WikiLeaks Supporters Protest Assange Arrest

More than 100 demonstrators gathered outside the British Embassy in Madrid late Saturday to protest the detention of the founder of secret-spilling website WikiLeaks and the closing of the site's Swiss bank account.

The Spanish-language website Free WikiLeaks said protests were scheduled to be held in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville and at least three other Spanish cities.

Protesters held placards saying "Free Julian Assange" and "Truth Now," and chanted "freedom of speech."

The website also said demonstrations were planned Saturday in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in the capital cities of Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Peru, as well as in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"We seek the liberation of Julian Assange in United Kingdom territory," the organization said on the website. It urged protesters to gather at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT) in Spanish cities.

Assange remains in a British jail awaiting a hearing Dec. 14 at which he plans to fight Sweden's request to extradite him to face sex crimes allegations there.

One of his lawyers denied media reports that Assange was being held in isolation at Wandsworth Prison in London.

"He told me he had single cell," Mark Stephens said. "He has the ability to watch TV with other prisoners - which he doesn't do because he hates daytime telly. He takes his meals with other prisoners."

Stephens said lawyers met with Assange at the prison for an hour Thursday to prepare for next week's hearing.

The Free WikiLeaks website also calls for "the re-establishment of the WikiLeaks (wikileaks.org) Internet domain," and the restoration of Visa and MasterCard credit card services to enable the "freedom to move money" because no one has "proved Assange's guilt," or charged WikiLeaks with any crime.

Many U.S.-based Internet companies have cut their ties to WikiLeaks, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and EveryDNS.

Those moves have hurt WikiLeaks' ability to accept donations and support publishing efforts.

On Friday thousands in Australia protested the treatment of Assange by their government and by the U.S.

CBS News' Ali Donaldson reports the government is standing by its view that the Wikileaks site is probably illegal. Supporters of Assange say the government has not done enough to protect an Australian citizen from persecution.

Organizer Antony Lowenstein called the Australian government's behavior "utterly outrageous."

The group has also raised money to buy full-page ads in The New York Times and Washington Times.

Sam McLean of Get Up said, "We're sending a message to President Obama and attorney general, that we want America to stand up for our shared beliefs, in presumption of innocence and freedom of information."

Police were told to expect 200 people at a rally in Sidney; within 24 hours 1,200 showed up.

[noloyalisti]

Assange is just the news that we used to have before the filthy rich economic terrorists took over. The army guy Brad Manning is the real hero, the current version of Daniel Ellsberg who was also called a traitor by the then government terrorists in the Nixon administration.

As for Assange, thank god for the messenger. We all owe him for out freedoms. Hard to believe that ANYONE would be against the truth coming out but then you have the entire Republican Party of anti-constitutionalists.

[banders6]

People keep saying hang him, shoot him or anything to put him under, but he is only the messenger, who should be put under is our fed gov for letting these leaks happen. It sounds like the fed wants him to be the person to deside to let the info out or to hold it from the press. Would you really trust any news outlet to hold any info. The man should be a hero to wake up the fed, this is not the 1800s with the info under the mattress, our fed is responsible and anyone that touched this should be put under.

[noloyalisti]

Manning and Assange are heros and if anything should happen to them they will be martyrs. These are EXACTLY the kind of people we need since the giant corporations took over and exude propaganda through their corporate channels and the US government they bought.

[infantryman1968]

WikiLeaks Supporters Protest Assange Arrest

LOL!

News flash for all of the cyber socialist out there, if you let the self made Messiah's like Assange go free, someday the Americans will be liberating you from him.

[nor-one]

infantryman1968- How's that liberation thing going for you lately??? Before you start "liberating" any more people you should stop and lick your wounds from your last three attempts.

[lawmoment]

Dear Editor,

You start your report from Madrid with "More than 100 demonstrators gathered outside the British Embassy..." I'm afraid this might give the impression to your readers that there were only a handful of protestors which is of course far from the facts on the ground.

I was also reporting the event last night for Demtix.com* and I was surprised by the number of people who turned up for this type of demo.

Because of the lighting conditions, this was mid evening, it was not practical for me to take photos of the general view of the crowd, but I would put the starting number of 200 people and would hazard a guess that at the height of the protest there might well have been 500 people if not more.

From my experience reporting such events in Madrid, once we consider the nature of the protest, and that this was Madrid in the evening on Saturday, I would say that the turn out was very good.

I suspect that the police did not expect a large turnout either since they only had one van (carrying a crowd control squad) and a handful of local police. However, a second van did turn up when the demo was gate crashed by a few members from another unrelated organisation.

Considering that in Torre Espacio there are four embassies, the number of police at the site suggested to me that they did not expect any trouble and none took place.

One of the organisers told me that people in Spain are not yet "into" the Wikileaks issue, however, he was pleased with the turnout.

Thank you for letting me give additional information from Madrid on this story.

Yours sincerely

Lawrence JC Baron (Lawmoment - photojournalist)

*Free Assange Protest, Madrid
http://www.demotix.com/news/534878/free-assange-protest-madrid

Profile - Lawmoment at Demotix
http://www.demotix.com/users/lawmoment/profile#comment-46

[Jardielp]

To say that "people in Spain are not yet into the Wikileaks issue " is outreageous and a distortion of the facts. Sice the Wikileaks affair exploded; El Pais, the newapaper with the widest circulation in Spain has devoted the largest headings of its daily issues to publish the cables in question. If the protesters did not manage to gather a sinificant crowd (something quite easy for gregarious madrilenos) it was not because they were "not yet into the Wikileaks issue" but because they did not consider it worthwhile.

[lawmoment]

Hi Jardielp,

I totally agree with you that the El Pais is doing a great job with the Wikileaks story - it is exciting to be in a country with a newspaper leading the story. Of course not everyone get their news from the El Pais, and many just follow the TV news. And yes it outrageous to suggest that the demonstration was not well attended. And when I said "people in Spain are not yet into the Wikileaks issue " I was reporting what I was told. As for the demo itself, as I said, I was surprised by how many people did turn up.

I am very interested in the reaction of people in general here but so far I cannot describe what I see as "enthusiastic" or "concerned". Indeed the person I spoke to during the demo did give me the impression that he was concerned that people " did not consider it worthwhile." But this was more a case how things appear now as opposed to how things will be in the future.

But of course I also don't believe that all this can be interpreted as hostility or indifference by Spanish people towards Wikileaks or Assange or anything of the sort.

As we both know Spanish people have a good track record of supporting the underdog. It is just that there isn't a sense of urgency one might find in certain other countries.

But you're right to point out issues that might need further clarification in my earlier comments and the situation here in Spain,


best

Lawrence

[HollyW79]

Maybe the protests have to do with the Wikileaks cables about the CIA's experiments with Las Vegas comedian Carrot Top! http://www.thedailyrash.com/?p=3245

[kirankroy]

Most of the bloggers here don't have a clue about what is happening in the world around them. Realize this...
1. The US govt is the Nazis (in cases of rights abuse here and around the world) of the modern age.
2. We elect fools and puppets to rule over us. When will you realize that both the Dems and Reps are both working TOGETHER, for themselves?
3. It is sad that a majority of Americans can't see that we are the main cause of all the problems of the world.
I humbly ask that each oof you listen to DemocracyNow, Al Jazeera-English and professionals that the modern media avoids (ratings purpose). We seem to be more concerned with whats happening on Jersey Shore than in our govt. Sad but true.


***GET FREE FROM THE SYSTEM***

[PageWriter]

2010 has been quite a year for the First-Amendment: what it means (Christine O'Donnell); what it entails (depending whether it's the politically correct left or the indomitable right); and, who can or cannot exercise these freedoms.
Wiki Leaks, as far as anybody has reported (even Hillary Clinton), they did not expose any national secrets--just embarrassment. And, at least Assange really means it when he says "Change," unlike Obama and his handlers.
He is a whistle-blower who has angered everybody, it seems, not for some integral reason, but because now the government (ours, others) will have to be accountable for its actions, for a change!
It's interesting to see the intolerance of the governments that he's offended. That's a measure of the strength of his truths and a sure sign that the status quo can no longer lie to hoi polloi.

[Jardielp]

Why is it that Spaniards always jump at the first opportunity to critizise the USA? Are they still sore because of what happened in 1898? Are there still many Franco cryptonazis desguised as left-wingers or is it just sheer envy?

[Harden_Tar]

Gee a whole 100 people. Impressive demonstration of Euro-Socialist might. Bite me.

[PVperson2]

"Even FOX NEWS agrees the charges are false and unwarranted!", well of course, Fox the propaganda network celebrates ANYTHING that makes Obama look bad, even at the expense of our countries National Security.