Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, and his standoff with British authorities is going to last at least a little while longer yet. Assange, of course, only wants to talk about the United States and the many politicians who want his head for WikiLeaks, and it’s unsurprising that he’s worried about ever getting extradited to the U.S., where he could face espionage charges (and thus the death penalty). But British authorities, at least officially, are mostly concerned with sending a man accused of sexual assault — however much of a web hero he may be —to Sweden to face charges.With Assange locked in the Ecuadorian embassy, where British authorities are forced to twiddle their thumbs outside, has turned the whole debacle into some sort of dark spy comedy. Our friends over at Vice UK paid the embassy a visit to check out Assange speaking from a balcony at the embassy, just feet from British grasp, and wrapped it all into the video above. He kind of sounds like a man with a broken heart, no? Or, as Vice UK noted, some sort of reverse Romeo for Guy Fawkes masks? From an accompanying blog post:In an effort to pressure the Ecuadorians into not granting him asylum, last Wednesday the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office threatened to storm the embassy and seize Assange, citing the 1987 Consular Premises Act as justification. This sparked worldwide outrage – the precedent set by that could have thrown the sovereignty of every other embassy in Britain into doubt. But in the end the British authorities didn’t follow through with their threat and the next day Ecuador announced it would let Assange bunk down indefinitely.
Yesterday, Assange stepped into the sunlight for the first time in two months to deliver a speech to those gathered outside the embassy in London’s West End. The world’s press were in attendance, outnumbering even the police who were there in ludicrous numbers to contain the 50-100 supporters penned into the “free speech zone”.Click through for a few photos from the street, and ponder this: At what point does Assange run out of options? Does he attempt to make his great escape by tunneling out of the embassy? Will he live in the Ecuadorian embassy forever? And who’s going to play him in the movie?Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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