Icelandic court orders Visa to reopen Wikileaks services

WHISTLEBLOWING WEB SITE Wikileaks could start receiving payments again after an Icelandic court ruled that a Visa agent in the country broke the law when it stopped accepting donations for the web site.

Valitor, formerly Visa Iceland, was ordered to reopen the merchant services account for a web host in the country that WikiLeaks uses after it stopped accepting payments back in July 2011.

Valitor now has 14 days to act on the ruling and restart processing payments to WikiLeaks. If it fails to do so, it faces fines of up to £4,000 a day.

However, according to Bloomberg, the Visa agent will appeal the ruling. If it loses the appeal, that could pave the way for donations from across the world to make their way to Wikileaks, which has been under a financial blockade for over a year.

According to a statement published by WikiLeaks on Thursday, the "blockade stripped away over 95 per cent of donations from supporters of WikiLeaks, costing the organisation in excess of $20 million".

Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange said the ruling will help fortify the organisation.

"This is a significant victory against Washington's attempt to silence WikiLeaks. We will not be silenced," said Assange in a statement.

"Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong. When it's done outside of the rule of law it's doubly wrong. One by one those involved in the attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side of history."

In May, Assange lost his final appeal in the UK Supreme Court against being extradited to Sweden to face rape allegations.

In June the Supreme Court dismissed Assange's bid to reopen his appeal. He is seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and is refusing to comply with a police order to surrender himself. µ