Ecuador is between a rock and a hard place. Somehow Julian Assange has convinced them that he will be taken back to America and tortured. Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino said "Ecuador is sure that there is a real threat of him being extradited to a third country without any guarantees, and he would be subject to cruel treatment."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Ecuador that diplomatic immunity should not be given to a person who has criminal charges pending, and as Assange has skipped bail, he will be arrested as soon as he puts a foot outside the door.
Hague also outlined in the letter that there is a British law that allows authorities to enter the embassy under extraordinary circumstances, and this is one of them. In 1987, a law was introduced which gives the government the power to revoke a building's diplomatic status if the foreign power occupying it "ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post."
Ecuador took umbrage and said it was a direct threat to "attack" their embassy. Mr Patino said it is basically saying "We are going to beat you savagely if you don't behave.....but if you behave, we may not beat you savagely."
The Union of South American Nations (USASUR) has convened an extraordinary meeting in Ecuador on Sunday to discuss the situation in London.
Meanwhile, Assange is not making any friends by interviewing people like Hassan Nasrallah, the reclusive leader of Hezbollah on his new television show The World Tomorrow which recently aired on Russia Today (RT).
Assange said he is aware that he will be called a traitor for getting into bed with the Russians and said "RT is the voice of Russia, so it looks at things from the Russian agenda, the BBC is the voice of the British government, the voice of America is the voice of the American government. It is the clashing of these voices together that reveals the truth about the world as a whole."
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