Ecuador says WikiLeaks founder Assange is seeking asylum

[Josephus]

I'm sure the staff at the Ecuadorian embassy have been telling him. "Ok. Look. You're welcome to sit around here for a while BUT STAY AWAY FROM OUR COMPUTERS. oh, and our women too."

[Viking]

Didn't Britain threaten military intervention? Maybe Ecuador should consider what happened the last time the British fought a South American country with a contiguous land mass

I'm pretty sure the UK could take the galapagos back if the equadorian army invaded and kicked the UK and US grad students measuring beak and seed size.

[Razgovory]

I doubt he'll stay.  He's to much of an attention whore to lay low in the third world.

[HVC]

does anyone even care about wikileaks anymore?

[Josephus]

No.

but the issue now has become one of whether or not the brits should be raiding the ecuadorian embassy.

[dps]

Surprised Languish isn't discussing this.

Uhm, what do you think this thread is about?

[garbon]

Surprised Languish isn't discussing this.

Uhm, what do you think this thread is about?

Well most of this thread is from June or prior - J resurrected it.

I'm surprised that J thinks we care at all what goes down with Assange-Ecuador-Britain.

[Sheilbh]

Didn't Britain threaten military intervention? Maybe Ecuador should consider what happened the last time the British fought a South American country.

No.  Twitter and the MSM have gone mental over this.  The police are camping outside the embassy because we've a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden - the same international law he's taking advantage of staying in the embassy.  The Ecuadorian embassy is on the first floor of its building.  They can't get Assange from the embassy (protected) to the diplomatic car (protected) without coming down the stairs and crossing British soil - so he'd be arrested.

The British government mentioned this fact and said that under our law we can revoke embassy status if its being misused - but this would have to be litigated - and that in their view using it to hide a normal fugitive (ie. not a political refugee, unless rape counts) counts as misuse and they're willing to argue that.  If they're successful the police can then enter the building.

Either way instead of being a small room in Sweden, while he's questioned, Assange will stay in a small room in Knightsbridge until he comes out (at which point he'll be arrested) or for the couple of years the 1987 act is argued in front of the courts.

The Ecuadorian foreign minister announced that the British government was threatening Ecuador and would militarily raid their embassy.  This was picked up on twitter and in news channels without much research or knowledge

[Viking]

the really sad thing is that if he had just gone to sweden served his time he would have been out by now and he would have cost the british taxpayer a hell of a lot less money.

[Josephus]

Can't they take him from the embassy to the car in a diplomatic pouch? 

[Barrister]

This is the same dilemna the US was in when that Chinese dissident sought refuge at their embassy in Beijing.  Sure, he could take refuge there, but they had no means of getting him to the US.

[Sheilbh]

Can't they take him from the embassy to the car in a diplomatic pouch? 

No - that sort of thing's been tried.  Apparently in the 80s the Nigerians tried to ship a fugitive minister from their London embassy in a crate.  He was caught

One thing the Ecuadorians are allegedly considering is making Assange a diplomat.  Trouble is Britain wouldn't give him accreditation so they may try to appoint him as a deputy attache for sexual violence and human rights to the UN.

This is the same dilemna the US was in when that Chinese dissident sought refuge at their embassy in Beijing.  Sure, he could take refuge there, but they had no means of getting him to the US.

I'd imagine they could get him from the embassy to the car and then to the airport though?

[garbon]

What is Ecuador getting in exchange from Assange? Money?

[mongers]

.......
The Ecuadorian foreign minister announced that the British government was threatening Ecuador and would militarily raid their embassy.  This was picked up on twitter and in news channels without much research or knowledge

I don't know there appear to be clearer head who are rather concerned about this move.

Putting aside the whole Assange circus, I think this is now the more important issue:

FCO 'risks breaching international law' over Assange embassy crisis

The Foreign Office risks breaching international law if it carries out its threat to revoke the status of the Ecuadorean Embassy in order to arrest Julian Assange, a former ambassador to Moscow has warned.
Police patrol outside the Ecuador Embassy in London. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has walked into the Ecuadorian Embassy, seeking political asylum. Photo: Tim Hales/Ap

By  Rosa Prince, Online Political Editor
9:48AM BST 16 Aug 2012

Sir Tony Brenton, who served as the United Kingdom's ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2008, said "arbitrarily" overturning the status of the building where Mr Assange has taken shelter to avoid extradition, would make life 'impossible' for British diplomats overseas.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "I think the Foreign Office have slightly overreached themselves here, for both practical and legal reasons.

"The Government itself has no interest in creating a situation where it is possible for governments everywhere to arbitrarily cut off diplomatic immunity. It would be very bad."

Sir Tony said he considered it "highly unlikely" that the Foreign Office would carry out the threat, which was made directly to the Ecuadoran government by British diplomats in Quito.

He warned that if it did, life would become "impossible" for those working in British embassies around the world, adding: "If the Russians had had the power and simply walked into the embassy and simply arrested someone, we would have been in much more insecurity."
......

Rest of article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9479250/FCO-risks-breaching-international-law-over-Assange-embassy-crisis.html

[Razgovory]

Can't he just jump out of a window onto the car or something.  I wouldn't keep him in the embassy to long, the guy does have a habit of publishing diplomatic cables.