As my colleague Michael Cieply reports, six months after Julian Assange stepped into the small Ecuadorean Embassy in London, seeking political asylum, several Hollywood filmmakers are at work on dramatic treatments of the WikiLeaks story.
None of those films is yet in production. So, in this brief pause before fact is replaced by fiction in the public consciousness, Mr. Assange took to the balcony of the embassy in London on Thursday night to read some prepared remarks to read some prepared remarks to about 80 supporters and a large number of police officers gathered on the street below the first-floor balcony.
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Juian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, addressed about 80 supporters and a large number of police officers from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Thursday.
Video of the complete speech, posted online by Britain's Channel 4 News, showed Mr. Assange assuring his followers that, despite what he described as threats against his life, he would continue to press on with the release of “over a million†new documents obtained from whistle-blowers and hackers. In a mangled turn of phrase that will perhaps resonate with critics who say that Mr. Assange has erased the line between the organization and himself, he promised his supporters, “My work will not be cowed.â€
Inigo Gilmore, a reporter for Channel 4 News, explained later that he had been responsible for a brief disruption at the start of the address, when he tried to get an interview with Mr. Assange by shouting questions into a megaphone as soon as the WikiLeaks founder appeared.
