Julian Assange: photo, biography, personal life and interesting facts. WikiLeaks founder expelled from Ecuadorian embassy in London Criminal case against Julian Assange

Journalist, programmer, founder of WikiLeaks Julian Paul Assange was born on July 3, 1971 in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

When he was one year old, his mother married the director of a traveling theater. The family led a nomadic lifestyle. When Julian Assange was eight years old, his mother separated from her husband and began dating a musician. They had a son, but it turned out that the new husband was a member of the “Family” sect, in which newborns were taken from their mothers. Therefore, before Julian turned 16, he, along with his mother and half-brother, were constantly moving. He was unable to obtain a systematic secondary education. Julian Assange studied at 37 schools and several universities, including the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University in Canberra, but did not graduate from a single higher education institution.

Assange was interested in programming from an early age. At the age of 16, he received his first computer and began working on pre-Internet networks. Soon, Julian became what was later called hackers, he opened the websites of organizations, publishing information that was not intended for the general public. Together with his comrades, Assange created the hacker organization Worms Against Nuclear Killers. In their work, they were guided by a kind of code of hackers around the world: do not damage systems, but share information.

In 1991, Assange and his friends infiltrated the computer system of the telecommunications corporation Nortel, were identified and brought to trial. The investigation into the case lasted several years and ended with a fine.

After that, Julian Assange changed several professions related to information technology, was the author of a number of programs related to network security and routing, and even for some time was a computer security consultant.

In 1997, he co-authored the book Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier with Australian journalist Soulette Dreyfus.

In 1996, Assange first mentioned the Leaks project in public correspondence; he later acquired the leaks.org domain, but subsequently wrote that he did not find any use for it.

During those same years, he and his mother were activists and founders of the organization Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, which worked to expose corruption in Australia's health and social care organizations.

In 2000, he called himself president of the Australian Institute for Collaborative Research.

Loud scandal around WikiLeaks. The documents posted on WikiLeaks on November 29, 2010, contained, in particular, very unflattering statements about world leaders. As noted on the site, more than 250 thousand published files are the largest collection of confidential documents ever made publicly available in history.

In August 2010, Assange arrived in Sweden when the American authorities became interested in him. Here he is. That same month, an investigation into Assange began in Sweden following statements from two women who told police they were Assange. He was questioned and pleaded not guilty. The preliminary investigation was stopped, but soon resumed. In November 2010, a court in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for Assange. On November 20 he... On December 7, Assange was arrested by London police after voluntarily reporting to a police station. December 16 London High Court from prison on bail of 240 thousand pounds while Sweden's extradition request is considered.

On June 19, 2012, it became known that Assange came to the Ecuadorian embassy in London and applied to the Ecuadorian authorities to grant him political asylum due to fears of his extradition by the Swedish authorities to the United States in connection with his activities in WikiLeaks. Since the filing of Assange's application. On August 16 of the same year, the head of the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador announced that his country. In December 2017 he.

In August 2015, the Swedish prosecutor's office reported that three of the four charges against Assange were beyond the statute of limitations. Until August 17, 2020, Assange will be suspected of only one count, which relates to rape with less aggravating circumstances.

At the end of 2015, a bilateral agreement on legal assistance came into force between Sweden and Ecuador, which sheltered the founder of WikiLeaks on the territory of the embassy.

On May 19, 2017, it became known that the Swedish prosecutor's office had discontinued the investigation into the case of Assange, suspected of rape in 2010. London police issued a statement warning that if Assange left the embassy, ​​he would be arrested again. The reason for the arrest in London will be a still valid warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates' Court after the founder of the scandalous website on June 29, 2012.

In February 2018, a judge at the London Borough of Westminster Magistrates' Court.

At the end of March 2018, the government of Ecuador. According to the Ecuadorian authorities, Assange's behavior and messages on social networks threaten the country's good relations with the UK, EU countries and other countries of the world.

During the years spent within the walls of the embassy, ​​Assange never went outside, with the exception of several speeches on the balcony. For all the time he .

Lawyers and supporters of the political refugee express concern for his health, which has deteriorated greatly due to a lack of fresh air, walks and sunlight.

Julian Assange was awarded by Amnesty International (2009) for publishing materials about corruption in leadership circles in Kenya. In 2010, readers of the American Time magazine chose Assange as Person of the Year in an online vote. In 2011, the Sydney Peace Foundation awarded WikiLeaks the Walkley Award for its “outstanding contribution to journalism” for its “exceptional courage in defending human rights.”

In 2013, John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, presented Julian Assange with the Courage in the Arts Prize in absentia, which has been awarded since 2009 to creative people who have maintained their independence despite government persecution.

In 2014, he became a laureate of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan award in the “investigative journalism” category.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Julian Assange came to public attention in 2006. Today no one treats him neutrally. For some, Assange is an online journalist who declassified spy materials, data on corruption in the highest echelons of power, war crimes and diplomatic secrets of leading states; others consider him a criminal or a terrorist. Julian Assange is even called a cyber hero.

The beginning of Assange's biography

The story of Julian Assange began in 1971 in a small town in northeastern Australia. On his mother's side he is descended from emigrants who came from Scotland and Ireland to Australia at the beginning of the 19th century. John Shipton, Julian's father, met his mother during a demonstration against the Vietnam War. As soon as the girl became pregnant, their relationship ended. Julian managed to meet his father only at the age of 25. Already in 1972, the mother of the future journalist married the director of the traveling theater Brett Assange in order to somehow provide for herself and her son. The boy spent his childhood constantly traveling around the country.

Childhood and constant travel

Seven years later, Christine, Julian’s mother, separated from her husband. She began dating musician Leif Mainall (Hamilton). Soon Julian had a brother. But it turned out that the mother’s new lover was a member of the “Family” sect. Anna Hamilton-Byrne, the founder of the sect, forced followers to give her their newborn children, guided by some vague goals, presented as sublime. Christine, fearing for the fate of her son, fled. From the age of 11 to 16, Julian's family was again constantly on the move. In total, he changed 37 schools during his childhood.

Passion for programming

Julian Assange would not be the same today if it were not for his passion for programming. At the age of 16, he purchased a modem and began working on the Internet under the nickname Mendax. He borrowed this name, which has an allegorical meaning, from the ancient Greek writer and scientist Horace. Splendide mendax is a "noble liar". With his comrades, Julian founded the organization “Worms against Nuclear Killers.” The guys became hackers. They were guided by the rule: do not damage systems, but obtain information.

Hacking, training and arrests

When Julian Assange was 20 years old, he was arrested in 1991 for hacking into the server of a Canadian telecommunications company. He was charged with 25 counts; after several interrogations, he admitted guilt on all of them. Then Julian simply paid the fine, since the company did not suffer significant damage. After this event, Assange began to deepen his knowledge. In 1994 he studied at the University of Queensland, and from 2003 to 2006 at the University of Melbourne. The young man studied mathematics, physics, and programming, but never received a degree.

Many people who are interested in the biography of the founder of WikiLeaks know about the accusations of hacking a Canadian television company, but there are also little-known facts. Julian and his group hacked the US Navy, the Pentagon, US and Australian government organizations, some educational institutions (Australian National University, Stanford), private companies (Motorola, Panasonic, Xerox).

After some time, Julian was arrested again. This time he was accused of stealing 500 thousand dollars from the accounts of the local Citibank. A more detailed check did not confirm the police’s fears, so the young man was released. In 1993, he even helped police with claims, provided technical advice to an Australian child welfare organization, and took part in the launch of a free and open network providing access to the Internet for citizens and non-profit organizations.

New charge - 1994. Gillian was charged with 31 counts, all of which related to hacking attacks. In 1996, six charges were dropped, and he pleaded guilty to the rest. Interesting fact: Julian hacked into the Australian Federal Police server while law enforcement officials were looking for him.

Another significant event in his biography during this period was the writing of a book. In 1997, Julian Assange, in collaboration with Seulette Dreyfus, wrote Underground (in the Russian edition “Computer Underground. Stories of Hacking, Madness and Obsession”) - a book about hackers. In 2000, Julian wrote a command line interface for search engines (Surfaw), which is now publicly available.

Founding of WikiLeaks

In 1999, Julian Assange registered the domain leaks.org. The site was empty. The domain is now owned by Andreas Fink, CEO and owner of Iceland's backbone Internet provider. WikiLeaks officially appeared in 2007 in Sweden, but the domain was registered in 2006 (the same year the first publication appeared). This particular country was chosen because it has strong laws on the anonymity of citizens and great loyalty to the activities of journalists. The first material that appeared on the site was publications about the execution of pirates in Somalia. It was emphasized that the document might not be genuine, but was obtained from a serious source in state intelligence.

Publication of secret documents

The site's creators stated that during the first year of the project's existence they managed to collect more than 1.2 million documents. The purpose of WikiLeaks is the publication and analysis of documents that became available as a result of information leaks. Despite its name, WikiLeaks is not a Wikisite where readers can edit posts themselves. However, anyone can become an anonymous source; all they have to do is send their material to the editorial office.

Early publications included data on the war in Afghanistan (almost 77 thousand documents previously inaccessible to the public), corruption in Kenya. Assange stated that he has access to more than 15 thousand secret Pentagon documents, 100 thousand papers on the progress of the war in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of individual reports and orders relating to the war in Iraq, almost a thousand files on the detention of prisoners in the American prison Guantanamo Bay.

In 2010, Julian Assange enlisted the support of the Pirate Party, a political force in Sweden that opposes existing legislation, for Sweden's non-participation in intercity organizations. That same year, he was chosen as Time magazine's "Person of the Year" (readers' choice). WikiLeaks then collected 20 thousand euros in donations in just a month.

Juleen Assange and Edward Snowden

In 2012, Assange announced that he would publish almost 2.5 million documents about the war in Syria, which would help people understand the real state of affairs and what is happening in this country. In 2013, more than 400 GB of information protected by a key was published. This key project promised to make it unknown in case of harm to someone from the organization’s leadership. This ensured the safety of Julian Assange himself and Edward Snowden.

An interesting fact about Assange’s brainchild: the portal has withstood all hacker attacks, including from the Pentagon, the Chinese Public Security Bureau, the former head of Kenya, the Prime Minister of Bermuda, the Catholic and Mormon churches, the largest bank in Switzerland, and some Russian companies (the attack was launched in response to the site publishing secret documentary data about the Holodomor). WikiLeaks has published more intelligence than all other press services in the world combined.

Personal life, family and children

Julian was married only once. He married Teresa when they were 16 years old. From this woman the journalist has a son, Daniel, who was born in 1998. Julian and Teresa broke up shortly before his next arrest. He raised his son on his own as a single father for fourteen years. Then Julian had to leave. Now he practically does not communicate with his own son, but does not hold a grudge against him and supports his father’s work. It is also known that in 2006, Assange had a daughter from an unknown woman. Various sources have information that the man has at least four children, but in 2011 he told his biographer that he was the father of only one child - Daniel.

Harassment allegations

In 2010, Julian was accused of rape. A warrant for his arrest was issued in Sweden. Police accused him of having sex with a Swedish woman without contraception and against her wishes while she was sleeping. The names of the victims are not disclosed; in documents and publications they are called “Miss A” and “Miss W.” In most European countries, these actions are questionable, but not directly subject to criminal prosecution, and in Sweden, failure to use a condom constitutes a crime. It is generally accepted that the real reason for the arrest was the publication of secret information, and not rape. In 2012, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy (London) and asked for political asylum. In 2017, the rape case was closed.

Blocking accounts and accounts

In 2010, Assange's bank account was frozen. Bank representatives explained this measure by saying that the client was hiding information about his real location. Following this, WikiLeaks accounts were blocked by the international payment system PayPal. The company's management stated that this was done under pressure from the US State Department. A few days later, all payments to WikiLeaks were blocked by Visa and MasterCard. At the end of the same year, social media accounts of Assange supporters began to be blocked. They were suspected of coordinating the next hacker attacks.

Refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy

Many people are interested in where Julian Assange is now, was he arrested? As mentioned above, Julian managed to hide from police persecution in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012. The country agreed to provide political asylum to the journalist.

Where is Julian Assange now? For the sixth year now, he has been living at the Ecuadorian Embassy, ​​which is located in a residential apartment in central London. Any walk threatens him with prison, and to get some air and make statements to journalists, he goes out onto the balcony. The fact is that the embassy is considered the territory of another country, that is, the London police cannot arrest Assange there.

And yet, where is Julian Assange now? He still lives in the embassy. Assange spoke about the conditions in which he has to live in September 2012 to a journalist from the Daily Mail newspaper. He said that he lives in a small room without a window, and his bed is replaced by a mattress on the floor. He has a computer connected to the Internet, several bookshelves, a treadmill, a shower and a small kitchenette. The man runs 3-5 miles every day. He also plays sports under the guidance of a personal trainer.

Assange works seventeen hours a day. After his hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy, ​​the WikiLeaks website does not stop working, new publications appear there. In his free time, Julian watches TV series and films, plays with the cat he recently got, communicates with embassy staff and attends lunches with them. In the embassy building, he wears jeans, sneakers and a national Ecuadorian shirt, and puts on a formal suit when he needs to go out onto the balcony to make a statement.

The man says that he misses communication with his family, and that the police who are constantly on duty at the embassy make it difficult to sleep. The WikiLeaks founder mentioned that he misses fishing, the sea and the mountains. Assange has no plans to leave his refuge and denies rumors of moving to France or surrendering to American authorities. In 2018, Julian became a citizen of Ecuador. There is evidence that they want to issue him a diplomatic passport so that he does not have to fear arrest.

Assange's extreme statements

What is the WikiLeaks founder doing now? He continues to work within the walls of the Ecuadorian Embassy. Among the latest statements, one can note the statements of Julian Assange about Theresa May, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. He commented on the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the country and said that he was not surprised by this position. Julian Assange spoke very harshly about May. He said that the prime minister's actions could be regarded as weakness. A few minutes later, he sent another tweet to the social network. Julian Assange wrote about May that she is “a complete fool.”

Julian Assange in culture

The world community responded vividly to Assange's activities. In 2012, a biographical drama was released - the film “The Story of Julian Assange”. The activities of this man turned out to be so interesting. The film was shot by director Robert Connolly for Australian television. The main character was played by debutant Alex Williams, he got into the role of Julian Assange well. The film about Assange quickly became popular, and several more were filmed after this film. One of the documentaries, a three-hour story in eight parts, details the ideology of WikiLeaks.

Creator of the Internet resource WikiLeaks

Australian programmer who founded the Internet resource WikiLeaks in 2006, specializing in posting “leaked” classified information. He is its editor-in-chief. In December 2010, he was arrested on charges of rape, but was soon released on bail. In June 2012, he escaped from arrest and took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where two months later he received political asylum.

Julian Paul Assange was born on July 3, 1971 in Townsville, on the northeast coast of Australia. There is very little information about his early life, and it is taken from rare interviews he gave to the press. Nothing is known about Assange's father, except that one of his ancestors came from China and bore the surname Sang. When Assange was one year old, his mother Christine married the director of a traveling theater, and since then Assange, with her and his stepfather, constantly traveled around Australia with the theater. Since childhood, Assange's mother has been a nonconformist and believed that school education can only discourage a child from knowledge and instead instill unnecessary reverence for authority. Therefore, she taught her son at home, only sometimes sending him to schools in the cities where the theater stopped. When Assange was 9 years old, his mother divorced and married a musician, with whom she gave birth to another son. However, it soon became clear that her new husband was a member of the “Family” sect, whose founder, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, took newborn children from their mothers. Before Assange turned 16, he, along with his mother and half-brother, was hiding from his stepfather.

In total, Assange changed 37 schools as a child, but was actively interested in self-education, and especially loved the exact sciences. Periodically, his mother sent him to classes with university professors. There was a computer store next to one of the houses that Assange's mother rented. Assange often went there and acquired his first programming skills. When his mother saw his passion for programming, she moved to cheaper housing and bought Assange a Commodore 64 computer. Soon after, Assange bought himself a modem and became interested in network security.

In the 1990s, Assange was involved in programming and was the author of a number of programs related to network security and routing. From at least 1991 to 2006, he signed his correspondence and projects with the pseudonym Proff,. He was also the administrator of Suburbia, one of Australia's first internet hosts. Judging by the entries in postal conferences, he was also interested in politics. In 1998, Assange traveled around the world, in particular, he visited Russia, traveling along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

In 1997, together with Suelette Dreyfus, he co-authored the book "Undergound", which, in particular, described an episode about a group of hackers from Australia who, in 1989-1991, hacked into the networks of the US Department of Defense, Los Alamos National laboratory and telecommunications company Nortel, , , . In 1991, the Australian police caught them and in 1994 brought charges of illegal hacking, eventually collecting a small fine in exchange for admitting guilt. The press, in particular, the New Yorker and Wired, wrote that one of the characters in this story, a hacker named Mendax, was in fact Assange, , , , .

Assange first mentioned the Leaks project in public correspondence in 1996; three years later he acquired the leaks.org domain, but subsequently wrote that he did not find any use for it. In those same years, according to the New Yorker, he and his mother were an activist and founder of the organization Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, which was engaged in exposing corruption in Australian health and social welfare organizations (in those years, Assange was sued with his ex-wife to get his child back), , .

In 2000, Assange called himself president of the Australian Institute for Collaborative Research, after which he entered the University of Melbourne, where he studied physics. He criticized his fellow young scientists, accusing them of careerism, conformism and working for the military. Before this, Assange also studied at five other universities, including the Australian National University in Canberra (Australian National University), but never graduated from a single higher education institution. In 2006-2007, he blogged on his own website Iq.org.

In 2006, Assange decided to found a website to publish various secret or non-public information exposing corruption and abuses in government organizations and corporations. The Internet resource WikiLeaks, created for these purposes, worked on the basis of the mediawiki engine, similar to the one on which Wikipedia works, to facilitate the creation of new and editing of existing revealing materials. However, the outer shell was only the “tip of the iceberg”, since the mechanism for obtaining new compromising data was based on a complex system of gateways and protocols in order to leave the sources of “leaks” anonymous. New materials were selected and published by the editors, and discussions between editors also took place through encrypted channels. In addition to Assange, who called himself editor-in-chief, the site's editorial board, called the "board of advisors", included Australian journalist Phillip Adams and Chinese dissident Wang Dan. One of the goals of this system was to ensure that once published material could no longer be “removed” from the network , , , , .

The Swedish company PRQ.se was chosen as a provider for WikiLeaks, which provided hosting with a guarantee that the hosted site would not be closed due to a court order. Another famous project associated with this provider was the torrent portal The Pirate Bay.

One of Assange's assistants was the owner of a node in the Tor system, which made it possible to receive and transmit information over the network fairly anonymously. Having started scanning the traffic on his node, he managed to intercept a document according to which the leader of the Somali rebels, the Union of Islamic Courts, called for hiring hitmen to kill members of the legitimate government of Somalia. The reliability of this document was controversial, but Assange decided to publish it on his website, providing a commentary inviting site visitors to discuss the authenticity of the material themselves. Even then, the press drew attention to the new site, and at first it was reported that it was created by Chinese dissidents.

WikiLeaks' initial goal was to expose corruption in Central Asia, China, and Russia, but it also placed great emphasis on exposing Western governments and corporations. According to Assange, the site was created, among other things, in order to develop “scientific journalism,” which he contrasted with the excessive caution and bias of the regular press.

In April 2010, WikiLeaks published classified video footage of the 2007 helicopter shooting of Reuters journalists and their escorts outside Baghdad, who were mistakenly identified as terrorists by the US military (the video is titled "collateral murder"). Then 18 people died, including two journalists. This video caused a great stir in the press. In May 2010, US Army private Bradley Manning was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the transfer of this video to WikiLeaks. It was assumed that he could be involved in the next high-profile leak, published on the WikiLeaks website in July: these were 77 thousand secret field reports about the US war in Afghanistan, which contained reports on operations carried out, civilian casualties and the names of American informants, which posed a threat to their lives. The editors of the site promised to post about 15 thousand more documents later, , , , , , and representatives of the US Department of Defense approached WikiLeaks representatives with a proposal to abandon these plans (the fact of negotiations was denied by the Ministry). This leak became the largest in US history after the publication in the early 1970s of the Pentagon Papers, which proved that the administration of US President Lyndon Johnson was seeking to escalate the conflict.

After the publication of a video recording of an attack on journalists in Baghdad, Assange announced that he no longer intended to visit the United States and subsequently appeared live at conferences and meetings in other countries without notice, and sometimes his friends spoke instead of him, explaining this by the presence of American intelligence agents in the room. However, even before posting this video, Assange was extremely scrupulous about his safety and often changed his place of residence, staying with friends in different countries of the world: from Iceland to Kenya, , , , , . In particular, it was in Iceland that he prepared for publication a scandalous video recording of a helicopter attack and there he also participated in the preparation of a law on the protection of freedom of speech, which could in the future allow WikiLeaks to transfer servers to the territory of this country and no longer fear political persecution.

Assange spent much of his time in Sweden, where in August 2010 he became a columnist for the newspaper Aftonbladet, but in the same month the country's police put him on the wanted list on charges of raping two women. Assange himself denied his guilt, and soon the warrant for his arrest was withdrawn because the prosecutor's office decided that the suspicions against the Australian were groundless. However, in the same month, the US Attorney's Office announced that they intended to charge Assange with inciting the theft of government property.

In the summer of 2010, after a sharp increase in press attention to WikiLeaks, Assange began to be criticized by unnamed participants in the project, united under the auspices of “WikiLeaks Insider.” In particular, Assange was accused of embezzling donations, wanting to abscond with the money and abandon the site, and usurping power in a project together with Daniel Schmidt, , , , , , . And after Assange was charged with rape in Sweden, Icelandic parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir invited him to temporarily resign as a representative of WikiLeaks. In October 2010, Swedish authorities refused to grant Assange a residence permit or permanent right to work, which he had applied for at the beginning of the year.

In November 2010, after a second appeal from the prosecutor's office, a court in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for Assange on charges of rape and harassment. The founder of WikiLeaks himself was in the UK at that time, and his representatives announced his readiness to meet with representatives of the Swedish prosecutor's office. However, on November 30, two days after WikiLeaks published new materials from the US diplomatic corps, Assange was put on the international wanted list by Interpol on charges of sexual crimes. On December 7, he was arrested by London police, but on December 14, the court announced that Assange would be released on bail of 200 thousand pounds sterling on the condition that he surrender his passport and wear an electronic sensor.

On February 24, 2011, the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in Great Britain ordered the extradition of Assange to Sweden. The defense of the WikiLeaks founder filed an appeal to the High Court of London, which on November 2, 2011 confirmed the decision of the lower court. After this, Assange's lawyers could only appeal to the Supreme Court of England. On May 30, this authority confirmed the decision to extradite Assange.

In April 2012, Assange made his debut as a TV presenter on the Russian English-language television channel Russia Today. In his first broadcast, he interviewed the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah.

On 19 June 2012, Assange asked for political asylum in Ecuador. It soon became known that he remained on the territory of the country's embassy in London until the authorities decided whether to grant or not grant asylum. Since Assange violated the terms of his bail (he spent the night in a place other than the approved one), the English authorities announced their readiness to arrest him as soon as he left the embassy. On August 16, the Ecuadorian authorities announced their agreement to grant Assange political asylum. At the same time, official London emphasized that this circumstance cannot prevent the extradition of Assange. According to media reports, for this purpose, the British authorities could deprive the embassy of diplomatic status, which was allowed in such cases by British law, however, British Foreign Secretary William Hague stated that they would not storm the Ecuadorian embassy for the sake of Assange. On August 19, Assange spoke in public for the first time in a long time from the embassy balcony. In his speech, he demanded that the United States stop the “witch hunt” (in relation to WikiLeaks and Manning), and also expressed support for the members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot, who had recently been sentenced to two years in prison in Moscow. On August 26, 2012, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced that British authorities had abandoned their intention to storm his country's embassy in London. In addition, the British Foreign Office sent an official letter to the Ecuadorian Embassy with a proposal to continue negotiations on the extradition of Assange.

For the publication of incriminating materials against the Kenyan president in 2008, Assange was awarded an award by Amnesty International. In 2010, the Guardian newspaper included him in its list of the 100 most influential figures in media. In 2011, the Australian human rights foundation Syndey Peace Foundation presented Assange with its highest award: a gold medal for "exceptional courage in defending human rights."

The New Yorker noted that Assange is extremely passionate about his work and at the same time extremely absent-minded in his daily life: he constantly needs personal assistants because he often forgets to pay for booked airline tickets or pack clothes with him before moving. In addition to other members of the WikiLeaks editorial team, the Dutchman Rop Gonggrijp was called Assange's close assistants. The press reported that Assange's favorite writers were Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Franz Kafka.

Assange also kept his personal information secret. According to the New Yorker, his first wife left him in 1991 over a burglary incident, taking their son, Daniel, with him. In 1999, Assange and his mother were able to prosecute Daniel, but, according to the same publication, due to stress, Assange’s hair, which was previously dark, turned gray for the rest of his life. Judging by Assange's blog, he could have had another child in the mid-2000s. As of 2010, Daniel Assange, a geneticist by training, worked as a programmer.

Used materials

Ecuador: UK Wikileaks" Julian Assange "threat" over. - BBC News, 26.08.2012

Julian Assange takes aim at US as diplomatic row depths. - The Guardian, 20.08.2012

Julian Assange condemns the imprisonment of Bradley Manning and Pussy Riot. - Straight.com, 19.08.2012

Julian Assange: Ecuador grants Wikileaks founder asylum. - BBC News, 16.08.2012

Mohammed Abbas, Alessandra Prentice. Britain says Assange Ecuador asylum wouldn't change a thing. - Reuters, 16.08.2012

William Hague says there is "no threat" to storm Ecuadorian embassy. - The Telegraph, 16.08.2012

Police seek WikiLeaks founder Assange's arrest after asylum claim. - CNN, 21.06.2012

Donna Bowater. Julian Assange faces re-arrest over breaching his bail condition by seeking asylum in Ecuador. - The Telegraph, 20.06.2012

Alexandra Valencia, Avril Ormsby. WikiLeaks" Assange seeks asylum at Ecuador embassy. - Reuters, 19.06.2012

Atika Shubert. WikiLeaks" Assange loses sex case appeal but will fight on. - CNN, 30.05.2012

Nasrallah to Assange: Hezbollah talked to Syria opposition; we want dialogue, US & Israel want civil war. - Russia Today, 17.04.2012

Miriam Elder. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "s TV show to be aired on Russian channel. - The Guardian, 25.01.2012

Robert Booth. Julian Assange loses appeal against extradition. - The Guardian, 02.11.2011

Atika Shubert. Assange loses fight against extradition. - CNN, 02.11.2011

Julian Assange awarded Australian peace prize. - The Guardian, 11.05.2011

Julian Assange extradition decision: full judgment. - The Guardian, 24.02.2011

Cassandra Vinograd. Judge says WikiLeaks" Assange can be extradited to Sweden over sex crimes claims. - The Associated Press, 24.02.2011

Nick Collins. WikiLeaks: celebrities offer to pay Julian Assange's bail. - The Telegraph, 15.12.2010

Julian Assange freed on bail. - The Guardian, 14.12.2010

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London. - BBC News, 07.12.2010

Yard receive arrest warrant for Assange. - Independent Television News (ITN), 07.12.2010

Interpol Issues Arrest Warrant for WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange. - Fox News, 30.11.2010

US cuts access to files as Interpol seeks Assange. - The Associated Press, 30.11.2010

Joseph Krauss. WikiLeaks unleashes flood of confidential US cables. - Agence France-Presse, 28.11.2010

Wikileaks" Assange to face international arrest warrant. - BBC News, 18.11.2010

Material from Wikipedia

Julian Paul Assange(English) Julian Paul Assange[əˈsɑːnʒ]; born July 3, 1971, Townsville, Australia) is an online journalist and founder of Wikileaks.

Biography

On her mother's side she is descended from Scottish and Irish emigrants who arrived in Australia in the mid-19th century.

Julian Assange was born in 1971 in the city of Townsville in northeastern Australia.

In 1972, his mother, Claire (Christine), married the director of a traveling theater and Julian spent his childhood constantly moving.

In 1979, the mother separated from the theater director and began dating a musician, and soon they had a son.

However, it soon turned out that the mother’s new chosen one was a member of the “Family” sect, founded by Anna Hamilton-Byrne. Members of this sect give newborn babies to the founder. The mother, fearing for the fate of her son, went on the run. Therefore, from the age of 11 to 16, Julian was again constantly on the move.

Hacking

Julian Assange became interested in programming early on. At the age of 16, he bought himself a modem and began working on pre-Internet networks under the nickname Mendax. mendax). The meaning of his Internet pseudonym is related to Horace's oxymoron splendide mendax - a noble (magnificent) liar. Julian and his comrades create the organization of hackers Worms Against Nuclear Killers - “Worms against nuclear killers”; in their activities they were guided by a kind of code: do not damage systems, but share information

In 1991, then 20, Assange and his accomplices were arrested for hacking the central server of the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel. After several interviews, he pleaded guilty to all 25 charges. Assange escaped with a fine because the company suffered minor damage. Assange went to receive his first higher education at the University of Melbourne, at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. However, he dropped out of school because it seemed to him that the military was the sponsors and, as a consequence, regulators of the educational process. [ source?]

Some time later, he was detained on suspicion of stealing $500 thousand from Citibank accounts. However, verification of suspicions did not confirm.

Julian has worked in several IT-related professions, authored a number of programs related to network security and routing, and even spent some time as a computer security consultant. [ source?]

In 1997, together with Soulette Dreyfus, he co-authored the book Underground.

WikiLeaks

Main article: Wikileaks

In 2006, Assange founded the website. Realizing that he would have to deal with very sensitive materials, he decided that the “home” of the main server would be Sweden, known for its loyalty to journalists. In December of the same year, the first material appeared on the WikiLeaks resource: “The decision of the Islamic Court of Somalia to execute government officials.” The portal emphasized that the document may not be real, but “received from a serious source in US intelligence.”

Assange, of course, never revealed his informants. Those, in turn, can feel completely safe. Before getting to the WikiLeaks page, the information is simultaneously duplicated on all the portal’s servers, so it is impossible to track it.

Julian Assange sent Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and The New York Times about 100 thousand secret documents about the progress of the war in Afghanistan. Some of the documents concern the execution of civilians. After the publication of some documents, an international scandal erupted.

Assange also stated that he has about 15 thousand more secret Pentagon documents at his disposal.

In August 2010, Julian Assange, during his visit to Sweden, signed an agreement with the local Pirate Party to host part of the Wikileaks servers on its sites, which will provide the project with political support on the world stage.

Persecution

Sex scandal

On August 20, 2010, an arrest warrant was issued in Sweden for the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. According to The Local newspaper, Assange was suspected of sexual assault and rape.

Assange is accused of the following:

that he had sexual intercourse with a Swedish woman (her name is not disclosed, in the documents she is referred to as “Miss A”) without a condom, contrary to her requests.

that he had sexual intercourse with “Miss W”, without a condom, while she was sleeping

There is a version in the press that the reason for filing a complaint against Assange could be the simple jealousy of two rivals: feminists Anna Ardin and photographer Sofia Vilen. Assange himself disowned everything and wrote a letter to one of the Stockholm newspapers, in which he complained that these accusations appeared clearly for a reason, and were connected with publications on the so-called WikiLeaks. "Afghan dossier". The next day, Swedish authorities dropped rape charges against Julian Assange.

On September 1, 2010, the rape case was reopened by Swedish authorities. Prosecutor Marianne Ny said: “there is reason to believe that a crime was committed after all.” On November 18, 2010, a Swedish court issued an arrest warrant for the founder of Wikileaks. The next day, Assange's Swedish lawyer appealed the court's decision. Julian Assange has moved to London. On December 1, 2010, Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest, and he was put on the international wanted list.

On December 7, 2010, Assange was arrested after voluntarily reporting to a police station. The basis for the arrest was a warrant issued by the Swedish prosecutor's office. Assange's defense insists that the request for his extradition was motivated by political reasons.

Blocking a bank account in Switzerland

On December 6, 2010, the Swiss bank PostFinance announced the freezing of Assange's accounts. The bank's press release states that the reason for freezing the accounts is that Assange provided the bank with false information about his place of residence.

Blocking of WikiLeaks accounts by international payment systems

On December 3, 2010, the international payment system PayPal blocked the WikiLinks account, explaining its move by saying that the payment system cannot be used to carry out illegal activities.

On December 7, 2010, the international payment systems Visa and MasterCard blocked all payments to the WikiLeaks website. The press service of the European division of Visa emphasized that this step is not related to pressure exerted on the payment system by officials, and that the WikiLeaks business structure is currently being studied by lawyers for possible violations of Visa rules.

Titles and awards

In 2008, Julian Assange was awarded by Amnesty International for his publication of materials on corruption in the leadership circles of Kenya.

In 2010, The Guardian newspaper placed Julian Assange at number 58 on its list of the 100 most influential people in the media.

Julian Assange is a cult and controversial figure of our time, arousing interest among the world community. Characteristics of the Australian’s activities are given in different ways: for some, Assange is a truth-seeking journalist, for others, he is a terrorist, and still others call Julian a cyber-hero. For the Internet resource WikiLeaks, whose specialization is based on the publication of “top-secret information,” Julian Assange is considered one of the most influential people in the international media.

Childhood and youth

Julian Paul Assange was born on July 3, 1971 in the north-eastern Australian city of Towsville. The boy's parents were political activist John Shipton and makeup artist Christine Ann Hawkins, who separated before the birth of their son. The child's maternal ancestors were Scottish and Irish by nationality. After Julian's birth, his mother married the owner of a traveling theater, Richard Brett Assange, who gave his adopted son the surname.