WikiLeaks Party of Ecuador, London, having been granted political asylum by Ecuador in an attempt to avoid arrest by UK authorities. Assange is unable to leave the Embassy without being arrested by the Police Forces of the United Kingdom acting on an extradition order placed on him to travel to Sweden to answer allegations of rape and sexual molestation of two Swedish women. Assange fought the extradition order in the UK Court system from December 2010, however, subsequently both the UK High Court of Justice and the UK Supreme Court ruled that the extradition order had been lawfully made and duly dismissed
Julian Assange didn't think this was anything more than just distracting." Eventually, the plan was not pursued and, under Assange's advice, Snowden sought asylum in Russia. Paris newspaper "Le Monde", in its edition of 3 July 2015, published an open letter from Assange to French President François Hollande in which Assange urged the French government to grant him refugee status. Assange wrote that "only France now has the ability to offer me the necessary protection against, and exclusively against, the political persecution that I am currently the object of." In the letter Assange wrote, "By welcoming me, France would fulfill a humanitarian