Deny the rumors of Wikileaks

On the morning of June 23rd, Beijing time, 10, according to foreign media reports, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, denied the existence of infighting in the organization in an interview with the media on Friday, calling himself the "lightning rod" of Wikileaks.

In an interview with the media on Friday, the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks denied the rumors of infighting. But he did not talk about the potential impact of these rumors on Wikileaks. Assange himself is currently facing an investigation by the Swedish authorities for two cases of rape and sexual harassment.

Wikileaks released the Afghanistan War Diary in July this year, which contains more than 70,000 confidential documents about the war in Afghanistan. However, since then, some volunteers of the organization have quit because they don't agree with the behavior of the organization and Assange's personality and style.

But Assange said: "This organization will not let anyone become a target. We always expect a lot of criticism. My duty is to act as a lightning rod ... It is a very difficult task to attract outside criticism of our work. "

"On the other hand, I have gained too much trust." He said.

Some of Wikileaks' criticisms come from within. Annear Domscheidt-Berg, a longtime volunteer and spokesperson of Wikileaks, quit the organization last month. He said that Assange's personality is deviating from Wikileaks' original mission: publishing small secret information, not just huge and compelling information like the Afghanistan War Diary.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a new spokesperson for Wikileaks, said that the information released by Wikileaks is much more important than the organization or Assange himself, and the organization has tried to express this view. "In the history of Wikileaks, no one claimed that the information we published was untrue." He said.

Dom Seit-Berg said after leaving Wikileaks that the website has received a lot of new information from several countries, but it has not been released. He said: "The information now is beyond their processing capacity."

He said that in the past few weeks, a large number of new volunteers joined Wikileaks to replace those who left. Wikileaks may shut down, he said, but it's far from over.

Money is also a big problem. Last week, a British company that collected donations for Wikileaks terminated its cooperation with the organization.

Assange said in August this year that reviewing secret information is "a costly job".

After the Afghan war diary leaked, Swedish prosecutors announced that they were investigating Assange's two cases of rape and sexual harassment. Marianne Ny, Swedish Minister of Justice, said in a statement last month: "There is reason to believe that there is a crime. Judging from the current information, I think it should be defined as rape. " However, she said that more investigation is needed before making a final decision.

Assange insisted that he was innocent and told Al Jazeera that the accusation was a "libel activity".

This week, Assange's application for residence in Sweden was rejected because he failed to meet all the requirements. Swedish immigration officials declined to give details.

Assange was very active when interviewed by the media. He answered many questions about Wikileaks infighting, but repeatedly refused to respond to rape and sexual harassment investigations. He also declined to comment on the impact of this accusation on Wikileaks.

After being repeatedly questioned by reporters, he finally left angrily and terminated the interview.