The government of Ecuador has admitted to cutting off internet access to an activist holed up in its London, England, embassy. The activist is a longtime critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and has over the last few months published thousands of secret Russian government documents that have embarrassed the Putin government, in what many see as an attempt to sway the upcoming Russian elections.
“In recent weeks, the activist in our Lond embassy has published a wealth of documents, impacting the Russian election campaign,” said the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility in a statement. “Accordingly, Ecuador has exercised its sovereign right to temporarily restrict access to some of its private communications network within its Embassy in Russia.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a terse statement about the action by the Ecuadorian government:
Today, the government of Ecuador, under pressure from the government of Russia, cut off access to the internet to an activist currently living under asylum in its London embassy. We condemn this action in the strongest terms. Access to the internet, and the freedom to express online a wide diversity of views, even ones we don’t agree with, are fundamental rights in the modern world. Today, we’ve all learned that walls can be made of ones and zeros. And it's very much our common responsibility to try to tear down those walls, just as it was our responsibility to try to do that during the Cold War. We therefore call on the government of Ecuador to immediately end the un-democratic restriction of open access to the internet.