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| Julian Assange [File Photo] |
London: In an unprecedented move
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday accused the U.S. President Barack
Obama of “exploiting” the Arab Spring for political his mileage and condemned him
defending free speech in the Muslim world.
This has comes close
on the heels of America’s attempt to “persecuting” Assange’s website for
leaking American diplomatic cables.
In a video address
made on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Assange said
that judging from his own experience Mr. Obama had “done more to criminalise
free speech than any other U.S. president”.
“I speak to you today
as a free man, because despite having been detained for 659 days without
charge, I am free in the most basic and important sense. I am free to speak my
mind,” Assange said in his address to United Nations.
“This freedom exists
because the nation of Ecuador has granted me political asylum and other nations
have rallied to support its decision,” he further said.
“It must have come as
a surprise to the Egyptian teenagers who washed American teargas out of their
eyes [during the Arab Spring] to hear that the U.S. supported change in the
Middle East….It’s time for President Obama to keep his word ... and for the
U.S. to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks,” he said.
Mr. Assange has been
holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy since June after taking refuge there to
avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault made by two
women.
Assange said it was because
of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that
WikiLeaks was able to "receive and impart information... through any
media, and any medium and regardless of frontiers".
Assange praised his
effort to explore hidden facts through his organisation’s investigative
stories.
In his speech the WikiLeaks
founder thanked United Nations to provide right to exercise inalienable right
to seek protection from the arbitrary and excessive actions taken by
governments against him and the staff and supporters of his organisation.
In a argumentative speech from inside the
embassy, Mr. Assange claimed that WikiLeaks played a big role in triggering the
uprisings in the Arab world by leaking American diplomatic cables.
The American Government would be
“audacious” to take credit for the “Arab Spring”, he said adding that it was
“disrespect to the dead to claim that the United States supported the forces of
change”.
Notably, Assange remarks came amid reports that
the Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino was due to meet the British
Foreign Secretary William Hague in New York to press him to grant Mr. Assange
safe passage to Ecuador which has granted him asylum.