Bolivian President Evo Morales has condemned the arrest and detention of Julian Assange, who he said is being “persecuted” for revealing US “human rights violations, murders of civilians and diplomatic espionage.”

“We strongly condemn the detention of Julian Assange and the violation of freedom of speech,” Morales tweeted on Thursday.

The WikiLeaks founder was hauled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London by British police on Thursday morning, after nearly seven years of de-facto house arrest. Assange was found guilty of failing to appear at a 2012 bail hearing, and is also facing extradition to the United States on a charge of conspiracy to commit a cybercrime.

This charge relates to his publication of classified documents leaked by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. One of the largest such leaks in history, the document haul included more than 251,000 diplomatic cables, and material detailing alleged US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa – whose government granted Assange asylum in 2012 – branded his more pro-US successor Lenin Moreno the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian history” for rescinding the asylum claim and allowing British officers to enter his country’s embassy.

“This is unheard of. These actions cannot leave one not outraged,” he told RT Spanish. Correa believes that Moreno’s decision was motivated by meetings with top-level US officials, including US President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Vice President Mike Pence, and by “vengeance,” after WikiLeaks allegedly published documents implicating Moreno in a corruption investigation. WikiLeaks denies being behind the publication.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro became another leftist Latin American leader to condemn Assange’s arrest, calling it an “atrocious decision.”

The statement issued by Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry on behalf of Maduro calls Assange a victim of political persecution by the US whose “crime” was to “have revealed to the world the darkest and most criminal face of the ‘regime change wars’ that the American empire carries out, and in particular, the mass murder of civilians, and the blatant violations of human rights in Iraq.”

Commenting on the Australian’s arrest, Argentina’s former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner tweeted that while fake news dominates headlines, “those who reveal the truth are persecuted and imprisoned.”

In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed Assange’s arrest, telling parliament that it proves “no-one is above the law,” a statement later echoed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Shadow Home Secretary and Labour Party MP Dianne Abbott struck a different tone, however.

READ MORE: UK Prime Minister Theresa May ‘welcomes’ news of Assange’s arrest

“This is what Julian Assange and Wikileaks are ‘guilty’ of, exposing the murderous outcome of the US military assault on Iraq,” she tweeted. “States don’t have the right to kill willy-nilly. Whistleblowers do us all a service.”

While the May cabinet rejoiced at the news of the publisher’s arrest and potential extradition to the US, leader of the opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn argued that the UK should oppose the extradition request.

Assange remains in custody until his sentencing on May 2. Additionally, the US Justice Department has until June 12 to present its argument for extradition to British authorities. Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said that they intend to fight the extradition request.

Think your friends would be interested?

The co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has been denied entry to the US, where he had a speaking tour scheduled, despite having valid travel documents. This was done in Tel Aviv on US, not Israeli, orders.

Airline staff at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport informed Omar Barghouti on Wednesday as he prepared to board his flight to Washington that the US consulate had been ordered by US immigration authorities not to allow him to travel, even though he has a US visa valid through January 2021.

Barghouti was given no explanation for the US’ decision to bar him from the country beyond an “immigration matter,” according to the Arab American Institute, which had invited the activist to Washington, DC for a series of speaking engagements and classes. He had also scheduled events at Harvard University and New York University, meetings with “leading policy makers, thought-leaders and journalists,” and – before heading home – his daughter’s wedding.

The State Department refused to comment on the matter, telling NPR, “Visa records are confidential under US law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases.”

While Barghouti, who is a Palestinian and has permanent residency status in Israel, has had problems traveling in the past, Israeli authorities were always responsible, most recently in February when they refused to renew his travel documents until Amnesty International interceded with a demand that the country “end the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Omar Barghouti.” Aryeh Deri, the interior minister, has accused him of “using his resident status to travel all over the world in order to operate against Israel in the most serious manner.”

“It is clear this arbitrary political decision is motivated by this administration’s effort to silence Palestinian voices,” AAI President James Zogby said of the US’ move. “At a time when some members of Congress are advocating for regressive anti-BDS bills and resolutions, when states have passed legislation targeting the non-violent boycott movement in violation of our protected First Amendment rights, it is disturbing that policy makers and the American people will not have the opportunity to hear from Omar directly.”

More than half of US states have passed laws to economically sanction or otherwise penalize companies or individuals that boycott Israel, and federal legislation targeting BDS has even included attempts to criminalize such boycotts – a measure opponents slammed as profoundly unconstitutional as it failed to pass last year.

The BDS movement launched in 2005 as a nonviolent protest against Israel’s construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank, as well as its military occupation of the territory and other acts of violence and oppression against the Palestinians. Likening the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa, it uses many of the same tactics activists used to pressure that country into dropping its racist policies. Israel has accused the movement of seeking to “delegitimize” the country and recently barred the leaders of 20 US-based BDS-supporting organizations from entering Israel. The minister of transport, intelligence and foreign affairs has called on Israel to engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of the movement’s leaders.

Like this story?

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said the manner in which the UK government executed the arrest of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange is demeaning to human dignity, and his long-running persecution is a blow to journalism.

Commenting on the arrest and detention of the publisher in the UK on Thursday, the ministry’s spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, condemned the British authorities for manhandling the 47-year-old Assange as he was being hauled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

“The manner in which this operation was executed leaves a total impression of a flagrant and unconcealed neglect for the human dignity of the arrestee,” she said, adding that Moscow hopes all of Assange’s rights would be respected.

Zakharova pointed out that before his eventual arrest by the UK police, Assange had to endure years of persecution while forced to live in “unbearable conditions” at the embassy.

Assange has been a de facto prisoner at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, when he was granted asylum by then-president Rafael Correa. Correa’s former ally and successor, Lenin Moreno, has distanced himself from the leftist cause and taken on a more pro-American stance, repeatedly calling Assange a “nuisance” that he would like to get rid of.

During Moreno’s time in office, Ecuador placed various restrictions on Assange, cutting off his internet access and leaving him virtually incommunicado since March last year. Only his lawyers were allowed to visit him. In the meantime, it was reported that Assange’s health has been rapidly deteriorating since he was afraid of going to hospital out of fear of being arrested and extradited to the US.

“The persecution and harassment, the creation of inhumane conditions for his existence – this is sending freedom of speech and the right to spread information into oblivion. This is a blow to the rights of journalists. There can be no other assessment,” Zakharova said.

It has been speculated that the last drop that prompted Moreno to strip Assange of his protection and revoke his Ecuadorian citizenship was the release of documents that linked Moreno to a corruption case in Ecuador. The revelations were attributed to WikiLeaks, although the whistleblowing site denied involvement.

Assange has been held in custody for skipping bail in 2012 over a rape charge in Sweden that has since been dropped as well as in connection with the computer-hacking conspiracy charge in the US. Washington has until June 12 to justify his extradition to the US, where it is feared he might face charges for much more serious crimes that can land him in jail for up to 45 years.

Zakharova echoed the statement by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said earlier that Moscow hopes there would be no infringement on Assange’s rights.

Think your friends would be interested?

Ecuador’s interior minister has confirmed that a person who is alleged to have links to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been arrested as he attempted to take a flight to Japan. She also spoke of two ‘Russian hackers.’

Ecuador’s Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo said on Thursday that a man was taken into custody in one of the airports as he was about to board a plane to Japan. There is little official information about his identity or the reasons for his arrest, with Romo telling a local radio station the individual was arrested on Thursday afternoon for the purposes of investigation.

Shortly after Assange’s own arrest in London earlier that day, Romo hinted that the Ecuadorian government is about to unleash a crackdown on Assange’s supposed web of connections on Ecuadorian soil.

She claimed that a “key” member of WikiLeaks, who is also “close to Julian Assange,” has been a resident of Ecuador for several years and has engaged in malicious activity to undermine the government.

“We have sufficient evidence that he has been collaborating with destabilization attempts against the government,” Romo said. The minister claimed that the individual used to accompany the minister of foreign affairs in the Rafael Correa government, Ricardo Patino, on trips overseas.

“Along with Ricardo Patino, he has traveled twice last year to Peru and also to Spain,” she said, adding that the pair also took a trip to Venezuela in February this year one day apart.

While the Interior Ministry did not reveal the identity of Assange’s supposed helper, an anonymous official told AP that the arrested man was a Swedish software developer by the name of Ola Bini, a resident of Ecuador’s capital Quito.

Bini appears to run a Twitter account under his own name, which is full of re-posts of news developments surrounding Assange around the time of the publisher’s arrest. Bini also retweeted the news about Romo announcing that a person who is “part of WikiLeaks” is living in Ecuador. He described as “very worrisome” her remark that the information on the individual and the “two Russian hackers” might be soon handed over to prosecution. That was the account’s last tweet before going silent for 14 hours at the time of writing.

Bini also appears to have a blog in which he identifies himself as software developer for the Center for Digital Autonomy, a group specializing in privacy, cryptography and security. While his blog does not include any reference to WikiLeaks, a September 2013 blog entry touches on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and his explosive revelations. 

Prominent Indian journalist Vijay Prashad has launched a campaign on Twitter for the Ecuadorian government to free Bini. Prashad, the head of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, tweeted that Bini is innocent and known as a “celebrated open source advocate.” Prashad said that Bini does not speak Spanish and has been allowed no lawyers since he was arrested “without reason.”

His call was joined by Bini’s fellow members of the open source software community.

Think your friends would be interested?

Four people have been arrested and 40 questioned following a daring, multimillion-euro daylight heist on the runway at Tirana airport, in which one gang member was killed during a shootout with Albanian police.

An armed gang dressed in military fatigues stormed the runway at Tirana’s Mother Teresa Airport Tuesday and threatened baggage handlers before engaging in a firefight and subsequent high-speed chase with police. One gunman, identified as Admir Murataj, died during the exchange. He had been a wanted man since a 2013 prison break in Greece.  

Initial reports suggest €2.5 million ($2.8 million) was stolen but local media are claiming the figure could be as high as €10 million ($11mn). The money was due to be shipped via the Austria Airlines plane to Vienna as Albania’s central bank does not accept such large hard currency deposits from foreign banks operating in the country.

Police reportedly found the burned-out remains of three vehicles used in the heist at three separate locations. While passengers were on board the aircraft at the time of the robbery, no injuries were reported and the plane eventually took off after a three-hour delay.

“Boarding had just taken place. There was never any danger for crew and passengers,” Austrian Airlines spokesperson Tanja Gruber said in a statement.

Defense minister Olta Xhacka ordered a police and military security perimeter established around the airport while investigations are carried out, saying her government could “no longer allow the security of citizens and the country’s image to suffer” due to “persistent irresponsibility” in the airport’s security.

Hong Kong-based China Everbright runs the airport and has received criticism from Albanian MPs including Interior minister Sander Lleshaj who said that “security mechanisms, which are under the concessionary’s responsibility, have not functioned.”

“The airport does not belong to the Chinese. It belongs to all Albanians, it is part of Albania’s territory and by law it is protected by the state police,” China Everbright said in a statement

As a precautionary measure, cash transfers of this kind have been suspended between Tirana and Vienna for the time being.

Think your friends would be interested?

Journalists and whistleblowers have weighed in on the indictment brought by the US against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, calling the current password-cracking charge “weak,” but setting a dangerous precedent for press freedom.

A statement from the Department of Justice on Wednesday said Assange had been charged for engaging in a conspiracy to crack a password on a Department of Defense computer in order to release classified information. If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison.

READ MORE: Every charge against Julian Assange, explained

Fellow whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden said on Twitter that the “weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking” in that the allegation that Assange and Manning had “tried” to crack the password had been public knowledge for “nearly a decade,” and that the Obama administration’s DOJ had concluded that prosecuting Assange would pose a threat to press freedom.

US media reported on the attempt in 2011. It is not known whether Manning and Assange actually managed to crack the password in question, but the wording of the DOJ statement could suggest that their attempts were unsuccessful.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald also commented on the Obama-era decision, saying that Democrats who have spent two years “feigning concerns over press freedom” in relation to the Trump administration’s attacks on journalists, but who now support the Donald Trump DOJ’s indictment of Assange were “beneath contempt.”

Internet freedom activist Kim Dotcom also weighed in on the potential five-year prison sentence for trying to crack a password. “Is it still April Fool’s Day?” he tweeted, with the hashtag #FreeJulian.

In a further tweet, Dotcom said that the sentence was possibly a “tactic” to tempt Assange to consider swift extradition, but that more and heavier charges likely awaited. “DOJ may have a superseding indictment with more charges ready on arrival. I can tell you from experience DOJ is full of liars and tricksters,” he wrote.

Editor of the White House Watch website Dan Froomkin tweeted advice to journalists at mainstream news organizations, saying they should acknowledge that the indictment was a “ridiculous stretch” and was in relation to “the noblest of his leaks,” making it a “chilling” moment for journalism.

The indictment relates to 2010 releases of classified information on US war crimes in Iraq, including footage of a US Apache helicopter, which opened fire killing 12 people, including two Reuters reporters.

Ewen MacAskill, a defense and security correspondent for the Guardian, said that it would set a “terrible precedent” if a journalist or publisher could end up in a US jail for publishing Iraq war logs and US State Department cables.

Others, including former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou and Transparency Ireland founder John Devitt, also weighed in, saying that a fair trial for Assange in the US was nearly “impossible” to imagine.

Like this story?

Subscribe to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won’t tell you.

Israel’s private spacecraft Beresheet crashed into the Moon on Thursday after being hit with problems during descent, denying the Jewish state a place in the elite club of nations that mastered a lunar landing.

“Small country, big dreams,” the engraving on the spacecraft’s body read, but those dreams weren’t destined to come true.

Beresheet’s engine stopped working around 10 kilometers from the surface, with the vehicle crashing into the Moon at a speed of over 130 meters per second.

The blunder occurred on a live feed in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, who arrived at the control center for the occasion.

However, the space explorers didn’t seem shaken by the setback as they all chanted a solemn song to show that getting so close to the goal was an achievement in itself.

Netanyahu has already promised that an Israeli spacecraft will be back to the Moon in the next two or three years.

Beresheet, which is Hebrew for the biblical phrase “in the beginning,” could have also become the first private spacecraft to land on the Moon. It was constructed by Israeli nonprofit space venture SpaceIL and state-owned defense contractor Israel Aerospace Industries. The $100 million needed for the ambitious project came from private investors.

Only Russia, the US, and China have so far managed to perform controlled “soft” landings on the lunar surface.

Think your friends would be interested?

The prosecution – and persecution – of Julian Assange is meant to silence others who would speak out against abuses of power, WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson and Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson say, promising to fight back.

“This is a precedent… that effectively means that any journalist or media organization anywhere in the world can be extradited and prosecuted for having published truthful info about the United States, and that is, as a matter of principle, wrong and ought to be resisted. And we will be fighting it,” Robinson told RT.

“The message is not to Julian Assange. The message is to journalists all over the world that they should not step in the way of a superpower who wants to have all the power,” Hrafnsson agreed. While he is concerned about the “chilling effect” on journalists who now “have to face the possibility of being persecuted and thrown into a prison plane to be put on trial in the US,” he remains confident that “there will always be brave people to step forward and see the importance of getting information out.”

And WikiLeaks has set its own precedent, Hrafnsson pointed out. The Iraq and Afghanistan war leaks – “the largest leak in military history” – followed by the Cablegate release of State Department communications – “the largest leak in diplomatic history” – set a standard for those who came later, he said, citing the Panama Papers and Edward Snowden’s leaks as publications inspired by the WikiLeaks model.

Whatever attacks are mounted against Assange, “the work of WikiLeaks will continue,” Hrafnsson said. “It is not going anywhere.”

“He will take on the fight and fight for victory – and we will help him out.”

Like this story?

Former MI5 agent and whistleblower Annie Machon called the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “absolutely disgusting,” and an “egregious violation” of his rights.

Assange was dragged by British police from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday morning after his asylum right was axed. The arrest comes a day after WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson detailed an extensive spying campaign against Assange, and two weeks after WikiLeaks announced a corruption investigation against Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno.

“It’s almost like tit-for-tat,” Machon told RT. “This is an egregious violation of so many rights under international law.”

“It has been stated by the UN that his rights were being infringed,” she continued. “And then you have him being spied on all the time, including conversations with his lawyers which are supposed to be legally privileged, and conversations with his doctors, again supposed to be privileged.”

Meanwhile, former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa called his successor “the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history” for allowing British police to enter the country’s embassy and arrest Assange. Machon told RT that she hopes to hear similar condemnations from world leaders in the coming hours and days.

“We’ve seen time and time again how easy it is for the mainstream media to be controlled and manipulated from behind the scenes by the intelligence agencies and by governments,” she said.

“And that is precisely the model that Julian Assange tried to break. And he did it courageously and he did it knowing full well what he’d be facing.”

“For Britain and Ecuador, probably to just hand him over to the States for some incredibly harsh non-justice, is I think, absolutely disgusting.”

Think your friends would be interested?

Julian Assange has pleaded not guilty to failing to surrender to bail, in a court appearance following his arrest. The WikiLeaks founder was arrested by British police for the bail breach, and following a US extradition request.

Assange was charged with failing to surrender to custody in 2012, when he faced extradition to Sweden as part of a sexual assault investigation. Swedish authorities dropped the charges, but Assange was still arrested for breaching the conditions of his original bail.

Assange had remained under de-facto house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy since, fearing extradition to the United States. A US indictment alleges that Assange engaged in “conspiracy” with US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning in 2010, for his role in publishing a tranche of classified US military documents, some detailing alleged war crimes.

Although a secret warrant for his extradition was revealed last year, the US Justice Department officially charged Assange with conspiracy on Thursday. The WikiLeaks head is charged with “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer.”

Washington’s extradition request was central to Assange’s arrest, British Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed on Thursday. May welcomed Assange’s capture, declaring “no one is above the law.”

Emerging from the Embassy clutching a copy of Gore Vidal’s ‘The History of the National Security State,’ a frail and unkempt Assange nevertheless flashed reporters a thumbs-up as he was driven to Westminster Magistrates Court in a police van.

Should Assange be extradited to the US, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. However, that sentence could increase significantly should additional charges of espionage be tacked on.

Think your friends would be interested?