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Comment by fixermark | Hacker News Reader

He's continued to claim asylum to dodge a credible rape accusation rather than face justice. [EDIT: his claims of fear of extradition to the US are credible; there was a leaked charge against him in US courts. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assang...]

At this point, he's dodging Sweden's justice system because he can and because Ecuador allows him to. And all of this distracts from Wikileaks' ostensible goal of shining light into the dark places of power; public trust in them weakens as they continue to refuse to cut ties with an accused rapist dodging charges.

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At this point, sweden has no investigation or request to interview Assange.

He was never charged with a crime, but they were satisfied by their interview 2 years ago and dropped all investigations, as was requested by the alleged victim years prior.

Also the sealed indictment allowing for Assange to be extradicted has been leaked. It is very real.

Sweden has reserved the right to re-open the investigation; the investigation is no longer open because the only person of interest left for them to interact with is Assange, and since he's in asylum they can't. The closure of the investigation is procedural, not comment on his guilt or innocence.

I was unaware of the leaked US charges from November however; that's news for me. Thank you for bringing it to my attention (I've updated my original post). Given that, however, I don't believe it's credible to assume that even if he were extradited to the US, he wouldn't have a fair day in court. He's too famous to disappear. So my original contention that he's a stain on the organization due to the fact he's dodging justice because he can stands.

I mean he targeted powerful people and put a lot of information out that they didn’t want exposed. I think to say he’ll get a fair day in court is something that’s easier to say when you aren’t the one with cannons pointed at you.

I’ve been profiled by cops various times in my life, and the overwhelming feeling was that if I didn’t do what they wanted (things which I had no legal obligation to do) that they could have found a reason to take me in. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. So if you’re doing something that many people consider wrong, I think there’s plenty of injustice in our history to warrant preemptive protection if ones self.

Maybe Assange isn’t innocent. Maybe he deserves to be locked up. I have no idea. But if I were him and I were innocent, I still wouldn’t trust that I’d get fairness.

Have you been profiled by judges? Cops don't get to decide Assange's fate if he's tried in United States court of law. And that trial would have international eyes on it, not a lot of opportunity for shenanigans without lasting repurcussions.

One may look no further than the treatment of Assange's own source for the Afghanistan war logs for clear evidence that "international eyes" do not stop attempts at pre-trial punishment.

The lone member of Obama's State Department who spoke out against that treatment-- P.J. Crowley-- had to resign the next day for doing so.

If you didn't know about any of those events I'd suggest reading up on them before commenting further on the subject.

... and one may look no further than the fact that Chelsea Manning is free now to see that being in the public eye has a significant effect on the outcome, because were she not in the public eye, she'd very much still be in jail for espionage. On account of the espionage, which leaked documents adding fuel to the fire-piles that kindled into the political destabilization of several nations in the Middle East and North Africa and the deaths of thousands of people in civil wars, beginning with Libya.

She got off very easy for the deaths she (unintentionally) facilitated by deciding her conscience spoke more loudly than the expertise of thousands of State Department operatives trained to deal with delicate international political issues.

Not that I’m aware of, however as I said in my last post - I usually take the high road and do what it takes to get the heat off. I usually don’t sit there and start arguing with the cop and antagonize him. Even if I’m in the right. I don’t bend over and follow orders, I resist enough to make the experience unpleasant for them as it is for me, but I have other things in life to do than fight the injustice.

Assange did the opposite. He came out guns blazing. When you do that, the court system often will find a way to bone you. And that doesn’t usually result in repercussions because the system can say “well maybe we were a little wrong but he wasn’t helping his case!”. And tragically that’s often enough for the external watchers to let it go.

I am not fully sure, it is the UK parole violation that is causing Assange to stay in the Embassy. Being a relatively minor charge, I do think UK can waive it off, since the original charges in Sweden has been dropped, but UK seems to prefer status quo in this matter, strangely.

More ironically, you’ve just demonstrated exactly why they found it necessary to address these incorrect claims.

Can you clarify which claim is incorrect?

Without making a judgement on the seriousness of the charges, remember, the "rape" in this case is allegedly not stopping upon the tearing of his condom, not forced rape at knifepoint...

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