Ola Bini Was Friends with Julian Assange. He Has Spent Two Months in Jail Without Charge in Ecuador
by mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) from Democracy Now! on (#4H6EJ)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared before a magistrates' court in London Friday, saying his life was "effectively at stake" if the U.K. honors an extradition request from the United States, where he faces 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. Meanwhile, a friend of Assange's, Swedish programmer and data privacy activist Ola Bini, is still in prison in Ecuador, after being arrested April 11, the same day Assange was forcibly taken by British authorities from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and has been jailed ever since without charges. We speak with Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and a friend of Ola Bini.