Julian Assange is not "effectively imprisoned". He can leave the Ecuadorian embassy any time he chooses. Ecuador is under no obligation to provide him domicile.
If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".
Plus, the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also found that he is in arbitrary detention... in 2016. The UK has conveniently ignored this breach of human rights.
Whatever Assange did or didn't do, and whatever this media and political spectacle is, it isn't justice.
You already said that. Anything other than "we don't need no ethical opinions from nobody!" to add? Like if it is actually ethical? Or a giant waste of money?
Ecuador granted asylum not to shield Assange from justice in Sweden, but to prevent the US from using the Swedish case as an avenue to extradite him to the US.
The warrant was only withdrawn because without being able to interview Assange, the investigators cannot move forward. They have also reserved the right to reopen the case should Assange return to Sweden before the statute of limitations expires in 2020.
He also wasn't charged with rape, he was sought for questioning. And he consistently offered the Swedish Prosecutor to answer all questions from London, which the Swedish Prosecutor declined.
Right, because investigation and prosecution of an alleged crime is impossible without the suspect's testimony.
It was a trumped-up allegation. The timing and nature of it alone should have raised flags. Whatever truth there is to it does not warrant the diplomatic circus this has become.
So everyone who is sought as a suspect in a crime is "effectively imprisoned", in your view?
Remember: Assange sought asylum to avoid an interview with Swedish law officials concerning allegations of sexual misconduct in possible violation of Swedish law.
"its own citizens", now for the issue of extradition, I'm not sure it even counts as an extradition in the case of an embassy (though theoretically at first glance it would count)
He can leave the Ecuadorian embassy any time he chooses, which would immediately lead to him becoming... effectively imprisoned.
Perhaps "effectively under house arrest" describes his situation better.
Also, Ecuador may have no obligation to provide him domicile as such, but it does have a duty to grant asylum to legitimate asylum seekers. Without a way to safely transport him from their embassy to their country, I think there is a logical (if not moral) obligation to provide him domicile in the embassy where he claimed, and was granted, that political asylum.
That isn't how prosecution for high crimes works these days.
No nation exerts so much effort recovering someone with a bench warrant for failure to appear unless there's an empty cell in a black site with your name on the door. They even tried playing the "...but he's a filthy rapist!" card to turn the public against him. It's disgusting.
There are actual murderers on the lam who aren't being pursued as aggressively as this. They want him this badly and they don't even have any substantial charges to bring. It's an unfair fight by any measure.