German MP visits Assange in embassy
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Radio
Sevim Dagdelen spoke to Oliver Huethe from SBS Radio’s
What were the topics of your meeting with Julian Assange?
Dagdelen: We were talking about the solidarity work for him and for Wikileaks and the case Bradley Manning. We were talking about how we can put the pressure on the British and the Swedish government to give him the assurance not to extradite him to the US. That were the topics of our meeting.
And you as a politician, given that you could be in government one day, do you fully appreciate absolute transparency or do you see some sorts of limits to whistleblowing and the work Wikileaks does?
Dagdelen: I think there can be no limit when you are discovering US or other NATO war crimes. There has to be a moral duty in my point of view to rise and to inform the people about war cases and war crimes like Wikileaks and Assange did in Iraq and in Afghanistan done by the US soldiers. It is my point of view that the foreign affairs and foreign politics should be very transparent and democratic and not a secret thing because a secret is normally more vexing, for if you don’t have to hide something you don’t need a secret foreign policy.
In what sort of state of mind is he in?
Dagdelen: I was very very happy that Mr. Assange is very optimistic and he looked to me very strong and in a really good spirit despite facing such a difficult situation within the embassy and we were on a good meeting.
Did you hear anything about his living conditions? Does he have a private bathroom and his own sort of retreat in there?
Dagdelen: The Ecuadorian embassy in London is not that big, so that he can have a flat or something. The embassy is within a building in London, it’s looking like flats, it’s not that big, but he has got his own room. There is a shower in the embassy and a bathroom he is using which is normally used by the staff and in the evening he is on his own. The thing was that we were talking in the room of the ambassador, not in his room, so I don’t know how his living conditions very concretely in detail now, but he looked very ok, he doesn’t give me the impression that he feels very bad in the embassy.
