Article: Asylum for Julian Assange -- Former Awardee for Integrity

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(for Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence)

Holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum sits Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, who has been responsible for spreading more truth around than any single journalist in recent memory. This, basically, is why he has been labeled all manner of things, including a terrorist, by several senior U.S. officials and others with acute allergies to the ground truth revealed in the WikiLeaks disclosures.

And that, basically, is why the U.S. government has been lusting to get its hands on Assange and prosecute him, stretching the provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917 well beyond its breaking point. Assange faced imminent extradition from the U.K. to Sweden and, he feared (with ample justification), on to the U.S. to face the tender mercies of what has become of American justice. Ecuador has given him sanctuary, pending a decision on his request for asylum.

Not many are aware (because the corporate media, for some reason, missed it) that at a large press conference in London on October 15, 2010, Daniel Ellsberg presented Julian Assange with the 8th annual Award for Integrity from The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). Last year's award was given, ex aequo, to former NSA official Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project.

On Sunday, June 24, 2012, Sam Adams Associates delivered to the embassy of Ecuador in Washington a letter to the Hon. Nathalie Cely Suarez, Ambassadress of Ecuador to the United States, conveying an appeal to her government to approve Julian Assange's request for political asylum.

The letter is posted below, together with the texts of the following enclosures:

-The citation for the October 15, 2012 Integrity Award to Julian Assange;

-An Information Sheet about Sam Adams Associates (including a list of annual recipients);

-WikiLeaks and 9/11: What If? Op-ed in Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2010 (published just eight days before Assange received the SAAII award).

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Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence

June 24, 2010
Hon. Nathalie Cely Suarez
Ambassadress of Ecuador to the United States of America

Dear Ms. Ambassadress:

This is an urgent request from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) that the government of Ecuador grant political asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

By publishing on the WikiLeaks Website key material normally hidden from public view, Julian Assange has contributed immeasurably to real history at this time of unprecedented government secrecy and hunts after those who dare spread truth around. As you are no doubt aware, much good has come from WikiLeaks disclosures. The benefits run from the light they shine on manipulation of media, police, and intelligence forces and the atrocities of war, to the inspiration that helped catalyze the Arab spring in Tunisia and Egypt.

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