Julian Assange Prison Statement Released Denouncing Visa, PayPal As 'Instruments Of U.S. Foreign Policy'

As he remains in a London jail awaiting his bail hearing, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denounced Visa, MasterCard and PayPal as "instruments of U.S. foreign policy" following last week's series of crippling web attacks on their sites, the Guardian is reporting.

Assange, who is fighting extradition to Sweden where he faces rape charges made by two women, made the statements via his mother, Christine, who flew from Australia to visit her son in London's Wandsworth Prison. According to the New York Times, Ms. Assange asked her son a single question on behalf of Australia's 7 News: "Has it all been worth it?"

Assange's statement, read by his mother on the air, was as follows:

My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them. If anything this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct.

We now know that Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and others are instruments of U.S. foreign policy. It's not something we knew before. I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks.

According to his mother, Assange went on to pledge thanks to his legions of international supporters. "I told him how people from all over the world, in all sorts of countries, were standing up with placards and screaming out for his freedom and justice, and he was very heartened by that," she is quoted by the BBC as saying. "As a mother, I'm asking the world to stand up for my brave son."

Here is the interview with Assange's mother:

Comments

[NebDem78]

08:00 PM on 12/15/2010

Julian Assange is more worried about the reputation of his sex life than he is about the citizenry of the United States. It was a brilliant move to play towards his false sense of pride when the charges were made public. Whether or not the charges have any foundation; they forced his hand. Just as he can without impunity divulge state secrets contrary to the wishes of those states that he transgressed against. The state also can paint him any way it wants. The question now is whether he would have defended himself in a court of law if the sexual charges were never brought against him. Now that he is in the custody of the law, I think it's time for the law to do anything it wants too him!

[Alex Miles]

06:35 PM on 12/15/2010

You know who would have been Minister for Justice when most of this was going down? Thomas Bodstrom. The business partner of Claes Bergstrom. The two girls' lawyer.

[mnkors]

03:35 PM on 12/15/2010

The Assange case was dismissed and then resurrected. Was this a results of the personal involvement of Dr Anna-Karin Svensson, Swedish Director of the Division for Police, implicated in the illegal communication with the US?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8202745/WikiLeaks-Swedish-government-hid-anti-terror-operations-with-America-from-Parliament.html

The new revelations contained in the Swedish cables … shed some light on the ferocity of the Swedish prosecutorial process in this case,” Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer said.
“The prosecutor has said there is ‘no condition’ for bail that will satisfy them.”

[garcam123]

06:25 AM on 12/15/2010

Finally a blast of fresh air against the tyranny of the so called country of democracy Amerika!

[disgruntledprogressives]

04:00 AM on 12/15/2010

Tuning up for a coming "putsch?"

[alex98]

03:41 AM on 12/15/2010

So Julian where is the support for Manning's defense fund Wikleaks promised months ago? Or are you too busy enjoying your new found fame and notoriety without Bradley Manning you wouldn't have any of it.

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

[Tulka2]

02:11 PM on 12/15/2010

Good point.

[fruity]

02:36 AM on 12/18/2010

I question whether Bradley Mannings defense monies is with Wikileaks. If I understand it correctly, their Paypal account was run via Wau Holland, not Julian Assange. I think its interesting about Paypal kowtowing to the US govt, especially since as far as we know, Wau Holland is saying its their account. Now if thats true, the deposit bank tied to the account had to go somewhere.. which country... maybe to the Swiss Post who .. again ironcally, froze the funds after Paypal gave them a few days delay.

Everyone should press the media into finding out whether when Paypal said they released the funds back to Wikileaks... if that also meant Paypal were allowing the account holder to freely withdraw the funds to the bank of their choosing. Wau Holland can answer this.. and if the US all but instructing Paypal to temporarily delay.. they could of been coordinating this with other countries to seize the funds or put enough controversy surrounding the money... so that it could cause a split between supporters. The media is NOT asking Wau Holland or Wikileaks about what I described. And it matters. Matters because of Bradley Manning

[Chazmania]

02:21 AM on 12/15/2010

The Political and corporate beat down of Asange should be an alarm bell to the world that what we are actually realistically dealing with is a world wide phenomenon of coordinated synchronized fas!sam and oligarchy control of freedom and democracy....don't believe the second coming of 1940's style psyc0ness cant happen again and this time it will make that look like a garden party...

[Tulka2]

02:16 PM on 12/15/2010

Absolutely! What you warn of is exactly what Albert Speer warned about when he got out of prison in the early 1960s.  He said the real horror was that the average German did not know what the he// was going on.  Speer said the new communication technologies in the that time made it possible for only a few people to engineer everything.  Speer said we better know that or it would happen again. 

It has not sunk in.  We are vulnerable as ever to fascist dictatorship and communications tyranny.

[tarzan322]

09:38 PM on 12/16/2010

It's possible for anyone to manufacture anything. I don't see how that applies in this. All it takes is the hard work and dedication and some money to get it going. No one's going to hand you anything on a silver platter, and if that what you expect, I'm sorry to tell you but your parents sucked. A return to the 40's style of living would be a welcome improvement. At least people were polite and had respect for others then. If you think your entitled to your freedoms, they come with responsibility, and if you can't handle that responsibility, then there are plenty of other places in this world to live. Go there and quit whining.

[Tulka2]

12:26 AM on 12/15/2010

The choice is very simple here.  Which side are you on?  The side of transparency or tyranny?

[disgruntledprogressives]

04:03 AM on 12/15/2010

Transparency but, our President is squarely on the opposite side.

[garcam123]

06:26 AM on 12/15/2010

So I guess the requirement is to pull the rotten thing down and start over!

[Tulka2]

02:11 PM on 12/15/2010

Obama's position puts him on the opposite side.  If he were still on this side of the Precidency, he might well be singing a different tune.  Which is just to say that the office often puts one at odds with one's natural inclinations.

[William J Unverferth Sr]

12:30 PM on 12/15/2010

False dichotomy.

[Tulka2]

02:08 PM on 12/15/2010

Are words magic?  Just because you say "false dichotomy", i am not converted.

[NebDem78]

11:59 PM on 12/14/2010

"I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks"--Julian Assange.

So if I were to walk into WikiLeaks central and pin on the bulletin board the 'wikileaks: code of conduct', go out into the lobby and point my finger at some random clerk, and ask for his immediate firing, because that random clerk only had two buttons on his shirt: instead of the three the code of conduct requires. Would I have any right to get that random clerk fired?

[Acert]

12:19 AM on 12/15/2010

Do you have a point or are you deliberately spouting irrelevant nonsense?

[NebDem78]

03:16 AM on 12/15/2010

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval."--Julian Assange from an interview with Joseba Elola of El Pais, a Spanish Newspaper.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20024658-503543.html

[garcam123]

06:27 AM on 12/15/2010

Yes! I actually DO feel more like I do now than when before I got here...Don't you?

[maslin]

11:15 PM on 12/14/2010

For all those blasting VISA, MC, and PayPal -

In the wake of 9/11 and the crackdown on 'terror financing' - these institutions may not have had much of a choice.

[fruity]

02:43 AM on 12/18/2010

In the case of Paypal, if they were regulated as a bank or had a banking charter (because of the deposit accounts) then maybe they would of been forced to follow the money transfer laws on the books, instead of skirting laws and operating in countries like India and Australia and being busted by those central banks for violating anti money laundering / terrorist financing laws. Because they dont have those charters, its a gap in the regulatory system, Paypal gets to make their own AML/TF detections.. which apparently isn't working out that great since they seem to like freezing the assets of 2 whistleblower paypal accounts: Wikileaks & Cryptome. Total of 5 times. When you following AML/TF, you dont keep shutting down the same account after they've provided the proper documents. Unless your internal system is so coked up, you flag everything. Lets not rule out that this financial services company could also be going rogue. No one regulates the deposit accounts

[emmanuel goldstein]

11:10 PM on 12/14/2010

Ad hominem attacks are the refuge of a person with no other recourse..if that is all Assange's opponents have on him, he must be in the right...

[truthisneeded]

10:59 PM on 12/14/2010

wow

[emmanuel goldstein]

10:54 PM on 12/14/2010

The video opens with a Mastecrap commercial...priceless.

[Manny Peddy]

08:00 PM on 12/14/2010

"As a Mother, I am asking the world to stand up for my brave son"

At what cost? How many deaths, of US soldiers and informants and human rights activists? Is he a hero for potentially causing wars?

Wars have been started over far less.

[Acert]

09:18 PM on 12/14/2010

"How many deaths, of US soldiers and informants and human rights activists?"

=============================================================

The names of informants and dissidents are redacted. In fact, as a general rule, oppressive governments would like nothing more than to keep their crimes under wraps.

[Thabor]

09:58 PM on 12/14/2010

Yes, wars have even been started over complete lies.. But that is more the fault of the people who wanted to start those wars.

[Manny Peddy]

11:35 AM on 12/15/2010

Well no sense giving them fuel to start more wars, on purpose.

Horrible wars have been started based on less; do you remember the War of Jenkins Ear? Spain's Philip II's marriage proposal to Elizabeth I of England, which was declined? The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria? How about The Martinović affair, which helped to lead to a series of terrible conflicts in the Former Yugoslavian region?

[climbing panda]

07:39 PM on 12/14/2010

she forgot one descriptor: "alleged sex criminal"

[xilduq]

09:12 PM on 12/14/2010

what crimes have been alleged of you?

[Stimpson Cat]

10:47 PM on 12/14/2010

Innocent until proven guilty, right?

Take some time and read what was written on this subject before you spout out nonsense.

[climbing panda]

03:25 PM on 12/15/2010

which would be why i used the qualifier "alleged"