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REYKJAVIK, Iceland » Whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks has set up a private limited company in Iceland for administrative purposes, a spokesman said Saturday, as part of a move to restructure its global operations.
The organization is also establishing legal entities in Sweden and France, spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said, as bases from which to carry out tasks such as opening bank accounts. He stressed Saturday that the moves do not mean WikiLeaks is trying to make a profit.
"If people think we at WikiLeaks are setting up companies in order to profit from its operations, I would like to assure them that this is not the case," Hrafnsson said.
The international anti-secrecy group has drawn global headlines — and outrage in some quarters — by publishing highly sensitive, classified material on its website. It angered the Pentagon when it posted half a million secret Iraq and Afghanistan war files earlier this year, and the group is also believed to have another 15,000 Afghan war field reports, 260,000 diplomatic cables and U.S. video of casualties in Afghanistan.
WikiLeaks has set up as a private limited company called Sunshine Press Productions in Iceland, Hrafnsson said, because it was a simpler procedure there than establishing a nonprofit organization. The company was registered at the home of one of WikiLeaks’ employees in Iceland.
He said WikiLeaks already operates as a legal entity in Australia, but could not confirm whether it runs there as a company or as a nonprofit organization.
The spokesman was reticent about what the new Icelandic company’s operations will be.
"WikiLeaks is a young and growing organization, there is a great deal happening, and we are restructuring in order to meet that reality," he said.
The Icelandic government recently passed a resolution in favor of a bill that aims to turn the tiny nation into a journalistic haven by granting high-level protection to investigative journalists and their sources. The initiative was partly driven by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Hrafnsson said there was no link between its new Icelandic company and the media protection bill.
Assange has said that his organization was facing financial difficulties and alleged that U.S. authorities pressured an online payment service to shut down his account. WikiLeaks has in the past shut its website down due to lack of funds.
