Has Australia Abandoned WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange?

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WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

The WikiLeaks founder says he’s been all but “abandoned” by his home country.

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Assange spoke out during an online Q&A with the Guardian, the British newspaper, this weekend. “I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal,” he wrote.

Comparing his plight to that of David Hicks, a fellow Australian who was detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on terror charges, Assange accused Aussie officials of pandering to the United States.

“Are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties,” he wrote.

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The government hit back saying Assange is entitled to return home whenever he pleases. If he doesn’t, he will be offered the same consular support available to all Australian citizens abroad, they said.

But that’s hardly a welcome mat. Australia’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, has called WikiLeaks’ latest document dump “an illegal thing to do” and vowed to cooperate with America’s investigation.

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