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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

From what I gathered, this sounds more like it happened because he is somewhat grating as an individual, as opposed to a political statement.

He would have probably been better off pulling a Snowden and disappearing into Hong Kong for a while...

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There's a new leader in Ecuador, more US friendly, and they leaned on him with the IMF --- they got a huge loan just as they gave him up. It does seem that he is a bit of an asshole, but I don't think it's conspiratorial to think there's more to it than that.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-inks-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ecuador-jilted-assange-as-it-so...

This, and apparently he released a bunch of documents proving financial corruption among him and his friends/family.

He didn't. Whoever's in charge of the WikiLeaks twitter had retweeted a news story about the leak (which was leaked by a third party).

That's what the government that handed Assange over, and which is now cooperating with his persecutors, claimed - without any evidence, of course. That government also happens to be pursuing friendly relations with the United States, and also just happened to receive a large IMF loan, not that those things could possibly be related to the decision to revoke Assange's asylum.

Political asylum is not normally revoked because someone is a bad house guest, and one former embassy employee has gone on the record stating that the new Ecuadorian government did its best to make Assange's life in the embassy living hell, and that he was actually a courteous guest. It is in the interest of the Ecuadorian government to defame Assange and to make excuses for their sudden cooperation with American authorities.

That's what the government that handed Assange over, and which is now cooperating with his persecutors, claimed - without any evidence, of course.

There's video.

Not of any of the lurid claims made by the Ecuadorian government. The fact that the Ecuadorian government has shown itself willing to release videos of Assange that they consider embarrassing (like him exercising), without that video actually substantiating any of their salacious claims, suggests that those claims are false.

Video of what?

[redacted], presumably.

I mean, and that $4.2B IMF loan secured by Moreno.

Meeting with Manafort about Assange was one of the first things Moreno did when he was in power.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/manafort-tried-to-make-deal-...

You are being totally naive in taking the government’s claims about Assange at face value.

The world would be a much better place if people would learn to distinguish between “a person with political power said so” and actual evidence.

I am not sure that would have worked. The stuff he and Wikileaks published ended up taking a lot of the narrative control away from very powerful interests.

That is a straight up attack on legitimacy. And legitimacy is one of a few basic political powers. That makes it a big deal. (Others are having an army, ownership of the means of production, etc...)

>From what I gathered, this sounds more like it happened because he is somewhat grating as an individual, as opposed to a political statement.

All that means is the propaganda worked on you.

That's the reason they gave, but the reality is probably that it's no longer politically expedient to keep him.

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