Julian Assange, a 47-year-old man, has been told he can’t play on the internet unless he starts obeying the house rules. The house in question is the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange has been living for the past six years, and the rules can be loosely summarised as thus: no engaging in contentious online political debates; keep your room in a respectable condition; do your own laundry; and for god’s sake, feed your fucking cat.
The Ecuadorian government cut off Assange’s internet access in March, the ABC reported, after the WikiLeaks founder jumped on social media and trumpeted his controversial support for Catalonian separatists in Spain. Officials claim they unplugged Assange from the online conversation in order to preserve European relations and “prevent any potential harm”. Now they’ve handed him a nine-page memo outlining a new set of rules he has to play by if he wants to continue enjoying his stay at the embassy.
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That memo, first published by Ecuadorian website Código Vidrio and subsequently obtained by The Guardian, states that Assange is only allowed to use the embassy’s wi-fi for his personal computer and phone, and is not allowed to bring in any “unauthorised equipment”. Assange and his guests are to keep the bathroom clean and, as of December 1st, he is to foot the bill for all his own food- and laundry-related expenses.
Assange was also warned that if he didn’t start looking after the “well-being, food, hygiene and proper care” of his pet cat then it would be given to someone else or taken to an animal shelter. It’s not really clear where this cat came from in the first place, according to The Verge, although it does have its own Twitter and Instagram accounts and is known by the names of “Michi” and “Embassy Cat”. In a cruel twist of fate, Assange’s internet ban has prevented him from updating Embassy Cat’s social media profiles since March.
“It’s virtually a prison regime,” said Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. “This new regime goes against his basic human dignity as an asylee.”
Assange sought refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced allegations relating to sex crimes.
