Julian Assange could be facing a rebellion from within his own organisation over the rape charges laid against him in Sweden.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic parliament and previously an influential supporter of WikiLeaks, has gone on the record on the Daily Beast website to say that she has encouraged Assange to give up his responsibilities with WikiLeaks until after the criminal investigation is over.
I am not angry with Julian, but this is a situation that has clearly gotten out of hand. These personal matters should have nothing to do with WikiLeaks. I have strongly urged him to focus on the legalities that he’s dealing with and let some other people carry the torch.
Jónsdóttir went on to say that she didn’t believe Assange’s assertions that the rape allegations were part of “an American-organised smear campaign”. She also criticised the way he has previously run the organisation, saying that “there should not be one person speaking for WikiLeaks. There should be many people.”
For someone like Jónsdóttir, who has previously lobbied hard on behalf of WikiLeaks, to be so openly critical of its founder is indicative of serious internal differences within the organisation.
Another source, who refused to be named, said there is a strong feeling among WikiLeaks volunteers that Assange should step aside for the good of the organisation. Apparently, technical staff protested against his refusal to go by taking the WikiLeaks site offline temporarily, ostensibly because of technical difficulties. However, the source said:
It was really meant to be a sign to Julian that he needs to rethink his situation. Our technical people were sending a message.
The investigation into the rape allegations against Assange was reopened last week after a Swedish prosecutor stated that he had “reason to believe that a crime was committed”.
These signs of internal rebellion cannot be good news for WikiLeaks. The organisation relies heavily on thousands of volunteers and donors to keep it afloat, and if there is indeed discontent in the ranks, the whistleblowing website’s future could be in danger.
But most of all, this raises questions about Assange himself. Mysterious and elusive, he personally attracts a disproportionate amount of the coverage surrounding his organisation purely because of his enigmatic persona and reportedly unorthodox lifestyle.
As I observed at the press conference on the day WikiLeaks released the Afganistan war logs, journalists are fascinated by Assange, and kept asking him questions long after he had any new answers to give purely because of the novelty of having him standing before them in the flesh.
The statements from within the organisation seem to show that he runs the operation in a very egotistical way, refusing to share power or responsibility with those who give up their time to assist him.
There is no doubt that the oddness of his personality has enhanced WikiLeaks’s traction with the media. But now that he is under criminal investigation, that technique is turning sour, contaminating the ideals under which WikiLeaks purports to operate with Assange’s own egotistical style of leadership. To continue to front the organisation under such circumstances would do long-term harm to its credibility.
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