Wikileaks #39; Julian Assange speaks two years on - Truthloader
Wikileaks #39; Julian Assange has given a telephone press conference from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, to mark two years since he first sought asylum there. Assange used the conference to...

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Wikileaks' Julian Assange speaks two years on - Truthloader - Video

WikiLeaks marks two year anniversary of Assange #39;s imprisonment
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for two years. The Latin American country originally granted Assange asylum in June 2012, and has not left the...

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WikiLeaks marks two year anniversary of Assange's imprisonment - Video

WikiLeaks will continue to expose secrets despite gov. persecution
WikiLeaks has grown stronger over the last two years despite attempts by the US government to build a legal case against the organization and founder Julian Assange, according to WikiLeaks...

By: RT America

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WikiLeaks will continue to expose secrets despite gov. persecution - Video

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appeared via Skype at the SXSW Interactive festival earlier this year. Daniel Terdiman/CNET

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange marked the second year to the day on Thursday as an occupant of the Ecuadorian embassy at 3 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, London.

Assange, whose Wikileaks site has published more than 8 million anonymously leaked documents since 2006, took the opportunity with his US- and UK-based lawyers to speak to the press on a conference call from the embassy about his legal struggles with the US, UK, and Swedish governments.

The 42-year-old Australian native railed against the four-year-long US criminal investigation of Wikileaks, claiming that it's the largest Department of Justice investigation of a publisher since the passage of the Espionage Act of 1917.

"It is against the stated principles of the United States and the values supported by its people to have a four-year pre-law investigation against a publisher," Assange said. "It is not correct for [US Attorney General] Eric Holder and the DOJ to use weasel words for stating that they will not prosecute a reporter for reporting."

Assange said that by investigating Wikileaks, the US government wants to create a schism between national security reporters and "those reporters who report the details of a press conference."

"I call on Eric Holder today to immediately drop the national security investigation against Wikileaks," he said.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment. Despite allegations, Assange has not been charged with a crime by authorities in the US or UK related to espionage, or by the Swedish authorities seeking his extradition over rape allegations.

Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy on June 19, 2012, seeking political asylum from a British court order to extradite him to Sweden over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women there. Assange's attorneys stressed that since then they have been willing to have Assange interviewed over the phone or by video conference, but that Swedish officials refuse to meet with him except on Swedish soil.

"If he goes to Sweden it will likely be a one-way ticket to the United States," said Michael Ratner, the US-based attorney for Assange and Wikileaks. Assange receives support from and is a trustee of the Courage Foundation, which also provides legal and financial support to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower. Assange says he assisted Snowden when communicating from Hong Kong.

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Wikileaks' Julian Assange: I'm still here

Julian Assange.

Today marks the second anniversary of Assange entering the diplomatic mission to seek political asylum, which he was granted in mid-August 2012.

WikiLeaks legal adviser Jen Robinson used the anniversary to announce a new bid to get Sweden to drop its four-year investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Assange.

Next Tuesday lawyers in Stockholm will file a challenge to a Swedish detention order "on the basis that new information has been received about the case", Ms Robinson told reporters during a phone conference.

She noted that since the UK courts agreed to extradite Assange the British law had changed "to prevent people being extradited without charge".

Assange fears if he goes to Sweden he'll be extradited to the United States and charged over WikiLeaks' release of classified documents.

The 42-year-old says even if the Swedish warrant was dismissed he still risks being extradited from Britain to the US.

"However, the removal of the Swedish matter will prevent what has been an extremely distracting political attack, which has been to try and draw attention away from what is the largest ever criminal investigation by the (US) Department of Justice into a publisher, and into me, personally," Assange said on Wednesday.

Removing Sweden from the equation would make it easier to find out if the British government supported his extradition to the US, the former computer hacker said.

This time last year Assange launched a blistering attack on the Gillard government in Australia saying it "bent over more than any other country in the world" to appease the US.

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Assange marks two years in London embassy

It's been two years since the founder of WikiLeaks committed himself to an indefinite sentence inside the Ecuadorian embassy. And he shows no sign of giving himself parole. The statue of limitations on the sexual offences case in Sweden, from Assange is a fugitive, expires in August 2020, so he may yet have another six years at least to serve there. But how does the Australian campaigner keep from going stir-crazy?

MORNING Assange workd 17-hour days and has always been a night owl, keeping "hackers' hours" of late night nights and sleeping in. He is a light sleeper, and the location of the embassy in the heart of Kensington has been a problem for him. Harrods is close by 3 Hans Crescent and the early morning deliveries played havoc with his sleep.

"I couldnt sleep because of the Harrods loading bay and the cops always doing shift changes outside," Assange told the Australian magazine Who.

"And the quietest room is the womens bathroom, the only room thats easy to sleep in. So I thought Id try and somehow get hold of it and renovate it. Eventually, somewhat reluctantly, the staff relented. They ripped out the toilet. Theyve been very generous."

THE DAY'S PROJECTS Assange's converted bathroom-office has modest living quarters, with a bed, a small kitchenette, a computer with internet connections and a shower. On the wall is reportedly a picture of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, mocked up to look like Shephard Faireys Barack Obama Hope poster.

Author Andrew O'Hagan, Assange's ex-ghost writer, wrote in his marathon essay for the London Review of Books that Assange is not a tidy house guest, but the debris around his workspace is often mainly the litany of gifts sent by supporters. "When I first went to see him he was in a corner room at the back of the embassy, surrounded by hampers from Harrods across the way well-wishers presents to the incarcerated and sitting at a grubby desk covered in snacks and papers," O'Hagan wrote. He was later moved to a new, bigger room "but standard-issue, messy, depressing, smelling of laborious boring hours".

Assange has multiple mobile phones and laptops, and a continuously whirring shredder that destroys "anything that might leave a paper trail", the Mail reported after visiting the campaigner.

EVENINGS Assange works a 17-hour day, seven days a week, running the WikiLeaks operations and its Twitter account, according to multiple reports. At 4 o'clock every afternoon a small group of supporters hold a vigil for Assange outside the embassy. They try and keep my spirits up, he told the Mail. And they do.

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Julian Assange's Life Inside A Converted Women's Toilet At The Ecuadorian Embassy