To: Mr Carlos Antonio Abad Ortiz, Ambassador, Ecuadorian
Embassy, London. (via e-mail: eecugranbretania@mmrree.gob.ec)
Dear Ambassador
Further to my telephone conversation at 11 a.m this morning with
a gentleman in your embassy who refused to pass on my message to
you, I wish to convey in writing the substance of the message I
wished to convey.
1. As a human being and human rights activist I, like many
millions around the world, was delighted with the decision of the
Ecuadorian government, led at that time by President Rafael
Correa, to grant asylum to Julian Assange after the Wikileaks
revelations.
2. Now, however, under the Presidency of Lenín Boltaire Moreno
Garcés, since 28 March 2018 Julian has been cut off from internet
access and denied visitors within the Embassy in London. This
decision of President Moreno has disappointed and infuriated me.
3. It is impossible to understand the devastation that the lack
of internet access will cause to someone like Mr Assange whose
whole raison d'etre has been so bound up with the internet.
Depriving him of this access is the equivalent of a death
sentence.
4. Similarly, for someone who is confined in a now hostile
embassy (hostile since the election of President Moreno in April
last year) deprivation of the human right to receive visitors is,
in my opinion, a crime against humanity. If the most notorious
prisons in the world allow the greatest criminals to receive
visitors, why should a human rights activist like Julian Assange
be denied this right by your embassy?
5.
According
to the Guardian newspaper, at the end of 2017 the new
Ecuadorian government under President Moreno got a written
commitment made by Mr Assange not to issue messages that might
interfere with other states. It was allegedly on foot of this
that the Ecuadorian government took these swingeing draconian
measures to punish him so inhumanely.
Merco
Press revealed that the Moreno decision came after Assange
had decried the arrest of President Puigdemont of Catalonia.
Assange is a human rights activist - what else would you expect
him to do?
6. The commitment that Mr Assange was forced to sign would now
appear to have been a trap to allow the Ecuadorian government and
its new President to undo the moral support given to him by
President Rafael Correa.
As
observers on #reconnectingjulian have noted, Ecuador’s
treatment of its own citizen, Julian Assange, at the behest of
Lenin Moreno and under pressure from the Spanish government also
represents a clear breach of article 16.2 of the Ecuadorian
Constitution.
Article 16.2 states "All persons, individually or
collectively, have the right to Universal access to information
and communications technologies". Julian is now a citizen of
Ecuador. And according to
Article
8.5 "Those who acquire the Ecuadorian nationality shall not
be obligated to forfeit their nationality of origin. Ecuadorian
nationality acquired by naturalization shall be forfeited by
express renunciation". I could suggest that the President and
government are acting contrary to the Constitution of Ecuador.
7. They are certainly acting contrary to the spirit of justice
and humanity.
8 I request you to pass on this message to your President and
government in accordance with the normal protocol of embassies
everywhere.
9. I also urge your President and government to honour their
commitments to Julian when they made him a citizen of Ecuador and
to return to him the human rights of receiving visitors and full
access to information and communications technology, i.e. full
access to the use of the internet.
10 This letter will be published simultaneously on the Internet'
Thanking you
With best personal wishes
Justin Morahan, Pacifist and Human Rights activist
Dublin, Ireland. 17 April 2018
