Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in Ecuadorian embassy in london for more than a year, on Thursday launched his political party in Australia to contest the general elections later this year.
The Wikileaks Party will field seven candidates, including Assange, for the upper house Senate seats in the federal election. This was announced at an event here via Skype. Assange, who is an Australian, will contest elections from Victoria. The 42-year-old founder of the whistleblowing website said a major issue in the coming days would be the ruling labour party’s policy on asylum seekers.
He said the party’s first actions would be to demand full details of the government’s asylum seeker arrangement with Papua New Guinea be made public, news agency Australian Associated Press said. “Considering PNG’s developing country status, the Australian Government must disclose how it will assist PNG to financially support resettled refugees,” Assange said in a statement.