Witch hunt of Assange a shame

It is now not certain if the foreign ministers from the Organization of American States who are meeting in Washington on Friday will support the political asylum that Ecuador has granted to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who has spent the last nine weeks in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

The United States, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago have all questioned if the Assange case is relevant to the OAS, while 23 members of the organization have said they are in favor of holding the meeting.

All signs indicate that Ecuador President Rafael Correa has been not only courageous but also right to protect Assange from possible persecution for his part in releasing a trove of US diplomatic cables in 2010. They also suggest that the sexual assault charges that have been levied against Assange are a smoke screen meant to hide plans to extradite him to the US.

One thing is clear. Both Sweden and Britain, when approached by Ecuador, have refused to guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US. The US has also not said that it will refrain from taking revenge on Assange for the huge embarrassment that leaks subjected it to.

If there is no conspiracy among these three countries to secure an extradition, why wouldn't they give such an assurance?

There are other questions to be asked. Why, for instance, would the British and Swedish governments go to such lengths in a case involving sexual assault charges?

Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the US State Department, has said that Assange was making "wild assertions" when he said the US was engaged in a "witch hunt" against WikiLeaks. If that's the case, why do so many people see Ecuador's action as constituting an offense that the US might retaliate against?

Britain's assertion that it can legally storm the Ecuadorean embassy in London, under a little-known law that was adopted in 1987, is shocking. If Britain does indeed violate the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, it will not only tarnish its own image but also set a bad example for other countries that find themselves in similar situations.

Apparently, the US likes neither Assange nor President Correa, an economist who was educated in both Europe and the US.

Correa's decision to close the US military base in Ecuador several years ago offended many people in Washington. In a previous interview with Assange, Correa said: "It's not a problem to set up a US base in Ecuador. We can give the go-ahead as long as we are granted permission to set up an Ecuadorian military base in Miami. If it's not an issue, they should agree."

Assange himself has been the target of harsh words uttered by everyone from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Senator John McCain. There is no sign that they have decided to not punish him.

It is surprising that news organizations such as the New York Times, which published selective cables provided by WikiLeaks about two years ago, have not come out in support of Assange. But if you recall that the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and other news organizations refrained early last year from reporting that Raymond Davis, who killed two men in a shootout in Pakistan, was a contractor for the CIA, you can see just how much we should trust the US government and media.

There is no doubt that Assange is a courageous journalist. Punishing him for what he has done would have a chilling effect on investigative journalists.

I can only guess US government officials would be saying exactly the same things if the trove of diplomatic cables released weren't American.

The author, based in New York, is Deputy Editor of China Daily USA. Email: chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/24/2012 page8)