So far May has made no comment on the O’Dwyer petition, although the Daily Mail today reports that she is close to making a decision on the separate extradition of Gary McKinnon (an Aspergers sufferer). The O’Dwyer case is different. He ran a website (TVshack.net) that provided links to copyrighted material. His site contained no illegal content itself, and he broke no UK laws.
The introduction to Wales’ petition states, “O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.” The petition has broken all records for a UK petition on change.org, and the Wikipedia founder is today calling on the Home Secretary to meet with himself and Julia O’Dwyer, Richard’s mother.
Wales commented, “The Home Secretary continues to ignore hundreds of thousands of citizens, the UK tech community, business leaders, celebrities and MPs from all parties on this issue. She should be very clear that we are not going to go away.”
“I can’t believe that Theresa May has not had the good grace to respond to this campaign so far,” added Julia O’Dwyer. “I had hoped that as an elected representative in a country that holds values of freedom so dear, she would have made some sort of response.”
A separate Yougov poll published today shows extensive public support for O’Dwyer. Seventy percent of British adults believe he should not be extradited, while only one in ten believe he should be sent for trial in the US.