Julian Assange made a rare public appearance on Thursday night, stepping out onto the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London for the second time since he fled there six months ago. The WikiLeaks founder, who’s been granted asylum in Ecuador but can’t leave the embassy without getting arrested on British soil, gave a 12-minute speech in which he promised another big document dump next year: “WikiLeaks has already over a million documents being prepared to be released, documents that affect every country in the world. Every country in this world.”
Assange promised that in 2013 in his native Australia, “an unelected senator will be replaced by one that is elected.” But he didn’t mention his own plans to run for Senate there. He also took a jab at the press, declaring: “And for other journalists and publications – your work speaks for itself, and so do your war crimes.” And he pledged to make himself available for negotiations about his own fate, saying he would “not be cowed” but that “the door is open – and the door has always been open – for anyone who wishes to speak to me.”
The full transcript is available at WikiLeaks, if you don’t have twelve minutes to watch the video. Or if you want to skip to Assange’s outline of his plans for next year (the document dump is the only specific thing there), that starts at 8:55.
As The New York Times points out, Assange was speaking in a “brief pause before fact is replaced by fiction in the public consciousness,” as two films are currently being made about him. At the rate his diplomatic case is going right now, he’ll have to watch them in the rec room at the Ecuadorian embassy.
