WikiLeaks is opening a new front in its battle to break the financial blockade imposed by credit card giants Visa and MasterCard, the group said Wednesday, saying it could now accept donations through a French non-profit. 
 
 Visa and MasterCard were among half a dozen U.S. payment firms to pull the plug on WikiLeaks, shortly after the group made its controversial decision to begin publishing some 250,000 secret State Department cables in December 2010. 
 
 It's not clear whether Visa or MasterCard would tolerate the move, which would route money through France's Fund for the Defense of Net Neutrality. In 2011 WikiLeaks briefly opened a funding gateway - through Icelandic payment processor DataCell - only to see it shut down by Visa on short notice. 
 
 In his statement, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange - who remains holed up at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he is seeking asylum -??dared Visa to try to foil his latest fundraising plan."Let them shut it down," he said. "We're waiting. Our lawyers are waiting." 
 
 Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct, and he has long complained of funding difficulties. 
 
 Those became particularly acute once Visa, MasterCard, and others took action against his site. U.S. and foreign officials had warned that their publication of secret cables would have calamitous consequences for American diplomats and their informants, with some accusing WikiLeaks of being a terrorist organization. 
 
 But as many of the worst predictions failed to materialize, the ongoing blockade began raising concerns about corporate censorship, with U.N. officials and media watchdog groups such as Reporters Without Borders describing it as a potential attack on free expression. 
 
 WikiLeaks is in the process of taking Visa, MasterCard, and their local European partners to court over the blockade - recently winning a case in Iceland against payment processor Valitor.WikiLeaks' latest move would see it take advantage of France's debit card system, known as Carte Bleue, to send donations via the Net Neutrality fund. 
 
 The precise mechanics of the proposed transactions remains unclear. The Fund for the Defense of Net Neutrality and Visa did not immediately return messages seeking comment. 
 
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 Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report. 
 
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 Raphael Satter can be reached at: http://raphae.li/twitter ||||| The whistleblowing website set up by Julian Assange said that it is temporarily suspending publication of leaks to fight a “blockade” by credit card companies. 
 
 The refusal to accept donations has cost the website “tens of millions of dollars” in lost funding, the website said. 
 
 Mr Assange was due to make the announcement at a press conference in London at 1pm today , and appeal for donations to help flight the blockade. 
 
 WikiLeaks said “in order to fight for its survival” it has decided temporarily to stop publishing secret state documents, while it battles the financial blockade through the courts. 
 
 In a statement, WikiLeaks said: “In order to ensure our future survival, WikiLeaks is now forced to temporarily suspend its publishing operations and aggressively fundraise in order to fight back against this blockade and its proponents.” 
 
 The financial problems for WikiLeaks started on 7 December last year when Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union refused to accept donations for WikiLeaks. 
 
 This “unlawful financial blockade”, WikiLeaks said, “destroyed 95 per cent of its revenues”, leaving the website near-broke. 
 
 The website blamed the blockade on a reaction to its decision to start publishing the first of 250,000 leaked US Government cables days earlier. 
 
 The website said: “WikiLeaks has published the biggest leaks in journalistic history. This has triggered aggressive retaliation from powerful groups. 
 
 “Since 7th December 2010 an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade has been imposed by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union. 
 
 “The blockade came into force within ten days of the launch of Cablegate as part of a concerted US-based, political attack that included vitriol by senior right wing politicians, including assassination calls against WikiLeaks staff. 
 
 “The blockade is outside of any accountable, public process. It is without democratic oversight or transparency.” 
 
 WikiLeaks continued in its statement: “As a result, WikiLeaks has been running on cash reserves for the past eleven months. 
 
 “The blockade has cost the organization tens of millions of pounds in ost donations at a time of unprecedented operational costs resulting from publishing alliances in over 50 countries, and their inevitable counter-attacks. 
 
 “Our scarce resources now must focus on fighting the unlawful banking blockade.” 
 
 WikiLeaks said that it had “commenced pre- litigation action against the blockade in Iceland, Denmark, the UK, Brussels, the United States and Australia. 
 
 “We have lodged an anti-trust complaint at the European Commission and expect a decision by mid-November as to whether the European Competition Authority will open a full investigation into the wrongdoing of VISA and MasterCard.” 
 
 WikiLeaks is today setting out a number of ways that people can donate to the website.
– WikiLeaks needs "a minimum" of a million euros ASAP in order to "effectively continue its mission," it announced in a news release today. The anti-secrecy organization has seen its cash reserves plummet from around $983,600 in December 2010 to less than $120,000 at the end of June, and that reserve will dwindle to nothing "within a few months," it said, according to the Wall Street Journal. It blames these financial woes on Visa and MasterCard's joint ban on the site. WikiLeaks says it has at last figured out a workaround for would-be donors with Visa and MasterCard, saying they can send donations through France's Carte Bleue system, which in turn would route the donations through France's Fund for the Defense of Net Neutrality, a nonprofit organization, the AP reports. Carte Bleue has a contract with Visa and MasterCard forbidding them from cutting off merchants. "Let them shut it down," Julian Assange said in statement. "We're waiting. Our lawyers are waiting."