The message could hardly be other than something related to today’s announcement that Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, is near to end his enforced stay at the Equatorial Embassy later this weak. The UN body on arbitrary detention will rule on Assange’s case on Friday morning. Assange said he will come out either way – free to fly to Ecuador or to be escorted to prison in Britain (and then Sweden). He will step out Friday at noon if the UN rules against his case, but also demands his passport back and free way to Ecuador in case it rules otherwise.

The case of is notorious for the links between the attempts, by many governments but mainly the US, to stop Wikileaks doing what it is famous for (leaking top secret documents and cables), and the person (body and mind) of its founder. Many facts and documents to this story can be found at justice4assange.com.

I’ve written about the uncommon territorial connections of this story in a paper published in Portuguese a few years ago (I am currently writing an update and expanded version in English) called “Territory and Materiality: Wikileaks and the Control of the Informational Space”. I believe that what is happening to Assange/Wikileaks and, more recently, to Ed Snowden, can also be inspected through the lens of the association between surveillance and space, which will help us further understand important aspects in the geography of surveillance, international/domestic legislation, and geopolitics.

The world (and Jeremy) is waiting to see the end of this three-and-a-half-year drama, hopefully in favour of Assange.

Day 65: Free Assange! justice4assange.com