Ecuador Asks Julian Assange To Clean His Bathroom, Take Care Of His Cat If He Wants To Use Their Internet
The Ecuadorian embassy housing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has laid out a new set of rules he must follow to be able to use the internet, including cleaning his bathroom, avoiding contentious politics, and taking care of his pet cat, according to ABC News.
The nine-page memo published on Ecuadorian website Codigo Vidrio revealed that Assange had been “interfering in the internal affairs of other states” or from activities “that could prejudice Ecuador’s good relations with other states.”
The memo even went as far as to threaten to take Assange’s cat to an animal shelter unless he started looking after it.
Assange has been held up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since being granted asylum in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face alleged rape and molestation charges. Assange denied those allegations, calling them “without basis.”
Assange won some key legal battles in 2016, like a UN panel deciding that he would be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty” in February 2016.
Even after Sweden announced a few of the charges had been dropped, Assange stayed at the embassy, although he did announce he’d soon be leaving, making sure to stress it was “probably not” for the reasons reported in the UK press, however.
Embassy tells Julian Assange to clean his bathroom and take better care of his cat ? https://t.co/0JmJMQTmlv
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) October 16, 2018
Assange has his internet cut back in March to prevent him from interfering with other countries from within the embassy.
“Ecuador’s government warns that Assange’s behavior through his social media messages puts in risk the good relationship the country has with the UK, other EU countries and other nations,” read Ecuador’s statement on the matter.
According to recent reports, however, Assange is set to be back on the web soon.
It’s unclear if Assange has actually agreed to follow these rules set for him, but he probably should if he knows what’s best for him.
Tensions between him and the embassy have been ever growing since his arrival, most recently compounded by Assange’s vocal support of Catalonian secessionists in Spain.
In late July 2018, England and Ecuador began talks on what to do with Assange, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the saga.
Jose Valencia, Ecuador’s foreign minister, said in an interview with Ecuador’s El Universo newspaper that the case was “complex” but needed to be solved.
“It is impossible to establish a deadline, but we hope to be solved as soon as possible,” Valencia added. “Six years for a person to be inside a building with offices, which doesn’t have the proper conditions for accommodation, is very difficult, and of course, our embassy works there, so it’s also complex for them.”
