As if abandoning freedom of the press and the First Amendment weren’t enough, the mainstream media’s celebration of the arrest of fellow journalist Julian Assange now comes with government propaganda from Ecuador, designed to attack the WikiLeaks publisher’s reputation.

Just as they spat out government lies over Iraqi WMDs, the media is uncritically reporting uncorroborated claims about Mr. Assange’s hygiene, despite repeated confirmations from recent visitors to the Ecuadorian embassy that these claims are untrue.

As someone who has visited Assange on multiple occasions — the claims that he is some dirty madman who smears feces on walls could not be further from the truth. This is simply part of a broad campaign to paint him in an unsympathetic light. The bathroom has always been spotlessly clean — even with a note on the wall about which way the toilet paper needs to hang (over not under). The descriptions of a filthy environment have no resemblance to the reality of the situation.

On March 25 when I last visited Assange, he expressed deep frustration over the fact that the Ecuadorian government had gagged him, preventing him from defending his reputation as the media circulated the same government’s slander. WikiLeaks knew that speaking out about his asylum would be grounds to terminate it under Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno’s draconian terms.

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Moreno has publicly admitted that Assange could not talk about his treatment in the embassy. The publisher had been gagged since March, 2018 — giving his many enemies in the establishment freedom to shape the narrative without challenge.

While I was in London in the week prior to Assange’s arrest, I exclusively published a copy of his testimony before the Ecuadorian courts where he was fighting the gag in October. He told the court, “due to my isolation, I have not been able to participate in the debates occurring around me and that has resulted in a climate of libel and fake news that might be expected for someone who has been in the business of exposing very large and very powerful corrupt organisations or organisations that abuse human rights.”

He explained that it saddened him to “see information denigrating to my character not only spread by the various organisations that I have exposed, but, in this hearing, by some members of the Ecuadorian Government.” Assange said that the attempts to attack him personally are simply to “make headlines” and aid his persecution.

Another friend and regular visitor of Assange, who was scheduled to meet with him this week, but was unable to due to his arrest on Thursday, also described him as “very caring and very warm.” He said that after multiple visits to the embassy, and hugging him many times, he has never noticed any hygiene issues.

“Obviously he is stressed, but he is still completely mentally capable and brilliant,” the friend told Gateway Pundit, brushing off the attacks on Assange’s character as “ridiculous.”

The friend added, “some of the media have started, or continued, picking up on past smear campaigns that are completely false and intended solely to harm Julian’s reputation.”