An Ecuadorian court has dismissed the appeal of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's defense, which requested lifting the home rules imposed on the whistleblower in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the South American country’s Foreign Ministry said.

"A court in the Pichincha province today [December 21] confirmed the legal force of the special protocol published by the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry in October in order to regulate [Assange’s] living in Ecuador’s embassy in London," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The court decision was related to the fact that the home rules "do not violate any constitutional rights" which was claimed by Assange’s lawyers, the statement pointed out. 

Meanwhile, UN experts on Friday urged the United Kingdom to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the embassy without fear for his safety.

"The only ground remaining for Mr Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offence that cannot post facto justify the more than six years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador," the U.N. experts said in a statement.

"It is time that Mr Assange, who has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest, recovers his freedom,” they said.

The Ecuadorian authorities have introduced the home rules, restricting Assange’s visits and communications. The whistleblower’s lawyers challenged the decision in the court saying the restrictions violated Assange’s rights. Moreover, Assange has suggested that he has been spied on in the embassy. 

The whistleblower has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy since 2012. Assange has repeatedly suggested he might be apprehended outside the embassy and extradited to the United States.