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Assange's running for office may affect his asylum claims
Julian Assange has decided to run for public office in his
native Australia. This information came out in a Tweet by WikiLeaks and has been
confirmed in statements to the press by Kristinn Hrafnsson, the official
spokesperson for WikiLeaks, and Christine Assange, mother of Julian Assange.
According to the WikiLeaks Twitter page and media reports
Mr. Assange will be running for Senate on a WikiLeaks Party ticket. According to
Australian media Assange stated that plans to register a WikiLeaks Party are
''significantly advanced,'' and that "… a number of very worthy people admired
by the Australian public have indicated their availability to stand for election
on a party ticket.”
In an interview with Australia’s Fairfax Media Assange said
he meets the Australian requirements to “register as an overseas elector in
either New South Wales or Victoria and will soon be making a strategic decision
about which state he would be a senate candidate for.” Whether the public will
support his candidacy is another question altogether but according to Assange he
is encouraged by a number of Australian polls, which had been conducted over the
previous years and which he says show a high-level of unwavering support for
himself and WikiLeaks. The key question will be if that support can be
translated into actual votes in the polling booth from an Australian Electorate
that has been fed a steady stream of anti-Assange propaganda for years.
Some might argue that this is just another media stunt by
Assange to cause another media frenzy, with the very important question be
raised as to how he will be able to serve the Australian people, if elected, and
he is unable to return to Australia. According to Fairfax Media Assange said if
that is the case a nominee would occupy his Senate seat.
Other questions arise as to how running for political
office in Australia might affect his political asylum claims under international
treaties and how Ecuador will react to the fact that someone who they are
protecting wishes to run for public office in a country where he is supposedly
unwelcome and would be in danger.
The level of danger to Ecuador and to the Ecuadorian
President, caused by their sheltering Assange, was once again underlined by Mr.
William Blum, a famous American writer and academic, in an interview I conducted
with him for the Voice of Russia. Mr. Blum said he was not surprised by
President Correa’s claims that the CIA was planning to assassinate him before
the presidential elections next month and that sheltering Assange was by itself
enough reason for the CIA to assassinate him.
Mr. Blum said: “The CIA attempts to assassinate people for
much less reasons than that. Assange is the public enemy No. 1 in America. The
U.S. is obsessed with him and they are afraid that he will be issuing the
release of more classified documents so they’d really like to put him out of the
way, if they can.”
There are further questions that arise with the fact that
Assange and WikiLeaks associates have stated in the past that; Australia has
done nothing to protect Assange and that he would be handed over to the
Americans for prosecution if he set foot on Australian soil.
Whether him winning a seat to public office will provide
him with immunity from persecution and prosecution is also questionable and one
might contend that Assange would be better of concentrating his efforts on
perhaps running for office in the country that has granted him asylum and has
been protecting him even though it has put that country’s president in the
proverbial “cross-hairs of a CIA drone”.
According to Fairfax Media, Assange's biological father,
John Shipton, is the person on the ground organizing the formation of the
Australian WikiLeaks Party, and has already drafted the party's constitution
which is now under legal review.
For the party to be registered with the Australian
Electoral Commission they would need "... the confirmation of 500 members who
are listed on the electoral roll", says Fairfax Media.
As Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in
London it is not clear how he would be able to carry out his plans but perhaps
he has several cards up his sleeve.
According to Mr. Blum Mr. Assange might prefer to be
cautious and avoid open spaces as: “There is a drone somewhere with his name on
it, and if he walks around in the world and he is not in the midst of a big
city, he’s a marked man. There’s a rocket with his name on it inside of a drone
with his name on it.”
Whether refugee Assange becomes Senator Assange, only time will tell.