WikiLeaks demos planned in Spain and Latin America

Demonstrations are planned today to protest the detention of the founder of the WikiLeaks website and the closing of its Swiss bank account.

The Spanish-language website Free WikiLeaks says protests are to be held in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville and three other Spanish cities. It also says demonstrations are planned in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in the capital cities of Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Peru.

"We seek the liberation of Julian Assange in United Kingdom territory," the organization said on the website. It called on protesters to gather at 6pm (5pm GMT) in Spanish cities.

Assange remains in a UK jail ahead of a 14 December hearing where he plans to fight Sweden's request to extradite him to face sex crimes allegations.

The website also calls for "the re-establishment of the WikiLeaks (wikileaks.org) Internet domain," and the restoration of Visa and MasterCard credit card services to enable the "freedom to move money" because no one has "proved Assange's guilt," nor charged WikiLeaks with any crime.

Many US-based Internet companies have cut their ties to WikiLeaks, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and EveryDNS. Those moves have hurt WikiLeaks' ability to accept donations and support publishing efforts.