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