While U.S. government and its allies have criticised WikiLeaks, some world leaders have questioned the arrest of its founder Julian Assange.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, questioning the reliability of leaked U.S. cables referring to his nation as undemocratic and corrupt, said the fact that Mr. Assange was in custody shows the West has its own problems with democracy.
“Why was Mr. Assange hidden in prison?” Mr. Putin asked at a news conference. “Is this democracy?”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was surprised by the lack of outcry against Mr. Assange's arrest. “This WikiLeaks guy was arrested and I'm not seeing any protest for freedom of expression,” said Mr. da Silva in Brasilia. “There is nothing, nothing for freedom of expression and against the imprisonment of this guy who was doing better work than many of the Ambassadors.”
U.N.'s top human rights official Navi Pillay raised the alarm over officials' and corporations' moves to cut off WikiLeaks' funding and starve it of server space — something she described as a “potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression”.
The Obama administration has put intense pressure on U.S.-based companies to cut any ties to WikiLeaks, and many have done so, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and EveryDNS. In the Netherlands, a 16-year-old boy suspected of being involved in digital attacks by Wikileaks supporters was arrested.
