By Cassandra Fairbanks
March 27, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" - It
was meant to be a routine visit by a
journalist to another journalist. Instead, I
found myself locked in a cold, surveilled
room for over an hour by Ecuadorian
officials, as a furious argument raged
between the country’s ambassador and Julian
Assange on Monday.
The room was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
in London, where 2019 Nobel Peace Prize
nominee Julian Assange currently lives under
the ostensible protection of political
asylum. Yet the WikiLeaks publisher was
barred from entering the room, where he was
supposed to join me for a pre-approved
meeting, because he refused to submit to a
full-body search and continuous
surveillance.
In the fireworks that followed, Assange accused the ambassador of being an agent of the United States government.
The crackdown on visitors was felt before I even entered the embassy. It’s the third time I’ve visited in the past year, and each time the atmosphere seems progressively worse.
Just like my previous visit, since new rules for visitors were enacted, I couldn’t take my phone into the meeting without giving the Ecuadorian officials a swathe of data. If you want to take it in with you, they request its brand, model, serial number, IMEI number, and telephone number. I was also advised that Ecuador could not be trusted to hold my phone while I met with Assange, so I left it behind and walked to the embassy phoneless, several minutes early to make sure I was on time.
When I arrived, embassy staff checked my passport and letter of approval and pointed at the time on the letter. I was six minutes early. Instead of allowing me to wait inside, they told me to come back at the appropriate time — despite knowing that I did not have a phone or watch on me.
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