A Wikileaks organizer has spoken out about Julian Assange’s position as the whistle-blowing site’s front man now that Assange has been accused of rape in Sweden. Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir told the Daily Beast’s Philip Shenon that Assange should step down as the site spokesperson until the Swedish investigation is complete. Jonsdottir doesn’t buy the idea that there is some sort of U.S.-sponsored anti-Assange/Wikileaks conspiracy behind the allegations either:
“I am not angry with Julian, but this is a situation that has clearly gotten out of hand,” she said in a telephone interview. “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.”
An anonymous source told Shenon that Assange has been resisting hints from supporters of the site’s mission that he step aside. A recent site outage was, according to the source, actually an effort to send Assange a message.
Birgitta Jonsdottir may want Assange to step away as point man for Wikileaks, but she seemed to understand how the accusations against the Australian-born hacker could have resulted from a sort of cultural miscommunication. Assange is brilliant, said Jonsdottir, “but he doesn’t have very good social skills.”
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