Ecuadorian Asylum Seeker Julian Assange Could Return Home

Julian Assange spoke from within the Ecuadorian Embassy in August, 2012. (Flickr)

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, may be able to return home after residing in political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for almost seven years. The approval of a passport from his birthplace of Australia earlier this week allows Assange to leave the embassy and rids Ecuador of what Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno called “a stone in his shoe.”

Assange first sought asylum in 2012 to escape a Swedish arrest warrant for the charges of rape and molestation. He vehemently claimed that these allegations were “without basis” and entered the Ecuadorian embassy after the UK decided he should be extradited to Sweden.

Ecuador granted Assange citizenship in December 2017 in an effort to find a “dignified and just” solution to his situation. Ecuador made Assange an official diplomat so that he would be able to return home under diplomatic immunity, but he still fears leaving the embassy because of the possibility of U.S. extradition after the role Wikileaks played in the 2016 presidential election and the Mueller investigation.

After six years of living in the embassy, Assange accused the government of Ecuador of “violating his fundamental rights” and started legal proceedings against Ecuador in October 2018. This lawsuit came after the embassy established new house rules for Assange, including prior authorization of any visitors and reiteration that he is in “no way allowed interfere in any other country’s political matters.”

Assange claims that the embassy was cutting him off from access to other journalists and human rights organizations and restricting internet access and calls. The official statement from Wikileaks claims that Ecuador threatened “to remove his protection and summarily cut off his access to the outside world.”

Although Ecuador upholds the legal responsibilities in protecting asylum seekers, Assange quickly became an expensive liability. Ecuador spent the equivalent of over $5 million in security costs for Assange. The money was used to provide secure internet access to Assange and pay undercover operatives to keep tabs on his daily activities.

The high costs of providing Assange with asylum begs the question why a smaller Latin American government was willing to risk their diplomatic relations with powerful Western countries. Some experts suggest that the decision was not about Assange at all and was instead a power move by former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and carried on by Moreno.

According to experts, implementing confrontational foreign policy helped boost both leaders’ legitimacy within the Ecuadorian government. The standoff over Assange could just be about the protection of a political refugee or a bigger international power move, but either way, the long-standing tension could finally come to an end.