Whistleblowing a principle worth protecting

Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy. Photo / Getty Images

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, could walk free from the Ecuadorean embassy in London as early as next week.

He's been there almost five years. Imagine. Five years in an embassy.

British police, armed with arrest warrants have been stationed outside for that five year period at a cost of more than $25 million dollars.

Assange is facing sexual assault allegations from two women in Sweden, but three of the four allegations will expire next week -- and so Assange will be automatically cleared.

One of the allegations is that he was invited to stay over at the home of a Wikileaks supporter in Stockholm in 2010, but it's alleged he took a consensual act too far.

There is also a fourth charge of rape -- that has a 10 year statue of limitations -- but it's not clear whether that will be pursued. The lawyer for the woman says she wanted Assange to stand trial at the time and be convicted, but now she doesn't necessarily want to recall that incident.

Assange, all the while, has said he is innocent -- and he maintains this was all part of a set-up to get him to Sweden so U.S authorities could then charge him over the release of hundreds of thousands of documents -- political and military documents -- back in 2010.

He exposed what amounted to war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the killing of thousands of civilians by the U.S military.

The allegations were endless. They range from shooting dead innocent civilians, to thousands of civilians being killed by airstrikes.

In Afghanistan, American troops machine-gunned a bus, killing 15 civilians. There was the Shinwar shooting -- where U.S marines had witnessed a suicide bombing, and made what was described as a 'frenzied escape' firing automatic weapons down a 10 kilometre stretch of road killing teenaged girls, motorists, and old men in the fields. 19 unarmed civilians were killed that day and 50 wounded. And so it goes on.

That's just a snapshot of what Wikileaks uncovered. There are thousands and thousands of examples of war crimes and breaches of international law.

And so it is now that Assange will, possibly, walk free from the Ecuadorian embassy this week. Those allegations in Sweden will continue to hang over him.

Still, he is a hero to some -- a villain to many. The same can be said for how we perceive whistleblowers.

I believe whistleblowers are crucial to our understanding of the world, exposing some of the dreadful acts committed by governments, and flushing out corruption.

Whistleblowing, i think, is a principal that should be protected at all costs.