I do feel for Assange. Hi is in a bad situation, but personally so do I not see how his voluntary attempt to evade a legal arrest order is detention. Hi is accused of a serious crime and the Swedish authorities must investigate it.
So the catch-22 is that he says he is happy to go to Sweden in case he is given guarantees of not being extradited, but no such guarantee is possible under Swedish law.
What swedish authorities could (and should) do in this situation is just make some really broad statements about how even though they have agreements with the USA, no one would ever be extradited from Sweden to any country in case they risked facing the death penalty and/or are whistle blowers.
Political fallout from actions taken in the war against whistleblowers has so far been quite minimal.
Capital punishment is against the European Convention of Human Rights. No EU (well Council of Europe) country is legally allowed extradite anyone where they would face the death penalty. That's been the law for years. There has never been any question of Assange being extradited and executed, because you can't extradite someone in that case.
Cripes, even Russia has stopped capital punishment because of the ECHR.
Abu Salem was actually extradited from Portugal to India before this treaty existed
EU countries also extradite to the US. But only after the US assure that in the specific case the death penalty will be neither sought nor imposed.
> The treaty with Portugal comes after India accepted its two main conditions that the extradited person would not face either a death sentence or life imprisonment beyond 25 years.
That is, claimed to stop:
There is no legal impediment to for the Swedish government preventing them from refusing extradition. What makes you think there is?
Can the US President give a guarantee that the Supreme Court will decide a case in a certain manner? Because that's what that means.
Sweden is a country with laws, and an independent judiciary. Sweden has extradition treaty with the US (as do many people). If the USA follows a procedure, then the Swedish courts must hand someone over (and vice versa). That's what the (Swedish) law says. You're asking the Swedish government to guarantee that the Swedish courts won't decide a particular case in a particular manner.
In Sweden it's the Government (prime minister, effectively) that decides, not any court.
The idea that there's some sort of independent, non-partisan process for extraditions is completely, totally false. It is entirely political.
Only in one direction. If the Supreme Court blocks an extradition as illegal under Swedish law then the Government cannot overrule that judgement (though I suppose they could change the law and ask the country to refile the extradition request). They can however refuse to extradite someone even if the courts rule the extradition legal.
I am not asking for anything, but as others have pointed out it is totally within the Swedish governments prerogative to deny the extradition of Assange to the USA. If they were truly interested in the Swedish case they wanted to question him about they would have come out and said this long ago.
If Julian has committed a crime in Sweden then let him be tried and sentenced in Sweden, but when the USA treats people like Chelsea Manning was/is treated then I think Julian has a point.
As an Australian I am most disappointed in how the Australian government has failed Julian. They should be pushing for a resolution of the whole situation yet they have basically washed their hands of him. No matter what he has done he is still an Australian in trouble overseas and the Australian government should be helping.
However he is fugitive in UK on his right own, skipping bail is no joke.
Source for this claim?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review
Yeah... that's not true.
After leaving Sweden he spent weeks in the UK though. Plenty of time to arrest and extradit him.
Not buying it. (Also EU law would prevent Sweden from extraditing him to the US without British consent anyhow. So either Britain is okay with his extradition and there's no need to get him to Sweden, or they're not and there's no point. And that's not even touching on the fact that Sweden couldn't extradite him to the US without an assurance that he could not face execution, which is politically very unlikely to happen. I don't doubt the US would love to grab Assange, but the legal extradition question is a complete red herring.)
Edit: Fix dumb typos, too tired.
Much better to do it in a country with a Byzantine legal system, a foreign language and less developed media. Especially one that has been tame in past.
See Gary McKinnon as an example of a high profile extradition attempt from the UK.
The argument is that it is a pretense to have him detained by US-controlled country to get him sent to US without proper judicial procedure.
Basically, both UK and Sweden said it can't rule out that he is sent over to US if he's detained for this unrelated "crime".
Here's my translation of the accusation (to the best of my ability):
Sexual Assault
They were sitting in bed talking and he took off her clothes. They had sex again and she realised that he had only put the condom over the tip of his penis, but she let it pass.
They went to sleep and she awoke with the sensation of him entering her. She immediately asked 'Are you wearing anything?' and he replied 'You'.
She told him 'You better not have HIV' and he replied 'Of course not'. She felt it was too late, he was already in her so she let him continue, she was too tired to tell him once more, she had been nagging him about using a condom all night.
She never had unprotected sex before. He said he wanted to come inside her, he did not say when he would but he did. A lot leaked out of her afterwards.
She told him 'What if I get pregnant?'. He answered that Sweden is a good place to have kids. She jokingly told him that if she became pregnant he would have to pay her student loans.
On the train to Enköping he had told her that he had slept in Anna Ardins bed after a party. She asked if he had sex with Anna but he said Anna liked girls, that she was a lesbian.
Now she knows that he did the same thing with Anna. She asked him about how many he has had sex with, he responded that he didn't keep count. He said that he had HIV tested himself 3 months earlier and that he had sex with a woman after that and that she was tested and not positive.
She said sarcastic things to him in a joking tone, she believes that she was trying to de-dramatize what had happened, he in turn did not seem to care. When he was told the size of her student loans he said that if he was to pay her loans then she would have to give birth to a baby.
They joked that the child would be named Afghanistan. He also said that he ought to keep abortion-pills with him that would in reality be sugar-pills.
His phone rang and he had a meeting with Aftonbladet (swedish newspaper) on tuesday at 12. She explained that he would not make it to that meeting, so he pushed his whole schedule ahead by one hour.
After that he rode a bicycle with her on the back down to the train station. She paid his ticket to Stockholm. Before they separated he told her to keep her phone on. She asked if he was going to call and he said he would.
She took the bike home, showered and changed sheets. Since she didn't make it in time for work she called in sick and stayed home. She wanted to clean up and wash everything. There was semen on the sheets and she thought it was disgusting. She also went by the drugstore and bought 'dagenefterpiller' (abortion pills).
After she had discussed with her friends she realized that she had been the victim of a crime. She went to Danderyd hospital and from there to Södersjukhuset (another hospital). There she was examined and also tested using a so called 'rape-kit'.
edit: the old link s no longer working, here is a working one (again it's in swedish):
Abortion pills is used to trigger an abortion, or to use the other common term, induced miscarriage.
Tack!
1. Unlawful coercion
On 13-14 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [AA] in Stockholm. Assange, by using violence. forced the injured party to endure his restricting her freedom of movement. The violence consisted in a firm hold of the injured party's arms and a forceful spreading of her legs whilst lying on top of her and with his body weight preventing her from moving or shifting.
2. Sexual molestation
On 13-14 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [AA] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity. Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge.
3. Sexual molestation
On 18 August 2010 or on any of the days before or after that date, in the home of the injured party [AA] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity i.e. lying next to her and pressing his naked, erect penis to her body.
4. Rape
On 17 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [SW] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep. was in a helpless state.
It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange. who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used. still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party's sexual integrity." http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
Can you expect somebody to hand himself voluntarily to US "judicial" system when it is known that he has bleak chances of having proper case in US court, that US routinely ignores human rights in such cases?
Can the US President give a guarantee that the Supreme Court will decide a case in a certain manner? Can the UK Prime Minister guarantee that a court case in the UK will end a certain way? Because that's what that means.
Sweden is a country with laws, and an independent judiciary. Sweden has extradition treaty with the US (as do many countries). If the USA follows a procedure, then the Swedish courts must hand someone over (and vice versa). That's what the (Swedish) law says. You're asking the Swedish government to guarantee that the Swedish courts won't decide a particular case in a particular manner.
In Canada, for example, it is illegal to kiss your sleeping wife, because (a) a kiss is a sexual act, (b) there is no de minimis exception to sexual assault, and (c) even if your wife explicitly consented in advance to being kissed while asleep, that consent ended when she fell asleep (in spite of that being the precise circumstance to which she wished to consent). (R v JA)
As another example, a man who lies about using birth control is committing a sexual assault, while a woman who lies about using birth control is not; the supreme court took the view that the possibility of becoming a mother is harmful, while the possibility of becoming a father is not. (R. v. Hutchinson)
As far as I'm aware, no other legal jurisdiction has followed Canada's example in either of these contexts.
it is illegal to kiss your sleeping wife
a man who lies about using birth control
It might be interesting to reflect on the social conditions that must have prevailed for judges to believe that this is a defensible judgement. Legal decisions usually reflect the prevailing mores in the social milieu of judges (= upper middle class).
It may be worth noting here that child support is considered to be something to which the child is entitled, regardless of to whom the money is in fact paid; there have been cases where rapists have received court-ordered child support payments from their victims.
That's only half true. The truth is that the father is entitled to pay, in the "best interests of the child". But there is no requirement in law or in practice that the mother actually spends the money on the child. Or even that she's accountable to the the father (who typically has legal rights over the child), for how any of the money is spent.
Women have been known to take sperm from a used condom and impregnate themselves. If that happened to you, you would still be liable for child support.
... which applies only to one sex. Women can have an abortion, and choose to not be a parent. Men can't. That doesn't sound like equality to me.
Western courts have held that men have absolute liability for their sperm. This includes the following situations:
* your girlfriend lies about being on the pill
* your girlfriend fishes the condom out of the garbage and impregnates herself
* your girlfriends roommate fishes the condom out of the garbage and impregnates herself
* your girlfriend impregnates herself with the leavings after giving you oral sex
* as an underage boy, you are raped by an adult woman.
The last one is surprising.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-22/features/96122...
The judge said "Victims have rights. Here, the victim also has responsibilities."
The admitted and convicted pedophile has full custody of a minor child, and her victim is ordered to pay the criminal money... or go to jail for non-payment of support.
I support equality. I have a hard time finding equality in the court decisions in this area.
We're not talking lawsuits here. We're talking about criminal law, where there is no requirement for the alleged victim to feel aggrieved or even to consent to the prosecution.
If you kiss your sleeping wife, then mention this fact in passing to a police officer, you could theoretically find yourself being arrested and thrown in jail, since you confessed to a serious crime.
What exactly is the point of such a law?
There is no higher court than the Supreme Court of Canada.
Very few countries have such laws. In most Western countries sexual intercourse without objection between two adults that are capable of consenting/objecting (no abuse of authority, no threat, no force) will not be regarded as rape.
This would be a very extreme definition of rape, because when you think about it, who would actually commit the rape if both persons did not object? Did both persons rape each other?
Legally, yes. The same applies if both persons are too intoxicated to be able to consent; and in some states without "romeo and juliet" laws, if two underage persons have sex.
Of course, it's up to prosecutors in such circumstances to decide whether to prosecute none, one, or both parties...
Modern public opinion != legal opinion. It varies wildly between jurisdictions. And what's on the law books isn't necessarily what's effectively enforced. In some jurisdictions, there is no effective way to prosecute for rape within marriage.
Whereas where I am, it's apparently legally required to continually get positive verbal consent throughout the act (as told to me by a legal student ~2 years ago), though this hasn't been tested in courts, and seems to be written to a fantasy of how humans behave; it doesn't matter how enthusiastic you are about getting consent, if you're not verbalising it constantly, then technically a crime is going on. Tough for you if you are turned off by talking during the act. Of course, take this to court and you're faced with the usual he-said/she-said problem of rape cases.
Legal definitions of rape - the definitions that count - vary considerably.
>>One: “The allegation of rape would not be rape under English law”
>>This is flatly untrue. The Assange legal team argued this twice before English courts, and twice the English courts ruled clearly that the allegation would also constitute rape under English law.
http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-...
It's the Supermax prison treatment including solitary confinement for life that he fears in the US.
You just have to look at how they treated Manning.
In face of that risk it certainly would feel like detention to me. Imagine someone would threaten to lock you up for life in solitary confinement and possibly even torture you on top of that if you ever left the room you are sitting in right now.
Wouldn't that feel like detention? Yes, because it is. That threat alone significantly restricts your freedom.
Journalists, for instance.
I personally prefer a source that is as unbiased as possible, even if that means that there is less "content", because I don't want to have to sort fact from fiction in the biased source. If I had to sort fact from fiction, I would basically be doing the research myself, which would defeat the point of looking at someone else's corpus of research in the first place.
One of the requirements of extradition treaties is that the person is accused of something that's a crime in both countries. Assanges lawyers argued in the UK High and Supreme Courts that what he wanted for wasn't a crime in the UK. They lost. It's the opinion of the UK courts that what Assange is accused of, would count as a crime in the UK.
This is a crime in the UK & Wales, in fact their legislation specifically mentions sleep (this was specifically cited by the UK Supreme Court when it denied his appeal). This would also have been a crime in Canada (the Canadian Supreme Court ruled on a case a year or two ago in regards to sex and unconsciousness). It is also a crime in Sweden.