Ecuador Restricts Assange/Wikileaks’ Internet Access

Candidly, I will never understand what motivated Ecuador to grant Julian Assnage asylum in its embassy in London.  The man is after all up on rape charges in his home country of Sweden.  If innocent as claimed, he needs to return and face trial and acquittal.  Putting that issue aside, Ecuador seems to have had enough of Assange's efforts working with the Russian government and Russian military intelligence services to disrupt America's presidential election and has cut off Assange's Internet access and crippled Wikileaks' ability to aid Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's efforts to undermine American democracy.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Ecuador's long over due action.  Here are excerpts:

QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador’s government acknowledged on Tuesday that it had “temporarily restricted” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published documents from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaig.

A foreign ministry statement said that while it stands by its decision in 2012 to grant Assange asylum, it doesn’t interfere in foreign elections. Leftist President Rafael Correa’s government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures.

The ministry didn’t specify the extent of the restrictions on Assange’s access to the internet, saying only that the limitations wouldn’t affect WikiLeaks’ ability to carry out its journalistic activities.

The announcement confirmed Wikileaks’ claim that Ecuador was behind the cut-off but disputed its assertion that the decision was made because of U.S. pressure.

The State Department denied the allegation.

“While our concerns about Wikileaks are longstanding, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the State Department were involved in shutting down Wikileaks is false,” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an email. Speaking to reporters later, deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry never even raised the issue or met with Correa during his visit to Colombia.

Assange has been holed up at the modest embassy suite at No. 3 Hans Crescent for more than four years after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations, a position which — until now — hasn’t prevented him from continuing to play a pivotal role in exposing state secrets and backroom trade deals.

Assange fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy on June 19, 2012, after a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to being sent to Sweden, where he remains wanted over an allegation of rape. Ecuador granted him asylum, but British authorities have made clear they would arrest him if he tried to leave. London’s Metropolitan Police used to maintain a visible presence outside the building, although officers were nowhere in sight when an AP journalist visited on Tuesday.

Marc Becker, a professor of Latin American history at Truman State University in Missouri, said that while Clinton had successfully pulled Correa into her orbit during her tenure as secretary of state, he doubted Ecuador had merely bowed to U.S. pressure. He ventured that Correa’s government opposes the idea of interfering in another country’s affairs “and doesn’t appreciate their guests using their resources to that end.”

Ecuador needs to boot Assange from its embassy and allow him to face trial in Sweden.

Richmond Area Minister Gets 3 Years for Sexual Relationships with Teen Girls

Once again we see a minister from a far right fundamentalist denomination going to jail for sex offenses against minors.  I'm not saying that "liberal" denominations don't have some bad apples, but it seems that a disproportionate number of the sexual predators in ministry come from conservative denominations that are utterly obsessed with policing people's sex lives.  A case in point: Troy A. Mitten, a youth minister at Trinity Assembly of God in Chesterfield County, Virginia.  The Richmond Times Dispatch has the tawdry and all too common details (note how he preyed on the most vulnerable - just like many a Catholic priest - and Southern Baptist pastor):

As a talented and engaging youth minister for Trinity Assembly of God in Chesterfield County, Troy A. Mitten had a gift when it came to nurturing the spiritual and emotional needs of the church’s young set.

“The congregation loved and respected him,” said the Rev. Quarles Lowell, the former lead pastor of the defunct church that met at 233 N. Courthouse Road.

But unbeknownst to many, Mitten had a salacious side that a prosecutor described as “not overtly sexual.” He used his exceptional skills as a youth leader and mentor to subtly prey on at least three of the church’s young teenage girls in the 1990s.

Nearly two decades later, Mitten, 53, on Thursday was sentenced to 10 years in prison with seven suspended for taking indecent liberties with two teenage parishioners beginning when they were 14.

In sentencing Mitten, Judge Frederick G. Rockwell III said the pastor used the power of his position to sexually exploit the girls. And he could not escape punishment despite all his positive ministerial work.

Both victims, now 32 and 35, testified about their yearslong ordeal and how the man they once loved as a father figure and spiritual counselor had betrayed them. The sexual contact began after Mitten gained their trust and affection.

One of the women bluntly described Mitten as a “patient predator.” 

“He patiently waited for me to trust him” before initiating sexual contact, she said. The other victim, who was similarly groomed for a sexual relationship, said, “I wanted a dad, I wanted to be loved, and I wanted a family.”

The attention, however, eventually progressed to rubbing and touching, which the girls initially discounted. Mitten began talking to them about sex and sexuality as they grew older, and that developed into inappropriate touching and various sex acts in a Wendy’s parking lot and on bike rides into the woods.