WHISTLE-BLOWING WEBSITE Wikileaks has ceased publishing new content to concentrate on breaking the “financial blockade” that has seen its revenues drop by 95 per cent.
Speaking at a press conference in London yesterday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said the website would soon cease to exist if it could not access funds from its supporters.
Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Western Union ceased processing payments for Wikileaks last December, days after the website published hundreds of thousands of classified US security documents and diplomatic cables.
Mr Assange accused the financial institutions of operating an “arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade” which has cost the website “tens of millions of dollars” in revenues.
He said the blockade was part of a “concerted US-based political attack” by right-wing groups. “If publishing the truth about war is enough to warrant such aggressive action from Washington insiders, all newspapers that publish Wikileaks information are on the verge of having their readers and advertisers payments blocked entirely.”
The Wikileaks founder, who is on bail pending extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, said Greenpeace, Amnesty International and other international NGOs could face the same fate if their work angers certain powerful groups.
Wikileaks has instructed lawyers to prepare for legal actions against the financial institutions in “Iceland, Denmark, Brussels, London, Australia, and the US”, said Mr Assange.
It has also lodged a complaint to the European Commission that Visa and Mastercard are in breach of competition regulations. It expects the commission to decide by mid-November whether or not to launch a full investigation.
Mr Assange claimed the US treasury had found no grounds for the blockade while a formal investigation into the site in Australia found it had not broken the law.
“The most powerful players in the banking industry have shown themselves to be a politicised arm of right-wing Washington. This collusion has occurred outside of any judicial or administrative process,” he said.
A Wikileaks representative showed the press conference a graph of its fundraising which showed it was receiving on average €100,000 a month before the withdrawal of payment services and this had now dropped to €6,000 - €7,000.
Speaking in front of a backdrop that featured inverted logos for Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and Bank of America, Mr Assange said Wikileaks needed $3.5 million to operate for the next year and had now resorted to accepting donations through the post.