Julian Assange, the founder and editor of the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, walked into this embassy on June 19, 2012, and hasn't stepped foot outside since.

Ecuador granted him political asylum, but the United Kingdom refuses to grant him safe passage to leave the country. Instead, the U.K. wants to extradite him to Sweden to answer questions about allegations of sexual misconduct, although charges have never been filed. For close to three years, he has remained a prisoner in the embassy, denied even the hour of sunlight daily that most prisoners are guaranteed. For two years before that, he was either jailed or under strict house arrest in England, all without charge. When I went to London to interview him in the embassy this week, Assange asserted his belief that this pretrial phase is serving as both punishment and deterrent, and that Sweden is acting as a surrogate for the United States, which wants him jailed to stop the work of WikiLeaks.