WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may be seeking political asylum in the UK’s Ecuadorian embassy, but the whistle-blowing organization has little intention of halting its activities any time soon.
“We’ve been starved of 95 per cent of our funds. Julian Assange is facing legal battles. We know that in July [a US] Secret Grand Jury will be trying to find angles of bringing cases against Julian and possibly other members of our organization,” WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson told Russia Today.
”People supporting Wikileaks have been harassed when they interview us, even US citizens. So it is hard to predict. [Still], I believe that despite everything we will look back at the accomplishments of Wikileaks, which are great.”
According to Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks will persist – despite an ongoing and systematic crackdown on whistleblowers in the US and other western democracies.
“An old [American] Espionage Act of 1917 is being used to haunt those who are blowing the whistle on illegalities and corruption, which is hurting the general public and costing the taxpayer a lot of money,” he explained.
“Let’s hope that Rupert Murdoch was right in early 1950s when he was an editor in Australia, where he wrote in an editorial that in the race between truth and secrecy the truth will always win.”
Hrafnsson also noted that the organization was working on coding an anonymous electronic drop-box which would allow supporters to submit information without being traced.
“Meanwhile, we’ve had information delivered to us and published anonymously on this very important channel for whistleblowers,” he added.
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks became household names in 2010 after the organization released hundreds of thousands of classified US documents, including a video that showed American forces firing at Iraqi civilians and journalists whom they had mistaken for armed insurgents.
