Mother of Wikilieaks founder Julian Assange speaks to Australian media, defends her son
BRISBANE, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: Christine Assange, the mother of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, spoke out in defence of her son on Friday. “It’s a worry of course. I am no different to any other mother, you know. Every time the news goes on I am glued to it. Is he ok? And these massive forces have decided they are going to stop them, and they are not going to play by the rules,” she told Australia’s Seven Network.
Julian Assange was detained in the UK earlier this week and is waiting news as to whether he will be extradited to Sweden in relation to a number of sex crime allegations made against him in that country. Christine said she was shocked upon hearing the charges and is adamant her son is innocent.
“He’s been charged with rape. What do you think? Julian, rape? Straight out of my guts, no way. Julian would not rape,” she said.
Her son is also facing the possibility of being extradited to the United States for leaking communications between diplomats that he made public on the WikiLeaks website.
“He’s brave. A lot of people would not be able to withstand the pressure that he is under. It’s very hard for him actually because he’s being hunted constantly,” she said.
Christine said she was disappointed Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is not defending her son.
“Julia’s just gone straight in there, full boar and accused him of being a criminal, and I think, well, hang on a minute this is one of your citizens here. You shouldn’t be leading the charge,” she said.
Christine said her son was aware of the support he is getting from people around the world.
“He’s very heartened by the world-wide response from just ordinary people,” said Christine adding her son published the information for the benefit of freedom of speech.
“Don’t take your freedoms for granted or you’ll lose them. They were hard fought for. People lost their lives, over and over again and if we don’t protect them, we’ll lose them, and next time it could be your son, or your daughter,” she said.
The WikiLeaks website was shut down after apparent political pressure on service providers, but WikiLeaks said are now 750 global mirror sites which keeps the data released so far publicly available.-Reuters
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