Video: Julian Assange — from hero to hated

The video highlights RT's interactions with Julian Assange since April 2010. Initially he is seen as a hero for exposing the awful truth, eventually he is hated by banks, journalists, world leaders and others.

With every secret revealed by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, he gained more and more enemies, desperate to bring him down. Governments and public figures are openly calling for Assange to be killed. RT first met with Julian Assange in Washington in April 2010, when he released the collateral murder video at the National Press Club. The video shows "two U.S. army pilots treating war like a video game, shooting countless civilians in the process, including two journalists." Private Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, passed the video on to WikiLeaks and has been jailed and is facing torture and court martial for his efforts. Following this release, Assange and WikiLeaks were all over the mainstream media. However, soon after this, major news outlets turned against Assange. Others also turned against him, including a gentleman who appears in the video, who says, "The way to deal with this is pretty simple. We've got special ops forces. A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, a treasonist [sic] and he has broken every law of the United States." Shortly after this, Assange was accused of sexual misconduct in Sweden. Assange says that the sex was consensual and denies any wrongdoing. Digital Journal published an article, containing a video giving detail about this alleged case against Assange. He was then arrested by the British government, released on bail, and eventually lived under house arrest for almost two years, pending an appeal against extradition to Sweden. During his house arrest, Assange produced a talk show, "The World Tomorrow", where he interviewed controversial people from all over the world. One episode covered an interview with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, on his fight against privately-owned television channels in Ecuador. When his appeal against extradition was denied, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he remains to this day, awaiting a decision by President Rafael Correa, on asylum in Ecuador. President Correa says that if he does grant political asylum to Assange, it would be an informed decision, and one made in the name of human rights.