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Screen shot of Dotun Adebayo, "Up All Night" host from BBC Radio 5 player
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief who was granted asylum by Ecuador, delivered a speech from a balcony on the embassy building on August 19. It was a speech where he expressed immense gratitude to Ecuador, Latin American countries, the Ecuador embassy staff, supporters who had demonstrated outside the embassy, his supporters all over the world, WikiLeaks staff and his family. The speech also called out the US government for waging a war on whistleblowers, which Assange urged the government to end now.
In the speech, Assange declared, “As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression, and the health of our societies.” The US has a choice: return to and reaffirm the “revolutionary values” it was founded upon or “lurch off” a “precipice” and drag us all into a “dangerous and oppressive world, in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark.”
I appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live last night to discuss the speech and why Ecuador granted Assange asylum. The host was Dotun Adebayo, a Nigerian-born British radio host who hosts the show, “Up All Night.”
Here is a link to the interview. A player should open. I am on for five minutes after seven minutes of headlines. So, drag the player to about the seven minute mark to hear the interview.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
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ADEBAYO: Kevin Gosztola, who joins us now, is the co-author of Truth & Consequences: The US vs. Bradley Manning. Kevin, is the most bizarre circumstance that you’ve seen Julian Assange being embroiled in?
GOSZTOLA: To speak to asylum? I mean, I believe that he’s defend himself and he’s engaged at going at a legal process of asylum because he genuinely believes he’s being politically persecuted.
ADEBAYO: I was thinking bizarre because there was this tiny makeshift balcony they had to prepare horridly and then speaking with all the echo almost an amateurish sound system in this very expensive part of London—How more bizarre do these things get involving Julian Assange?
GOSZTOLA: The whole story of Julian Assange has a bizarre quality to it and something surreal and unlike anything prior to history so I guess it just fits the whole storyline that you’d see him out there giving this speech in that way.
ADEBAYO: He’s very good at diverting attention away from the allegations against him and accusing the United States. It was proper j’accuse of Washington, wasn’t it? Would you get a reaction from the US government to what you heard today, do you think?
GOSZTOLA: I don’t think there was any reaction from the US government and they maintain that they are not involved in this and I think that there’s reason to be skeptical about that, given the fact that there is an open criminal investigation that is being pushed against him for the publication of WikiLeaks documents.
ADEBAYO: Oh, you think the US government are somehow involved in this?
GOSZTOLA: I think that they’d have to be privy to some sort of conversation—that they’ve gotten tips from the UK government or Sweden. And, actually there was The Age story yesterday from Australia showing the diplomatic communications between Australia and the United States, that in fact there is some discussion. Australia doesn’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Assange would be extradited to the United States eventually.
ADEBAYO: So, you believe in the conspiracy theories? It’s Julian Assange vs. The Free World!
GOSZTOLA: I believe that there could be a conspiracy. I believe that perhaps the United States is upset that their national security secrets, as they might call them, have been revealed to the world. I don’t know if it as epic as you put it there but I do think that Julian Assange has taken this position of speaking on behalf of all dissidents and whistleblowers, as he did on the stage today. And, really, talking about Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, and then having Craig Murray there from the UK and other people who are whistleblowers who have expressed some sort of sympathy for whatever he might be experiencing.
ADEBAYO: Let’s leave the Free World to one side then and talk specifically about Ecuador. What’s their role in all of this? Do you have any idea what game they’re playing? And why did they get themselves embroiled in all this?
GOSZTOLA: It’s a sovereign decision that they feel they are entitled to make and they’re definitely pushing their identity as a Latin American country and I believe that this letter they received that they decided to interpret as a threat is something that gave them wide opportunity to stick to granting asylum. And I think that they aren’t going to be pushed around by any other countries and that was part of the decision but then there’s also a genuine aspect to it, that talking to Assange they believed a lot of what was being told to them.
ADEBAYO: But what benefit is there to them—to assist Julian Assange, to give asylum to him in their embassy in the way they’re doing?
GOSZTOLA: Well, if you think about it geopolitically, if you think of the Latin American countries that are rising in power who don’t want, as they would put it, the Western democracies to push them around anymore, then they are suggesting to the world that they have the ability to grant asylum to people who are seeking it and they’re not going to let the United States or the United Kingdom or any of these European countries tell them what they can and can’t do.
HOST: Kevin, I appreciate you talking to us. Thanks very much.
24 Comments
What a condescending little putz, this Adebayo.
You beat me to it Dan, the “Free World” ?
Just went in and cleaned out spam so—FYI—any comments that did not make it on to posts previously and should have are cleared. Anyone who left a comment and did not see it should see their comment now.
Oh, and, apparently the spam filter didn’t let this gem of a comment from Tbogg through:
‘The Free World’, eh…? I wonder if Adebayo will cover the illegal detention of Brandon Raub…? 8-(
Could you elaborate on the context and possible meaning of Tbogg’s comment? I feel like I missed something. Thanks for your excellent work.
Adebayo auditioning for Fox? Never heard a BBC Radio host so condescending.
To the PTB, this is outrageous. The self proclaimed morality crusader, Amerika, is being accused, successfully, of political prosecution by virtue of some little peon granting protection to someone from THEM!
Oooh that’s gotta’ sting!
That doesn’t sound like the real TBogg — for one thing, the real TBogg was the first guy to notice just how much the accusations against Assange resembled the rape frame-up against the crusading male journalist hero of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Wow, Kevin — could Adebayo have been any more condescending? I congratulate you for keeping your cool under obvious efforts to bait you into losing it.
The fact that you didn’t let him knock you off-track really seems to have bothered him; for a moment there you may have got him to doubt the official narrative.
Either he’s just a jerk or he’s a jerk and didn’t do his homework.
This post could also, quite arguably from a fundamental fairness posture, be encaptioned:
Does EVERY criminal rape suspect get the dodge so plaintively sought for Assange, or is that just a carved out self serving rule for one man under law?
Is there the rule of law, or the rule of man? A question commonly asked on the pages of FDL for years and years, yet conveniently disregarded for this one individual man. If his name was Lloyd Balnkfein you would be screaming bloody murder. But because it is the pet Assange, it is all suddenly hunk dory.
Go figure.
Go figure…
All we know for certain is that there is no rule of law by bmaz, even though he has divined all evidence from afar and given his infallible legal verdict, which is always — always — that bmaz is a frightened man with a big mouth in service to his drunken vow of petty vendettas against all those whose personal style he disapproves of. There can be no justice in bmaz’s corrupt vision of the purpose and meaning of “the law.” I am annoyed by your reckless and prejudiced bombast.
thanks for that public service.
Bmaz is going to need lots of bactine to treat those wounds you inflicted.
According to one of the Stratfor emails in the batch that Wikileaks received, a US grand jury has already issued a secret, sealed indictment against Assange–about a year and a half ago. If that’s so, it’s not a question of whether there are actors behind the scenes who might be trying to grab Assange, using the extradition to Sweden as their opportunity–it’s a fact, and has been for some time. This needs to better publicized. The article on this, is at http://wikileaks.org/Stratfor-Emails-US-Has-Issued.html. This shows that Assange has been seeking asylum not from the charges in Sweden, but because he’s known for some time about the sealed US indictment. The fact that few people know about this is testament to the effectiveness of the campaign against Assange.
But what benefit is there to them—to assist Julian Assange, to give asylum to him in their embassy in the way they’re doing?
Thinking of it “geopolitically” would seem to suggest one MUST think of it in terms of the great powers, but the rationale for asylum by Ecuador might have to do with Ecuadorian political concerns … with the present government wanting to democratize the media (which the powers immediately mis-characterize as attacks on press freedom)… something it seems Wikileaks also has sought to do… many in Ecuador feel an affinity with Assange. And/or it could be a simple matter of Roman Catholic moral teachings… we forget that President Correa was a lay brother, and like most Latin American leaders (even the militantly non-Catholic ones) believes in the right of asylum, and finds states with a death penalty repugnant. And, anyway, Latin American nations in general have a history of accepting political refugees without much interest in their political beliefs.
It seems that the persecution of Assange and Wikileaks may have backfired, causing the USA much embarrassment. Of course, our government is secure in its fascism and is probably content to wait patiently until the public interest wanes and they can grab Assange at their leisure.
This is a solid point to raise when people are sneering and suggest Ecuador is “playing games.”
There won’t be any big movements on the part of the US government to bring in Assange until Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings come to a conclusion.
No this hack is not auditioning for FOX..this is common of the manufactured ideological tone and low level of information anyone encounters on this subject in the UK…i think Greenwalds going to the Gaurdian was done as an act of mercy for readers in the UK.
He’s been given the actual evidence over and over again, but — just as with Trayvon Martin and Bradley Manning — he refuses to acknowledge it.
Read this, then apologize to Kevin. If you’re honest and courageous enough.
“His balcony was horridly put together! He MUST be guilty!”
What a condescending dickwad fronting for the Corporate Class. I bet Tina Brown will have him writing cover stories for Newsweek in no time.