Assange, saying only that they wouldn’t affect WikiLeaks’ ability to carry out its journalistic activities.
“While our concerns about Wikileaks are longstanding, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the State Department were involved in shutting down Wikileaks is false,” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an email. Speaking to reporters later, deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry never even raised the issue or met with Correa during his visit to Colombia.