breaking news for you this hour julian assange is granted asylum by ecuador the country's foreign minister said that whistleblowers fears of political prosecution . all slamming britain's threat to storm ecuador's embassy in london to arrest the week said it's. kind of very near to the ecuadorian embassy cheering the decision despite london police detaining several supporters of julian assange. and in the buff rain and other so-called enemy of the state and one of a saunders recent interview not deal with jail for three years for taking part in government gatherings.

just after five pm here in moscow this is on the with me rule research a straight to our breaking news story for you this hour julian assange has been granted political asylum by ecuador and the country's foreign minister made the announcement just less than an hour ago stressing that the whistleblowers fears of being politically prosecuted justified and very shortly here on out he will catch up with our correspondent laura smith who is right outside the ecuadorian embassy in london following the latest developments but when it comes to the issue of addressing threats from the u.k. that it was prepared to storm the ecuadorian embassy to get its hands on a songe for and mr ricardo teano the foreign minister of ecuador said to make sure he said those threats will not go unpunished. no national law can be

used in this way in an interested way in any diplomatic facilities in any place of the world it shouldn't be used to threaten or blackmail the seventy of any other country and a cult a summit to try to deal with this threat and coordinate it at a regional level and so that these fact does not go unpunished. or that was just moments ago with the ecuadoran foreign minister ricardo patino let's not have a chance to talk to julian assange as a legal adviser michael ratner also the president for the center for constitutional rights are joining us live in new york good to see you big news today on this breaking news story the asylum is granted what's next for us such well first of all it's huge news as you said joining us on just been waiting for weeks to get a decision on asylum it's a great decision by ecuador it's a courageous decision by our door because of course it means they now are standing up to the united states and the united kingdom and they're not

a huge country but it's the current that president graham has shown throughout so obviously we're very pleased about that the scary part the part that i find completely incredible and outrageous is the british press to actually go into the u.k. embassy and try and extract your innocence i mean i don't think that's ever happened in diplomatic history you're absolutely absolutely right the the ecuadoran foreign minister was saying that the u.k. acts of aggression not only have they been condemned by ecuador and authorities but they are in violation of the nine hundred seventy six council of diplomatic relations what is next for the relationship now between london and quito well my hope is that u.k. will see that julian assange has a lot of support and that they have to go or they just have to back off it's the u.k. but it's also the u.s. being the pop. you're behind it because it's the us who wants to get their hands on

julian a songe and try him for really what ecuador's now plays the clear label on a political reporting on corruption and crime that is protected by a silent so we hope that the u.k. and the us backs off but i must say to see british troops surrounding british police surrounding that embassy was it an act of intimidation that should not be allowed and is not allowed under asylum law as for what's next let's hope that ecuador gets a lot of support for its granting of asylum to julian assange let's hope the u.k. and the us back off and let people understand that granting asylum was not just courageous but it put a legal and a great imprint in premature on the work of wiki leaks as a protected journalist and protected whistleblower and protected publisher really crucial in this world today as as we know the asylum request has been granted for joining us if he wants it then he said he made the request two months ago now to

get to be a political asylum seeker and that of ecuador some now already already calling this the great escape he's still holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london as you said the british foreign office as we all know is threatening to storm it and take him by force can he get out can he get away to an airport and get and find his little sign cherry in ecuador well there is an obligation of the british to let someone with asylum through and into the asylum country it's you can't you can't actually go after someone who's been aside who's given given asylum and then send them to the very country that wanting to persecute in the united states so here is an actual international right to get walk out of that embassy get on a plane and go to apple door but as you said and as the british have now. at least threatened they're not going to allow that right so knowledge for the peoples of the world and for the nations of the world. to come to ecuador support because if they don't this is threatening the entire asylum regime all over the world if you

can go into an embassy and then get forcibly extracted by the very country that seeks to send you on to your persecution it's an outrageous and flagrant violation of international law it's not been done before of course it's being done because ecuador is this small country and ranged against it or the u.k. and the united states and they and those countries acting like the colonial powers they at least remain in their hearts if not in fact our swat are trying to swap just hit ecuador around and intimidated let's hope that doesn't happen michael ratner legal adviser to both your innocence and wiki leaks joining us live from new york a great pleasure to have have you want to live today thanks so much thank you very much are now let's see if we can have a chat with the one person who has more concern for julius songs than most that would be julian's mother christine joins me live on the telephone from australia kristine this is rule researcher live in moscow i do hope you can hear me first of

all of this announcement does it come as a surprise for you or did you expect such an outcome whatever the case you must be thrilled i am sure i got it because while going from ethiopia. i was because i knew that craig didn't cry and the government and the pekoe wanted three short julian that they have the full record of human rights and they. that are legal there are ways that you know thing in the last twenty four hours that if we got that meeting of the. green makes you can break international law i wasn't sure how it would guide but i needed. it we were on the phone been working in the. rick beck between crew. and. we have it by the fact that we're doing government. looking

and they know and find it. and they believe. it because i did. it but i think why dave. thank you finally it's going back for a long time on priest. national human rights you're here and you're absolutely right just to say that it really was a sophisticated address as you said well within the legal frameworks of how do you grant a saddam to somebody who is basically be may be made a political political prisoner just to remind all of us right now we are talking to julian assange and his mother christina saunders great pleasure to have you want to see today as we all know it's a big win for the with ecuador granting asylum however he's not out of the woods yet britain has warned julian still won't be able to leave the country london will not grant him safe passage or how do you think the situation will pan out for your

son julian assange. well one government now that has to hide it and. if people can be. free they then doc and i'm hoping that. big ben will be shining right rich but that would imagine courage that the government. is giving to people around the world it is. by our british. and legally kitimat media organization. that it kind now is the u.k. going to continue being a lackey for the us in national public eye then i find them to build an international court. that i can and shine full hit

i think it could hang me hate in china and sleep in the u.a.e. . if we do it that sean or them put the will shine and i think it will be a bit of that tonight but we're still we still get up to the five we're going to. be going to be celebrating and encourage everybody in the world now to go visit it could do our bidding me the fabulous country on every label putting it wonderful time in fifty but it is country has taken a human right and turned it into a constitution well absolutely you know as you say christine you know ecuador really has a has shown the beacon for the world to follow here asserting in the face whether it's australia the u.k. and america and sweden as well who wanted to get their hands on join your son julian of course swedish authorities and prosecutors never pursuing the invitation to the ecuadorian embassy to interview julian about alleged sexual assault

allegations i must ask you your your junior songes mother if and hopefully it's a big if in the end of the day julian can get to ecuador will your son continue his role continue his job and duties with wiki leaks. president qur'an i just i think we always said it there and he said that equate doing government has nothing to hide. and he just i think that does government is the holding ricki lake they got nothing to hide the government the chinese to tile wiki leaks and destroy them and the government has something to hide. so i'm not sure how i think that it i know is that credit is a strong supporter of free speech and it would be i guess it's it's a cool cat as it did but i can't see why not and it's still in that point he would like to. to do something else in regards to publishing will he not just not they

would be nice you have to ask billion it was certainly we plan to obviously hear it all julian assange on china's own a good excuse of individual here on our t.v. and certainly misses a silence from all of us here a very big congratulations to you and your son your son julian being granted asylum today to that of ecuador we were going to continue our live breaking news coverage here and sank you graciously christina saundra thank you very much for joining us on to tax the couple of thank yous this nie entrées i'd like to thank russia if they learn of this if you they do organize citations willing to publish the truth. i would also like to thank all the supporters around the world you know always fun to strike and to do that if you're in the free press in the critic right operation and. government and you know why every day all the way to. christina starr has been an absolute pleasure having

a loved one or two today the best of luck to you and your son may continue thank you very much. for we're coming to live from the heart of moscow we come across back to our correspondent laura smith who's standing by outside the ecuadorian embassy as the crowds continue to to amass where you are as do the police laura so how has the news been received the embassy where you are now. well through the day there have been increasing numbers of supporters to chilean national songs here outside the embassy and really when the announcement was made today i reacted as you would expect a lot of sounds a lot of cheering and it's what they've been waiting for a lot of these people have been outside every single one of his school hearing since this case first began which has been a long time coming they've been staking out the embassy intermittently for the last two months here in rain or shine as we've seen today and it's what we expected to happen i mean a really quite serious strident statement from the ecuadorian side and we just have

to wait to hear what the british government response to that will be and i think they will have to make some sort of response that will said it was disappointed that it had no reaction so far but still more about everything that's to do with this case i'm joined with m.e.p. gerald bats and he's also being as a lot of these poor herrings and a lot of these stakeouts if you like gerald thanks very much for talking to us joe biden's namby now i mean peace ari and now we've heard this very strident statement from the government about the door how does all government usually react to statements like that well yes they say that they're going to granted political asylum. and i think their threat to actually buy the embassy if that's what they've actually said i think is a bit misguided because this is only have happened twice in that i can remember one was the iranian embassy sage and the other one was the libyan embassy where their back shot a police officer from the window of the embassy so as to be something quite extreme to send the police in and i think would also be a mistake because if you look at it from the other point of view back in the line

hundred sixty so i think it was there was a polish cardinal i think his name was shinseki was holed up in the american embassy granted political asylum there for about ten years and the russians didn't dare go in and actually take him so i think it will be unwise for us to set a precedent here for doing that because we might want it somewhere else again at some point in the future somebody that we support and there's a british ambassador he still it's about retaliation if that does happen the invasion of british embassies around the world i mean how important do you think it is this diplomatic immunity i think is important it has to be respected because otherwise if you don't and this has been the case for centuries you respect people's ambassadors and their ambassadorial territory because otherwise you like yourself open to attacks in other countries and we all know that we don't like that when it does happen when it has happened in places like china and iran in the past and i think this whole thing has got blown out of all proportion because it's actually all about a european arrest warrant and in fact the government's got a solution to this problem very simple solution which is that i could recategorize

all the countries of the european union from category one to category two and what that means is that then i would have to present prime the facia evidence to the fore the court would have the discretion to refuse extradition and in fact the home secretary could refuse extradition as a final resort and i think if mr sanchez comes through that process he might have found that his lawyers could have actually stopped extradition it would never have happened anyway so on the pace of a strength of a piece of paper from the european union and the government's commitment to this idiotic ideology of mutual recognition of all european union countries we've got ourselves into this. mess let's remember while we're here in the senate totally unnecessary the european arrest one is i know one of your bunk beds but we are where we are in the british government's being increasingly intransigent about this saying that they're not going to issue him safe passage to what the solution has to get out of this building i don't actually know the answer that one nor i'm sure apart from put him in a big trunk and label him in his diplomatic bag i'm not quite sure whether that

would work but otherwise we might see him hold up there for the next couple of years who knows until they reach a solution to this impasse but as i said if something is good at all for fortunate shouldn't be where we are and i do think a lot of people are very suspicious about why sweden wants him back. on these charges which actually wouldn't amount to right charges in the u.k. in fact are seen legal opinion which said they wouldn't even be an offense under english law so we're got ourselves into this terrible mess which i think is a big mistake i don't quite know how it's going to be resolved but there's always a new twist and turn in this story i did see julian last year his birthday party i did suggest to him that he seeks political asylum in the u.k. because this is a technique that we've used with another european arrest warrant victim and it's still going on but he obviously took that up to a higher level it's not something even more unpredictable so it was you that put the idea in his head in the first place i know him i know you remember the conversation but it is something we've done with a spanish victim of any idea of your dr miles also in london where we believe that he's rest was political he's actually titian case was politically motivated and

that's delayed it by another twelve months and we're hoping that he'll be successful in resisting the general patton thanks very much for talking to us now as we say this as as general batten says that this could be just the beginning this is a case with numerous twists and turns we are waiting for whether we'll actually get a british government reaction to the ecuadorian foreign minister's statement it's a nother matter but this is turning into quite really quite a nasty diplomatic route all right aussies are laura smith speaking to. live outside the ecuadorian embassy in london thank you. we will hear more from our correspondent laura smith throughout the day here on r.t. also you can always check the latest updates via the ongoing twitter feed at our london bureau and you can also see pictures of police dispersing asuncion supporters near ecuador's embassy plus all the best video it's all of our website r.t. dot com. well besides our sweden the u.k.

and ecuador the country watching the developments around a songe most closely of course is the united states is more important is in the big apple now joins us live to give us some reaction from there good to see you marina so what response do you expect today to two developments from what has now been breaking news here the agreement for julian assange request to be to seek asylum in ecuador has been granted. well i expect that u.s. officials are clearly are seeing this move as not to their benefit because as we've been reporting and mentioning the ecuadorian fishel have said there were no guarantees given by the u.s. for sweden that if assad were in their custody he would not end up in the united states and also u.s. officials have not get given any guarantees about assad his safety if he were even to be sent here now we do know that u.s. officials are not happy whatsoever with julian assange and all the classified

information cables memos that were on wiki leaks pacifically in two thousand and ten also leaks including some video that compromised the legitimacy and integrity of the u.s. government when it came to while the war is being waged in iraq and afghanistan it has been reported over and over that the u.s. department of justice has filed a seal in sealed indictment on julian assange forty one year old. and founder of wiki leaks but u.s. officials have not been very detailed on their intentions with julian assange and if he were to be extradited to the united states many of his supporters including scholars and journalists such as noam chomsky and naomi wolf oliver stone even michael moore they believe that if assad ends up in the united states he will face either a life in prison or possibly capital punishment we do know that the obama administration

has gone after more whistleblowers than any other previous presidential administration in the united states so clearly there is some would say a vendetta against julian assange and for now it's just that sweden is saying they want to question him on charges related to sexual assault allegations but many believe that if you were to end up in in sweden he would have ultimately ended up in the united states and now with this decision coming from ecuador getting assigned to the view as if that is an intention by washington officials is going to become even harder. new york thanks for coming on. well let's just remind you of our breaking news story here on our sea that over julian a science has been granted political asylum by ecuador a two months after taking refuge at the country's embassy in london ecuador's foreign minister made the announcement less than one hour ago saying it was a blow as fears of being politically persecuted for releasing secret u.s.

files are justified he added that neither the u.k. nor sweden provided any guarantees that assad use human rights would be respected if indeed he was extradited to stockholm and that further prosecution in the u.s. remains a genuine danger for britain the foreign office has said that ecuador's decision did not change anything one of the obligations to extradite assigned to sweden will still be carried out the u.k. said that even if assad is given asylum he will not be granted safe passage from the country all of this our live breaking news for you here on r t it's a pleasure to have you with us. thursday has also been a big decision day for another pariah who actually appeared as a guest on julian a songes program of bahrain's most prominent human rights activist not build our job he's been sentenced to three years in prison for organizing and taking part in illegal gatherings artie's joins us now with more details on this.

why it's always good to see you thanks for coming back on appeal to our job already serving a three month term for antigovernment comments on twitter now the latest development in the case can you bring us up to speed. yes it's been a slightly different decision in the case of bill rogers of the enemy of the state if you want to put it like that of bahrain he has coincidentally already spoken to julian a silence him self in an interview shown in may on our t.v. however he is now being given a three year prison sentence that is by a court in bahrain they say for his participation in and call. for illegal and to government protests he was already in prison though at the time that the court delivered the sentence and that was for a separate incident which he was given a three month term for for tweeting anti government comments on on the social media site twitter there's been a lot of messages of support from his family and there's also been messages of

criticism as well throughout the networks social media networks criticism of u.s. policy in relation to bahrain let's be clear they say that it was the lack of international action and the fact that the u.s. kept silent that meant that this that he was in all this trouble that he's had to go to prison if the u.s. supported him he wouldn't be in this trouble it also raises real questions about the commitment of the sunni government in bahrain to human rights and to reform the majority of the population in bahrain are shia muslims and they have been campaigning for eighteen months to try and get more involvement in politics in the come in the country that the government there says they want a dialogue but this so far have given nothing. that is in their live in moscow thank you very much indeed. let's go let's get some more details now on the on the

jobs case i'm now joined by the. former boss here in the m.p. who's in the country's capital money i'm. orators so i don't if you can hear me this is a rory suchet live in moscow thank you very much for joining us today you have patisserie pated in the protests yourself how do you assess roger case and the sentence he received today. thank you unfortunately we hear the it was a really important point of. libby roger a peaceful activist and he's part prominent human rights activist or so ago and he don't call for a violation of it all he all is calling for a peaceful protesters and is for the marchers in manama for example i

tell him and say as you say reach average as a peaceful man and he is calling for peaceful gathering is there but it certainly seems that the authorities there have taken a very strong response to what some might call dissension towards towards the government has it been a balanced reaction do you think from the government to protesters and as such as rajab himself. this shows how the the. the contradiction between the cold policies here in bahrain and the international law and even they were heard in the constitution it is allowed and it is really fully. participate in peaceful. protest. is calling for that because he knows what he should do but they don't know how to deal with this kind of calls they sent him

three years for three activities peaceful activities and this is a kind of leverage against libya on the other hand they want to threaten people to stop participating in this kind of activities and this is a time of the policy on own coming policy to keep everybody under pressure and we believe that they love than the. average up should be released. on the spot and you will hear probably about the nineteen congress members which they sent a letter american congress members which when they send a letter on the tenth of august calling and sending. sending this message to change it calling him on the beach should be released immediately and he should use his r thirty but now we can see the results and vice versa unfortunately when you talk

about these are u.s. congressman who did it he did send a letter to the bahraini king and saying that in the no jewelry jobs should be shown some sort of lady and c.n.n. should be be released bearing in mind that only five percent of all the members on capitol hill actually sent that letter some of her job supporters claim that it's the lack of international attention which makes such a stiff sentence possible what what do you make of this week ok so we had a petition signed from capitol hill but ultimately the mainstream media isn't going anywhere near the story. to be almost all the people who try to hope. they are going to take any every liberal approach to get in touch with this authority and the authority on the other hand trying to take the opportunity of. the this intuition in other countries which can't be compared with the train then they are trying they always have tried

to take this approach and it is to practice the violations and the. illegality let's say if i can say that but the international community will not put their efforts about the forecast but we will remain calling everybody in this world to stop these thirteen not to minimize our rights not to prevent us to practice our normal. normal rights i mean human rights in. the issue of human rights it has been one that has been been absolutely certainly focused on not not just here with bahrain but all throughout what many are calling the continuation of the arab spring as i cited how the former. many many thanks for joining us live on r.t. today thank you very much. but we will of course be following up both these are breaking.