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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of what you think of Assange (personal take: flawed personality but ultimately heroic)...

Regardless of what you think of the charges against him (personal take: No way to know for sure, but gut feel is he made poor choices and wound up in the grey area of undesired sexual experiences that our society is currently struggling with how to properly define. In our natural humane desire to protect potential victims we are defaulting to deeming it "sexual assault", but the reality is more complex as the assaulter is not even fully aware of their state)...

You have to admit it's super fucked up that Sweden is unable to charge someone with a crime if they can't interview them first? What if the suspect is a non-communitative deaf mute?

Seems like some law should be changed somewhere.

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They certainly can charge in absentia and issue extradition warrants afterwards - read the UK high court judgment. The problem is that as soon as they charge they have to share evidence to get an extradition warrant, and Assange could have beat the request on substantive grounds by demonstrating that there was no crime under British law, something that would have been particularly easy since the Swedish prosecutor would be required to share evidence, including the exculpatory texts.

They did not charge because the requirements to extradite for "questioning" are much weaker and require no proof, just a statement from the Swedish prosecutor that cannot be challenged on any substantive grounds.

What's fucked up? Sweden's justice system seems to be far superior to the US's—both in taking very seriously charges of sexual assault that would probably be ignored in the US, and in taking very seriously the rights of the accused.

Assange has squandered his chance to clear his name, and sure seems to be at the least a creepy dude.

A 'comparison' to the US can't prove that Swedens system is not fu but only that the US might be even more so.

I don't think hearings are strictly necessary, but in order to charge someone the prosecutor must believe there is a case. In situations with little other evidence (technical, witnesses,...) the prosecutor needs more.

> Regardless of what you think of Assange (personal take: flawed personality but ultimately heroic)...

Probably a rapist?

Worth reposting the link from the article which explains what Assange actually did (or was alleged to have done): http://jackofkent.com/2012/09/the-detail-of-the-accusations-...

Worth quoting too:

> As they drank tea, he started to fondle her leg which she welcomed. Everything happened fast. Mr Assange ripped off her clothes and at the same time broke her necklace. She tried to put her clothes on again, but Mr Assange had immediately removed them again. She had thought that she did not really want to continue, but it was too late to tell Mr Assange to stop as she had consented so far. Accordingly she let Mr Assange take off all her clothes. Thereafter they laid down on the bed naked with AA on her back and Mr Assange on top. Mr Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina, but she did not want him to do that as he was not using a condom. She therefore squeezed her legs together in order to avoid him penetrating her. She tried to reach several times for a condom which Mr Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without a condom.

> Indeed she was concerned he had not put a condom on. She felt his penis with her hand to check he had really put it on. She felt that the edge of the condom was in the right place on the root of his penis. They therefore continued to have sex, as she said that she thought that she just wanted to get it over with. After a while AA noticed that Mr Assange had pulled his penis out of her and started to arrange the condom. Judging by the sound AA thought he was removing the condom. He then penetrated her again and continued sexual intercourse.

> When she started to move her body she noticed something was seeping out of her vagina and understood it must be his semen. AA told the police she was convinced that Mr Assange, when he pulled out of her, broke the condom by the glans and then continued the intercourse until he ejaculated.

> Her statement then describes in some detail the conduct that forms the basis of Offence 4. She fell asleep, but was woken up by his penetration of her. She immediately asked if he was wearing anything. He answered to the effect that he was not. She felt it was too late and, as he was already inside her, she let him continue. She had never had unprotected sex. He then ejaculated inside her.

Not a "grey area of undesired sexual experience" here. Just straight up exceeding the scope of consent.

EDIT: downvoted by either the pro-rape crowd or the anti-copyright infringement crowd.

The first 3 dot points read more like a case of a broken condom than exceeding the scope of consent. A lot of the evidence is what she thinks he was thinking - this is not high quality evidence. He seems to have done everything she asked him to do.

The last dot point is from the other set of charges (SW rather than AA). That one is a fairly clear case of straight up exceeding the scope of consent. If it happened like that, it is bad behavior. He could reasonably be unwise rather than malicious. A formal apology and a moderate fine for any medical expenses seems appropriate to my moral judgment, although the courts would know what is appropriate legally.

At any rate, the two cases here are rather minor compared to the suspicion that the US government is setting him up with a smear campaign. The forces against him include a government which apparently has a secret court and a spy network that was being run by the executive without the apparent knowledge of the American congress. These charges may not exist in a vacuum. Lots of people are not perfect, the issue is that he deserves some freedom from persecution for his political actions. Someone obviously agrees with me here that these charges were politically motivated, because the Ecuadorians are granting him asylum.

So you're saying Assange should be allowed to do whatever he wants, because USA?

And re: Ecuador, there are certainly reasons why they have granted asylum.

Wanting to protect a victim of persecution is virtually guaranteed not to have been a real consideration. Pissing off the USA and the UK is the obviously much bigger motivation.

I'm being quite specific, saying that this extradition order for these specific charges should be ignored, because USA.

If they had solid evidence that he was dragging women off the streets and threatening them with a knife then this is all reasonable. No-one is alleging anything like that.

I'm also throwing in an uninformed opinion that people are throwing 'sexual assault' and 'rape' around expecting a strong reaction, but I don't see the justification for getting worked up here. Setting aside any STDs (basically, assuming Assange doesn't have aids), the issue is that he did something that didn't hurt anyone, doesn't appear calculated to humiliate, was in circumstances where he might have misunderstood as having consent (given he was already having sex with these women), and can be rectified in 24 hours with drugs and a doctors visit. This would be grounds to discipline him, but not grounds to get worked up.

You're ignoring the part where he's holding her arms down and forcing her legs open. He's no different than the "dragging women off the streets" rapist, he just didn't need to do that in this case.

So my answer to that is below; just in closing the wikipedia article insinuates [1] that the reason that any of this was reported to the police was because the women involved wanted Assange tested for STDs, not because they wanted him prosecuted for rape. The Chief Public Prosecutor didn't think it was rape at the time.

This seems pretty reasonable, and to me says that rape in Sweden is potentially about as serious as a traffic violation - there was potential, if other things had gone wrong in a somewhat unusual conjunction of events, for someone to have been harmed. An unsavvy woman (potentially those involved) would have been completely unaware that she had been raped.

I'd need to see something new, but while Assange may have committed a crime in Sweden he shouldn't be stigmatised. The word rape, in this very specifc case, is being used in a very technical manner and is clearly a slightly arcane legal term. Maybe discipline is required, but it isn't clear-cut what sort of penalty is needed. Again, I think an apology and some time with a doctor seems in order. Maybe a fine. Possibly this could be handled outside the courts. An extradition is uncalled for.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

> the issue is that he did something that didn't hurt anyone, doesn't appear calculated to humiliate, was in circumstances where he might have misunderstood as having consent (given he was already having sex with these women), and can be rectified in 24 hours with drugs and a doctors visit. This would be grounds to discipline him, but not grounds to get worked up.

I honestly can't conceive that you could apply this logic. Not all rape is the same in severity or impact - but it is sure as hell all rape. And feeling like someone had sexual contact with you in a way that you did not want is pretty much the end of the story. Whether there are explicit physiological medical repercussions or not.

I'm in agreement with you; I listed 4 things and medical outcomes were only a part of it. But I'm not sure that my point was clear so I'm going to restate it while choosing my words as carefully as I can:

For the sake of argument I'm happy to say that this is a rape, that it is bad and that it does deserve some sort of punishment.

Leaving aside any legal framework which isn't at all relevant to what I'm saying (and how many people on HN are up-to-date on Swedish law anyway). But that leaves the question of what punishment is appropriate (not necessarily mandated by law, but appropriate given a reasonable person. Opinions will differ).

I think that a sincere apology and a monetary fine seem like an appropriate level of punishment. I don't think international condemnation by strangers is called for.

1) No actual harm appears to have been done done

2) As I've said in other parts of the thread:

2a) The evidence that this was intended to humiliate or remove any sense of agency is not convincing

2b) There is evidence he complied with everything the women asked him to do, except in one instance where he should have worn a condom

I don't think these circumstances raise grave questions about Assange's moral character. If this is rape, which strictly speaking it may be, then I ask rhetorically why is it outrageous?

> I'm being quite specific, saying that this extradition order for these specific charges should be ignored, because USA.

Wow, I never thought I'd see someone advocating that rape / coerced sex / exceeding consent repeatedly is totally fine because the person might be wanted internationally for other crimes.

Great use of logic there.

> The first 3 dot points read more like a case of a broken condom than exceeding the scope of consent.

Whether or not it was a broken condom or he ripped it on purpose is a red herring. If the allegations are true, he was trying to have sex with a woman he just met while holding her arms down and trying to force her legs open. That's attempted rape.

Later in the paragraph:

> After a while Mr Assange had asked AA what she was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. [...] Mr Assange let go of AA’s arms and put on a condom [...]

I can read this as being not that great at sex. Depending on how long "a while" is, he might just be in the habit of grabbing his partner. This doesn't seem malicious.

That might be reasonable, unmalicious behavior if you have a history with someone and can infer things about their state of mind. It's utterly reckless as to someone you just met.

This video does a pretty good job of explaining consent for those that don't think AA's description sounds like rape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8 (Tea Consent)

Thanks, that's much worse than I recalled.

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