Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has claimed credit for the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
With the rest of the world praising social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook for mobilising thousands of protesters to overthrow authoritarian regimes, the blonde-haired Australian believes Wikileaks’s leaked US cables was also responsible.
He said the released cables showing former Tunisian president Ben Ali was corrupt gave the army ‘the confidence that they needed to attack the ruling political elite.’
Credit: Julian Assange pictured after his court appearance for extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, claims Wikileaks’ US cables were behind the revolutions
Speaking to SBS’s Dateline, he added the domino effect which spread to Egypt means he can also take credit for liberating 80million Egyptians from the 30 year rule by Hosni Mubarak, who resigned last week.
While the boss of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, has not come forward to take credit for his website’s role, which commentators has said played a major role and saw Egyptian authorities block access to, Assange appeared more than happy to accept praise.
He said: ‘There’s no doubt that Tunisia was the example for Egypt and Yemen and Jordan, and all the protests that have happened there.’
Egyptians celebrate President Mubarak’s resignation and the collapse of his authoritarian regime after 30 years in power
Assange is currently living in London on bail for extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault on two women.
He rose to fame after his website started publishing hundreds of thousands of secret cables from US embassies around the world.
Since the leaks started, his former media partners at the new York Times and London’s Guardian newspaper have turned on the man.
Egyptian protesters fill Tahrir Square in Cairo for 18 days in protest at the regime, before it finally toppled
They called him ‘a bag lady walking in off the street’ who ‘smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days’ and claim he refused to remove Afghan informants mentioned in Afghan war logs, allegedly saying they would ‘deserve it’ if they were killed as a result of the leaks – something Assange strongly denies.
He lawyer also said following his recent court hearing that on the sexual assault charge that: ‘Sexual encounters have their ups and downs, their ebbs and flows.
‘What may be unwanted one moment can with further empathy become desired. These complex human interactions are not criminal in this country.’
Protests over the weekend in Algeria: Mr Assange is also taking credit for the domino effect created by the Tunisian uprising in December
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange takes credit for Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions
Assange did not take credit for the Tunisian revolution. He said in fact “The actual revolution is always done by the people of the country, usually as a result of years and years of abuse and there’s no difference here. But it does seem to be the case that material that we published was significantly influential to what happened in Tunisia.” He then goes on to explain in detail how this happened. He absolutely did not say that he could take credit for the revolution in Egypt.
The full video can been seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bT7PWezoc0
Comment by Anonymous — March 31, 2011 @ 4:12 pm