Switzerland has taken new action against WikiLeaks by shutting down founder Julian Assange’s bank account.
PostFinance — which is owned by the Swiss Post, itself a public company owned by the Swiss Confederation — said in a statement earlier today that it has closed Julian Assange’s account for failing to provide proof of Swiss citizenship.
Here is PostFinance’s statement on its decision:
“Finance has ended its business relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange. The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process. Assange entered Geneva as his domicile. Upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect. Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance. For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account. If there is any indication that the information provided by an account holder may not comply with the detailed valid provisions, PostFinance investigates the circumstances in detail and draws the appropriate conclusions.”
WikiLeaks and its founder have been under constant fire since it released 250,000+ sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables. Assange is wanted by Interpol for sex crimes he allegedly committed during a trip to Sweden earlier this year. The U.S. State Department has taken action against the organization, and several companies including Amazon, PayPal and EveryDNS have banned the site from using their services.
Multiple governments are now targeting the organization. While each action may have been taken for different reasons, the result is an enormous amount of pressure designed to take WikiLeaks down. Despite hundreds of mirrors replicating the site, the organization is definitely in trouble. Whether it will survive or grow stronger than ever after recent events remains to be seen.