Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition
reuters.com
reuters.com
He's actively hurt the goal of radical transparency with his antics. Actual people with principles abandoned Wikileaks a decade ago.
The Swedish government doesn't discuss them (which is what's allowed Assange's version of events to get so popular). The US hasn't mentioned it. The UK gave him a fair trial based on them.
As far as the Swedes go, the Swedish government discussed the case when it closed it for the first time. If the government hasn't been public about the case since it was re-opened by a political appointee, perhaps it is because there is zero evidence against Assange. We know this because the pretext for re-opening the case was the "discovery" of new physical evidence (a broken condom) that lacked any of Assange's DNA. This is all public knowledge, btw. Funny how it isn't discussed much in the press.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/no-assange-dna-on-torn-condom--...
https://www.rt.com/news/assange-condom-no-dna-277/
Assume that people can get their hands on the UK high court ruling. It takes only a bit of reading to confirm the complete accuracy of the statements above.
Swedish LE when they refused to hear the case with Assange in the embassy. Whether he's guilty or innocent, I can't take it as anything other than "we don't care about the case or the victims, we just wanted the extradition".
What’s next should you be able get trial over FaceTime while evading the police without any consequences?
But let say this did create a precedent that you can dictate where the interview is located by seeking political asylum. Is that bad? In the US you can escape the reach of justice by just being pardoned by the president. Apple to apple comparison, the situation with political asylum seem like a better precedent.
Charging him for running away also seems irrelevant to the original question - was this case more than a political play.
Ofc not, they should be marked as fugitives and held in contempt until they can brought in.
This wasn't a political case this was an asshole trying to escape justice, he knew he wouldn't be extradited to the US from Sweden he just hoped to play that while he plays the UK authorities while he spins this as political prosecution to his fans and the media to gather public support.
Reuters editors saw parts of the footage within a couple of weeks of the event. Two of the people killed in the strike were working for Reuters.
He spent how many years on both UK soil and then the Ecuadorean embassy to fight these Swedish allegations and now he's "happy to cooperate". He's imprisoned himself all these years for nothing.
Hopefully somebody else can chime in with a more reliable explanation.
Similarly the US will not request extradition for some suspects and wait until they set foot in the US and arrest them then. Saving the need for an extradition battle. If they really want you and you are Russian, they wait until you go on holiday outside russian borders and grab you as you step off the plane.
Being extradited to Sweden would merely make extradition to the US more complex, not less. He would still be able to challenge the extradition in the (presumably) English courts, but he would further be able to challenge it in the Swedish courts.
That makes no sense.
Sweeden does not extradite people for political crimes and espionage is considered a political crime in Sweeden. His chance of being extradited to the US for espionage from Sweeden was extremely low from the start ... and going to the UK out of fear of being extradited to the US makes no sense considering UK and US relations.
Months later he publish the leaks and travel to the UK, and a European arrest warrant is issued. After which there is a report that US diplomats visited the justice department before the case was reopened, but the department head swears that it did not influence the decision.
Just like Sweden has laws against extraditing people for political crimes and espionage, its justice department has laws that forbids it from being influenced by politics. The official statement is that the chain of events is just a coincident and the leaks, US diplomats and everything else did not effect the decision of the prosecutor when they decided to reopen the case and issue the European arrest warrant.
Some other minor details is that not only is the Assange case the most expensive UK police case in UK history, but this European arrest warrant is also a record in Sweden. No other warrant that Sweden has issued has as low maximal punishment. This is official also just a coincident.
I personally are not that surprised that Assange do not believe it to be coincident. I wonder if not most people would become a bit paranoid if they were under similar circumstances, and not accept the claim that it is just a coincident and that the Sweden and UK legal system are just following standard procedure.
The other charges are immaterial to extradition to the US except insofar as they might prevent or delay it, though being in jail facing the other charges might make it harder to flee extradition to the US if that request came later.
And that's for sure.
It should also be noted that Assange was finally interviewed in 2016 by Ingrid Isgren.
It was only once he was in the UK that Sweden decided, for no obvious reason at all, that the allegations maybe weren't bogus after all.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2011/5.html
> In cross-examination the Swedish lawyer confirmed that paragraph 13 of his proof of evidence is wrong... He then confirmed that on 22nd September 2010 at 16.46 he has a message from Ms Ny saying: “Hello – it is possible to have an interview Tuesday”. Next there was a message saying: “Thanks for letting me know. We will pursue Tuesday 28th at 1700”. He then accepted that there must have been a text from him.
Assange left the country on the 27th.
"The lawyer gave live evidence covering in some detail the attempts made to secure an interview with his client. On 15th September Ms Ny told him there were no “force measures” preventing Julian leaving the country, i.e. he was allowed to leave. ... He phoned his client to say he was free to leave the country to continue his work."
"He conceded that it is possible that Ms Ny told him on the 21st that she wanted to interview his client... Then he was then cross-examined about his attempts to contact his client. To have the full flavour it may be necessary to consider the transcript in full. In summary the lawyer was unable to tell me what attempts he made to contact his client... He said “I don’t think I left a message warning him”"
"In re-examination he confirmed that he did not know Mr Assange was leaving Sweden on 27th September and first learned he was abroad on 29th."
EDIT: I found this timeline from the Swedish Prosecution Authority which seems to agree with that: https://www.aklagare.se/en/news-and-press/media/the-assange-...
On 21 August 2010 the case was looked at by a prosecutor.
On 25 August 2010 the case was dismissed, a decision which the lawyer representing the women objected and requested a review.
On 30 August, Assange was questioned by the Stockholm police.
On 1 September, the case was reopened.
On 27 September, Assange left the country. Assange's London lawyer Mark Stephens said that Assange had asked to be interviewed by prosecutors before leaving Sweden but was told he could leave the country without being interviewed. Swedish prosecutors said that on the day Assange left Sweden they had informed Assange's Swedish lawyer Björn Hurtig that an arrest warrant would be issued for Assange. Assange is arrested in his absence.
He could probably have been leading a quiet life in Sweden by now, having served his sentence in a nice Swedish prison.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
It's useful to read this court document which sets out some of his claims, and why they fail: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html
Nor do the inconsistencies in her account and text messages relied upon by Mr Assange assist. In one sent by her she described herself as "half asleep" and she accepted in a further interview that she was not fast asleep. These are matters of evidence which would be highly relevant at trial. But it is not for this court to asses whether the allegations may fail.
So, after all this, the case could still fall apart under the slightest scrutiny and be abandoned by the prosecution or dismissed by the judge.
Could you link me to the sources you’re using that have you believing this so adamantly?
I'm sure North Korea or China say some people are criminals and must be executed. As an outsider should we just agree because 'the situation in your own jurisdiction is irrelevant here'? I think not, morality and truth should not be restricted to the definition of the law where it presides. It's possible what Assange allegedly did was in fact rape, but illegal or not shouldn't be the defining factor when assessing the truth of that claim.
As a commentator, I am not beholden to novel terminology used elsewhere, let alone in a country that doesn’t even use English as their primary national language.
What’s wrong with sexual misconduct, for example? I realise it doesn’t have the emotional charge of “rape”, but isn’t that a good thing? We shouldn’t choose words based on our opinions.
The supporters who put money and assets forward where doing it to show their faith that Assange was not a flight risk. This has been proven to be false.
In other words, if he did surrender according to terms, the money would have gone back to Assange who would have returned it to the donors himself.
I am not sure the donors have any legal way to get the money back now. Unless there were agreements Assange signed, all that money was basically gifts.
I don’t believe for a second that this is related to US pressure in any way, I believe the prosecutors simply want to show that they do things by the book and want to show that they are capable of prosecuting “international” cases like this one. Assange isn’t going to be in any deep legal trouble over this. It’s a formality I’d say. That doesn’t make it pointless though. Formality is important.
I know the tech community likes Assange, or at least liked Wikileaks as it was originally conceived. But here are some thoughts that you could maybe run through a bayesian analysis to consider if there is enough of a probability that his accuser is telling the truth and this case should be adjudicated in a court of law.
- Even people one sympathises with are capable of making mistakes.
- Why would the Obama administration go through the risk and difficulty of organising a breathtaking conspiracy to get at him, yet commute Chelsea Manning's sentence?
- Why would the Trump "I love Wikileaks" administration continue that adventure, instead of exposing it, damaging Obama's reputation, and helping their friend?
- There were enough portraits of Assange, by former colleagues and reputable journalists, that he has some tendencies somewhere between "overstaying his welcome" and "complete egomaniac".
- Sweden is generally considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world. To get from whatever high-ranking politician who would have to sign off on a conspiracy with the US all the way down to some local prosecutors would require an unbroken chain of many people suddenly throwing their principles overboard.
- At the time of the supposed rape incident, the most prominent leak was the "Collateral Murder" video. The war cables and Snowden leaks came later. That video was somewhat embarrassing, but in no way important enough to warrant such adventures in diplomatic subterfuge as alleged.
- All subsequent leaks, i. e. Snowden, Diplomatic Cables, were published in partnership with media organisations such as the New York Times, Guardian, or Spiegel. Why invest so much ressources and potential risk into going after Assange, and not those organisations that were arguably more important going forward? The Times may be immune because they are domestic. But the Spiegel or Guardian could certainly suffer an embarrassing loss of, say, all their subscriber data?
- Assange's credibility isn't actually that important. There is nothing Wikileaks published that I consider fake. The Clinton leak was just... underwhelming? There was nothing even remotely illegal in there, and not even much that made her look bad. The Snowden leaks were important. The earlier, lesser-known stuff from Africa etc. was fantastic. The diplomatic cables were already borderline.
- The accuser was some lefty student of Spanish literature at a minor Swedish university. Assange's event there was publicised a few weeks prior. Does anybody believe the CIA has covered secret agents stationed at Swedish feminist literature departments for eight years, just in case some target comes along that needs her couch to crush on?
- Assange was travelling all over Europe and other parts of the world in those times. Why not just wait until he is in a country with the perfect extradition treaty and have him arrested at the airport?
- Indeed, why the rape allegation? If Sweden would be willing to extradite him, they could just arrest him at the airport and send him to the US. What is gained by an extra round through the Swedish criminal justice system?
- If you're intent to discredit Assange among his fanbase, which is largely young, male, and online: isn't rape actually the worst possible crime to smear him? Just look at the prevalence of "obviously fake"/"not rape" and various other character assassination in any thread on this subject.
- The specifics, i. e. secretly removing the condom, seem to invite all sorts of "that's not rape" opinions, making them a rather bad choice compared to stereotypical violent rape.
Perhaps because the US political / justice / military intelligence system contains more people wielding power than just the president.
Sure, why not? It would be an excellent cover persona for that type of spy. From what little I know about how intelligence agencies operate, it always amazes me who their assets are. Look at who the OSS used as spies in WWII. Find out who her parents are before passing judgement. They don't recruit the obvious James Bond types. Find the family connection.
Similarly, believing that everybody who has ever interacted with an anti-Castro organization (the only "evidence" presented of CIA involvement) is a CIA asset is a step beyond which I'm willing to go.
I think that proves that he was scared shitless.
Even lifetime in a Swedish prison would be preferable to solitary confinement torture.
[0] ... Which makes the Brexit soap opera a bit more interesting.
Question is, if he gets freed, what will happen then?
When the first prosecutor decided not to proceed with the case, her lawyer asked for this decision to be reviewed. Why would her lawyer do this if she didn't want the case resumed?
This is not a big secret, the facts of the case are there for everyone to find.
"In the case of most crimes, the prosecutor has what is known as an absolute duty to prosecute.
This means that the prosecutor is obliged to initiate a prosecution if he or she considers there to be sufficient evidence to prove that a crime has been committed and that a certain person has committed it.
This in turn means that not even the victim of the offence can decide what is to happen in connection with the investigations. In other words, there is nothing on the lines of “withdrawing the charges”. The prosecutor must make sure that the crime is investigated, irrespective of the feelings or wishes of those involved.
The reason for this is that society has an interest in ensuring that the perpetrators of the crime are also tried for it. Exceptions are made for certain offences where it may be felt that the interests of the general public in instigating legal proceedings are not strong enough. Examples of such offences are defamation, breach of domiciliary peace and crimes of unlawful appropriation, or stealing, within the family (i.e. theft etc.)."
https://www.aklagare.se/en/the-legal-process/the-role-of-the...
After that I’d try to disappear in Sweden if I were Assange.
Alas, from the moment he entered the embassy, he has been a dead agent. What is of most import, is how this will affect the whistleblowers.
(Whistleblowers, we know you're out there. Got more fake news?)
The USA have already requested his extradition in the UK - to say that "Sweden only sought rape charges because then the USA can extradite him from Sweden" is clearly bogus.
If he actually confronted these charges in Sweden, and found guilty, he may actually be out of prison by now.
And at the centre of all of this, that everyone seems to have forgotten, are these two women that have accused him of rape. It seems really inhumane and unjust to simply shrug these accusations off as political, and not that they might be telling the truth, and he's a criminal in Swedish law
It is not clearly bogus. It was a concern. The concern might be wrong, as they often are. That doesn't make it somehow not legitimate.
He would be sent to USA to respond of his alleged crimes in front of a public court of justice.
Haha, no. He'd be sent to a secret FISA Star Chamber. There's no way he'd be tried in public.
And if the Swedish authorities wanted Assange to answer for alleged crimes in Sweden, all they had to do was publicly declare that they wouldn't extradite Assange to the US. That was the sole requirement he had made of the Swedish authorities in exchange for his willingness to return to Sweden. The fact that the Swedish authorities refused even that is deeply suspicious.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review only are empowered to handle foreign intelligence surveillance warrant process.
Criminal charges are handled in US District Courts, and are Constitutionally guaranteed to be public.
If you think that the US DOJ hasn't spent a million man-hours to find some way to keep everything as secret as possible, you haven't been paying attention to their actions thus far. They will find some way to kangaroo-court him out of the public eye. They do it with foreign nationals all the time.
I'm pretty sure that they have neither spent that many man-hours nor would get much value from spending anywhere close to that, because the parameters of “as secret as possible” are, while always subject to further litigation around the borders, not so mysterious or difficult to assess that it would take that much work to get a solid idea both where the boundaries were and what the relative risks of various ways of probing the areas where there is remaining uncertainty.
> They will find some way to kangaroo-court him out of the public eye. They do it with foreign nationals all the time.
Not with foreign nationals subjected to formal criminal extradition they don't. Foreign, allegedly unawful, combatants detained by the US military or transferred to their custody by America’s cobelligerents in the context of military conflict, all completely outside of the civilian criminal justice system, sure; foreign parties where the government covertly intervenes with overseas regimes to detain them without involving the US criminal justice system to, that too. But none of those are applicable here.
It's not a trade, he allegedly raped a girl, that's his problem.
If I was Assange I would want my name clear on rape allegations, I wuoldn't run away from it.
As far as I know, and at least Assange has claimed this publicly in a video at least once, these two women themselves did not make rape charges against Assange.
The case was picked up by some prosecutor who initiated the charges.
"We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait 9 years to see justice be served." https://twitter.com/ElisabethMFritz/status/11162929511251804...
In many jurisdictions prosecutors don't need the permission, nor cooperation, of the victims to bring a case to court. This is especially important in crimes of sexual violence because the fear of retribution causes many victims not to report; and because some victims will be being coercively controlled by their partners.
In less serious cases the victim's wishes are taken into account. However, the prosecutor is the one who charges the accused, and consent or cooperation from the victim isn't needed. It is hard to convict in cases where an uncooperative victim is the only witness, but it happens in domestic abuse cases all the time.
They have also, wisely avoiding much of the media, enlisted a lawyer to speak on their behalf on the matter, and it was the lawyers filing that led to the investigation being reopened again.
For a pretty complete chronology, see this page on the Swedish prosecution authority: https://www.aklagare.se/en/news-and-press/media/the-assange-...
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/aklagaren-vill-hava-haktn...
Prosecutor works independently. Sweden has civil law system based on classical Roman law and German model. There is no plea bargaining, everyone who is prosecuted must stand trial.
The investigation was just suspended because Assange could not be questioned. They bring him for questioning to get interview. After that, the prosecutor may choose not to press charges.
The case seems very weak, so the prosecutor may drop the case.
Or is it the rape accusations initiated in Sweden?
People realised that indiscriminately dumping material without any attempt at removing names was dangerous. Assange has released names of gay people who live in countries where they could be killed for that; he's released names of Jewish people in Bagdhad; he's identified rape victims.
Never underestimate what nation states can do. They'll bring down your entire economy unless...or they can pay, bribe or blackmail someone into filing rape charges against you. Or plant a bag of cocaine, and then behave like good citizens by calling the equivalent of 911 on you.
Sure Russia, China etc. medle in elections including the US one but Trump was elected by the American public and no one else.
I don't think the public has "turned" on him. (That is, I don't think he's more unpopular now than he was a year ago.) It's more like we forgot about him. That took away the teflon coating that let him escape international arrest warrants in a South American embassy, a privilege most of us wouldn't get.
This story is best explained by reversion to the mean moreso than extraordinary current events.
A poll last month [1] found 73% of Americans have opinions on Wikileaks. The most common response for Julian Assange, on the other hand, was "don't know" (42%, versus 27% responding similarly for Wikileaks).
I'd guess the 38% who find Assange unfavorable is largely unchanged from, say, 2015. I'd also guess his favorability was higher in 2012. (That's what made Correa's political arithmetic around granting Assange asylum stick.)
Under this hypothesis, people didn't start hating Assange more in 2016. His base of supporters simply eroded until most didn't care about him either way. That turned him into a normal person. Normal people don't get to hang out in embassies all day.
[1] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...
I mean, there are still people who are fans, but it’s no mystery why he’s unpopular with many groupings.
As I say, I’m not getting into the rights or the wrongs of it, but Assange’s unpopularity is no mystery. Whether or not you think he’s a saint, it’s undeniable he’s annoyed not just a lot of powerful people, but an awful lot of plain people.
It's funny that so many powerful people are quaking in their boots over this guy. Guilty much? Assange is still alive. That tells me that what he has much be unbelievable political dynamite.
The media controls the public, so the question of why the public has turned is the same question as asking why the media has turned.
24/7 anti-assange propaganda by foxnews, cnn, msnbc, nytimes, wapo, etc and you get the current anti-assange sentiment.
Trump hates him, Hillary hates him, the establishment hates him because he exposed corruption. Corrupt people don't like their corruption exposed. Also, the elites want to start wars in venezuela, syria, etc so punishing assange and setting an example and possibly discrediting/getting rid of wikileaks is in their interest. Wouldn't want truth to get in the way of more wars.
Assange did this to himself, with posting antisemitic tweets and courting the alt-right. And you have Assange's legal defense campaign posting tweets blaming childfree women for white people in Europe being replaced by brown people, which is both disgustingly misogynist and disgustingly racist.
The counter-culture is highly feminist and anti-racist, and is generally led by women of color, so there goes any sympathy they might have for Assange.
WikiLeak's big coup was cablegate, the main revelations of which boil down to "diplomats are very frank about people when they're not speaking in public." At the same time, Assange seemed to want it to be compared to the Pentagon Papers leak, which revealed that the US military was covering up the course of the Vietnam War. Instead cablegate was a whole lot of quantity over quality, and don't really merit the comparison.
Since then, WikiLeaks has missed out on the big revelations: Snowden's releases, the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, as well as more regionally important leaks such as Lava Jato. There's no trust among leakers that WikiLeaks is a neutral source for divulging information, and the fact that Assange has seemed to have a specifically anti-US tilt which results in him getting cozy with anti-US anti-press-freedom regimes.
They couldn’t make him dead, so they opted to make him irrelevant instead.
The US center to right hated him from the beginning, with leading figures inside and outside of government, aligned with both major parties, calling for his head. There was some sympathy for him (or at least WikiLeaks ostensible mission) on the left.
Being somewhere between a tool and a collaborator in the Russian influence and spinning partisan lies about the source of the information on top of that to conceal that it was a Russian influence op (which itself tends to create the impression that he was more collaborator than tool) soured that, without durably mitigating the hatred the center to right already had for him.
The rape accusations don't help, especially given where what little sympathy he had had was located.
Mostly he gives me the impression that he's in it for his personal glory, and he believes himself above accountability. I still support the original goal of Wikileaks, but I hate how they squandered their credibility due to Assange's antics.
Clinton has nothing to do with it for me.
Nobody had ever been extradited for this sort of thing. Sweden is special in that it enabled it based on a testimony, even after the testimony has been revoked and without the victims pressing charges or even agreeing with the interpretation of the police.
This is not an example of the legal system taking too much liberty of the notion of rape. This is much more likely an example of state level conspiracy.
Men are not under threat, sharing potentially incriminating information about the USA just means that nobody is playing by any rules.
Don't embarrass yourself or others to have this debate about rape. As an academic exercise, sure go ahead, but this case does not prove that rape laws in Sweden are used unfairly. It just proves Sweden, like most smaller Western nation's have little choice but do what the big man in Washington whispers in their ears.
This also does not prove Assange is guilt free. But at least if we want to maintain any illusion that we live in a free world: he is a deserved a court case about the actual actions that are fuelling this hunt.
So please just don't use the word rape and Assange in the same sentence. It's a disservice to actual victims, whistle blowers and our cultural identity as such.
> maintain any illusion that we live in a free world
That would require the crimes betrayed through the leaked information to have consequences. There also needs to be more control exercised on people responsible, that this cannot happen again. Otherwise, you could skip this trial as well.
According to the EU there were over 16000 warrants issued in 2015 (the latest number I could find)[0].
And way back in 2009 we were worrying about how easy arrest warrants could be attained and that Poland might be getting extradition happy - going after chicken thieves.[1]
Assange is certainly deserving of his day in court - he's the one who did everything in his power to avoid it!
[0] https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_european_arrest_warrant-...
[1] https://www.economist.com/britain/2009/12/30/wanted-for-chic...
Did those 16000 also enjoy 16 million pounds of police surveillance and an international man hunt?
This is great news. If we continue to invest so much effort in solving the slightest hint of sexual inappropriateness we'll completely eliminate sexual crimes. Perhaps even sex itself.
..what a curious case of a "rape prosecution".
What international manhunt? Man runs into embassy escaping bail - police wait outside. What other outcome could there have been?
Alternative outcome: the brits spare 16m £, which they can then invest in fighting real crime.
They arrest the alleged offender when flying or at any routine control, since he's not a danger to anyone. Anyone except those unmasked by the leaks.
But...this is a serious crime we're talking about here, I'm not sure why you think otherwise?
If you think these charges are bogus because of some grander conspiracy against a personal hero of yours just say, there are plenty of others in this thread who'll gladly back you up.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange...
It definitely paints a picture of him being a dirtbag but I don't know if this would even be illegal in the U.S. or what people would conventionally describe as rape.
It's such a shame that any country in the world can issue an extradition request to any other country in the world for any reason, and that other country has no choice but to immediately comply with it.
Also I don't think non-consensual condom removal is illegal in the U.S. though it definitely should be.
The public should focus on the war crimes, torture and corruption, because this will end up in the history books.
The US extraditing him for conspiracy charges would be really tragic. Sweden wanting to hold him accountable for his behavior afterwards is completely fine.
Why is everyone focusing so much on a person that's had their minutes of fame instead of the crimes they exposed?
This whole thread is full of people debating the definition of rape. Is everyone working for the Swedish prosecution or how is this in any way relevant to anything...
Please point to an actually case where Sweden has issued an European arrest warrant for a lesser crime. I have looked and could not find a single one.
What would you call having sex without a condom with a sleeping person, whom you barely know, when they have not consented to it?
Sorta-rape? Kinda-rape? Minor hooliganism? Did we all forget what the point of consent is, or something?
Or are we using the medieval definition, where it is a one-time-good-for-life sort of thing?
The thing that both of these women reportedly felt violated by was his disregard for their explicit request to use a condom.
Does it, though? I got the opposite impression: that Sweden is potentially willing to go against US interests and compete for Assange's extradition. It's possible their plan is to convict Assange and then extradite him to the US, but who knows?
In the first case, the complainant willingly had an intercourse with him. But after sex, she realized that the condom had a hole. She claims that he made it.
In the second case, the complainant also willingly had an intercourse with Assange, they slept naked together. The next day in the morning, he penetrated her without a condom while she was sleeping. (The main problem seems to be the "without a condom" part)
This is obviously serious. He could have transmitted STDs to the complainants. Unprotected sex should be agreed by both.
But, when someone reads "rape" out of context, he could imagine that Assange used a knife or something to force a woman to have sex.
Source: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-ass...
This is what forms the definition of “rape”. People might have a different idea when they hear this word, but this is the correct term from a technical standpoint.
https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2019/04/21/st...
Not sure why the legality in the US is material since the act didn't occur in the US, doesn't involve US persons, and the extradition being conducted isn't from or to the US.
Even if that were true, the legal status of his alleged acts had they been committed in the US would still not be germane.
Even if they had consensual sex previously.
Am I misunderstanding your comment?
I mean, that's a very grey and complicated area. I had an ex who would do that type of thing, and it was never discussed but was absolutely welcome. I suppose after the first time you could argue some type of implicit consent. Or maybe I'm just a Stockholm Syndrome candidate.
I have no idea the dynamics of the Assange case, but the hyper-contractual notion of consent that has come into popularity in the last few years just seems to ignore the humanity of human relations.
Consent has to be given prior to each occurrence, and therefore prior consent means nothing about future consent.
See, for example, the High Court judgment (linked elsewhere in this thread) on the EAW served for Assange's extradition to Sweden in 2011, where the High Court concludes that the offence would be rape under English law.
would that negate previously established consent? As in "hey if you wanna wake me up tomorrow with sex that would be nice"
So yeah, I can imagine myself giving a clear "yes" to something in that state despite being consciously unaware of the entire thing. I'm not sure if "approval" like that should count court - I'm just giving you an example of one possible complication for "determining whether someone is conscious", be it before sex or otherwise.
Right...
No, it doesn't.
I know someone that was raped while not being conscious. She didn't want to have sex with that person. While trying to press charge, she found others persons that had similar experience with that guy. The cops told her tough luck, not to stay with people she didn't trust (it was a friend...) and they threaten her of making false accusation (the prosecutor herself seemed surprised of that and the cops angrily answered that she wouldn't be accused of that, luckily). The prosecutor has not enough proof to go further with it... there should have been at least someone else in that room that could testify.
That's the current state of rape accusation. Pretty far from your "kissing of a sleeping lover" being criminalized.
One can either build an overly-tight system that can incidentally put innocents in trouble or an overly-loose system that risks criminals getting away. Interesting that the Europeans seem to have gone with the latter.
>Interesting that the Europeans seem to have gone with the latter.
Yeah we've gone the same way on marital rape too.
You're creating talking points that I never did, then fighting them down to make me sound like some kind of rape apologist. Kindly piss off.
If I go to visit a very close friend, I might take something of value off their shelf as I'm walking out the door, without asking first. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this.
But, I had better be pretty fucking sure that I know my friend as well as I think I do, because if I misjudged, I'm a thief, and liable to be prosecuted by the full force of a law. Not "kind of" a thief—just a thief.
If I tell you to take a fiver from my wallet and you do it, that's consensual. If you then later take another fiver out of my wallet without my permission, it's not consensual. If I catch you doing it, I might still be okay with it but that doesn't mean it wasn't non-consensual when you did it.
Your cab fare metaphor is a very misleading illustration of this.
Also whatever Assange did or didn't do, the handling of the case seems highly suspicious and Swedish resident have standing to request an investigation.
Wow, that's a pretty good analogy to this case, provided that you'd ask her that the day before and didn't wake up until late into the act (or at all, which I shouldn't be possible without assistance of drugs? but, I've seen some people "sleep like a log" through all kinds of commotion, so maybe it is).
Anyway, if what I read in this thread is all true, that would be a marital rape 100% and she'd get (or she should, according to the law) charged with rape if any of you ever mentioned the situation to the authorities.
Well, we're a bit too old already, but it looks like my wife and I were raping each other fairly regularly some years back. We even had fun doing this, which would possibly make it even more serious crime. This is, honestly, quite scary.
EDIT: What the heck? Have my downvoters never woke up next to their loved person and initiated an act as a "good morning" equivalent? Am I just so perverted that I should stay in the closet, or should I give myself over to the police this instant?
What I'm asking is: would the law actually go after both my wife and me (we weren't even married back then, BTW)? Wouldn't that be too much? Yeah, in the case of a one night stand it's probably the correct thing to do (maybe?), but the parent comment alluded to a long-term relationship, which I happen to enjoy (a lot :P).
Again, I'm no lawyer, I've no idea what the law says in this case, I'm but a hopeless pervert who both fucked and was fucked in a variety of circumstances and ways, including while being stoned, drunk and half-asleep (always with the same person, always safe, sane and consensual... oh wait, it couldn't have been consensual! yet it was. that's what I'm asking!) If I was to be persecuted for these acts, it's actually a serious matter for me - it means I can't write about our experiences on a blog under my name, for example. I can't mention it to people carelessly. I could endanger both myself and my wife. I'd need to hide it, I'd need to be ashamed, I'd need to try forgetting about it as if it was a sort of trauma. We've been through a lot of that already, yet there's still more coming my way? This time from people in blue instead of black uniforms?
If so, then there's something wrong with the law or public morals, or both. I don't live - and don't want to, either - in Saudi Arabia, but in an ostensibly tolerant society which accepts all kinds of fetishes without problems. At least I believe in that, but reading the comments and getting downvoted for expressing my confusion - made me start to doubt it.
There may be differences of degrees to the stereotypical violent behind-the-bushes rape. Those should and would be considered for purposes of sentencing. But it's still rape.
I had sex with a girl who lied about being on birth control. Was I raped?
There's a little difference, you wouldn't be the one getting pregnant.
It's more like she lied about being HIV positive.
That is, in fact, a crime.
You can make her pregnant.
If you don't want to risk it, use a condom.
Is it so hard?
If I was uncertain whether someone was truly on the birth control pill, I would insist upon condoms if I wanted to fully hedge my risk.
I do see the point you're trying make, but it's a complex issue. I could easily make an argument for the opposite case, that it is rape. But I think being able to verify a condom is being worn makes the situation different enough to treat differently from lying about being on the pill.
The difference between being tricked into impregnating and being tricked into being impregnated is that impregnation only affects the bodily autonomy of the person being impregnated. There are other consequences and many of them are shared by both persons but the bodily autonomy part is present on in one.
Assange argued that the accused act would not be illegal under English law; the High Court disagreed (and hence the dual criminality test was fulfilled).
Misleading in order to obtain consent is not the same as getting consent for activity A then undertaking activity B.
In the first instance one can complain that they wouldn't have given consent had they known the truth. In the second instance consent was not given.
This is a very interesting scenario you bring up.
Anna and Bob agree to have sex. Anna would prefer without a condom, Bob insists they must have a condom. Anna sabotages the condom by poking a pin through the package. They have consensual sex with the condom, which unbeknownst to Bob has a hole placed there by Anna. Anna becomes pregnant. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested? If Anna leaves the country, should she be extradited to face justice?
And does this only matter for a particular kind of birth control? Anna tells Bob she is on the pill but she is not. Bob consents only on the condition that Anna is on the pill. They have sex. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested?
What about sex conditions not related to birth control? Bob agrees to sex with Anna only on the condition he be allowed to wear his warm wool socks to bed. During sex, Anna finds the socks to be scratchy and pulls them off. Is it an absolute unquestionable legal fact that Anna raped Bob? Should Anna be arrested?
There is a famous case before the highest court, where a doctor, after forgetting to perform a sterilization a patient requested together with the caesarian birth of her second child, was deemed liable for the financial loss incurred by the existance of her third child.
You can shout at clouds and try to change the language if you want, but that’s an extremely unproductive and entirely pointless path to take.
Uh, what? You then go on:
"This is obviously serious. He could have transmitted STDs to the complainants. Unprotected sex should be agreed by both."
You think the serious part is the lack of protection, rather than that she was asleep? I'd advise you read up some more on what constitutes rape and what constitues consent.
First, I repeat: What he allegedly did is a serious and horrible crime.
Also, people need to see the elephant in the room. These two victims' case is weaponized by some governments to scare whistle-blowers. Assange directly or indirectly exposed many horrible crimes, including war rapes, group rapes, mass murders. People need to remember this video of soldiers in Irak shooting at human beings from far away while laughing and listening to rock music, and shooting again at wounded survivors crawling on the floor. People need also to remember the images of war prisoners tortured, humiliated, forced to be naked and raped with sticks.
But, more importantly, people need to make sure that future whistle-blowers fell safe to expose this kind of hideous crimes.
Prisoners' case [nsfw]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
Supposedly he did this because he was afraid that he’d be hauled off to Guantanamo Bay or whatever, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
At any rate, we should separate these things. The whistleblowing done by Assange and the rape (allegedly) done by Assange are unrelated. Talking about the whistleblowing should not involve minimizing the rape.
The prosecutor dropped the charges because the alleged victims were quite obviously lying about having been raped using any conventional definition of the term, there was also no way to resolve any dispute about whether someone was asleep when sex happened, and they would never reach the level of "beyond reasonable doubt" by any jury as a consequence.
The charges were later mysteriously resurrected by a different prosecutor so he could be questioned again. Or maybe it's not such a mystery after all. Either Sweden is doing as the USA asked for some convoluted reasons, or the Swedish justice system is a complete joke when the R word gets involved.
The other woman, who alleged lesser offenses, never dropped charges, though the statute of limitations have since expired on them.
Assange was told early on in the investigation that he was not restricted from traveling, but as the investigation developed further and it became clear they wanted to prosecute him, he went missing.
After multiple failed attempts to schedule another police interview, the prosecutor told his attorney she'd be filing an arrest warrant that day. Five hours later, Assange arrived at the airport and bought the next available ticket to Berlin.
Assange claims that's just a coincidence. That he was avoiding contact with his lawyer because he was afraid of "threatening statements made by politicians in the U.S"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cable...
Ockham's razor says if there's any connection at all between the two dates, it's Assange ordering Wikileaks to release the files as soon as possible after the arrest warrant was issued to get himself more sympathetic news coverage.
April, a famous video was released from inside a chopper that was mistakenly shooting journalists. May, Chelsea Manning was arrested for that. July, 75,000 documents were released about the Afghan war. August, the rape charges are filed. October, 400,000 documents about the Iraq war. November, the cable leak.
So the cable leaks did not come first. However there was lots of other stuff already released that could have motivated the US here.
And it is also quite possible that concern over the cable leaks was the motivation. You see, the US knew about everything that Chelsea Manning had already released, and had reason to believe that Wikileaks had it all and was releasing things in stages for maximum damage. (It turns out that a drip drip of bad news has much greater emotional impact on people than a single torrent.) Therefore they had the motivation to find ways to put pressure on Assange to NOT leak what he had. And what they did, didn't work.
Moving on, please check your assumptions about whether he should be held responsible. It is my belief that he is an example of selective enforcement of laws that should be more broadly enforced. Therefore my belief that he was targeted for other reasons is not in conflict with my belief that he should have been targeted. I just think that it is wrong that it takes a guy embarrassing a major military for the police to take a woman's complaints seriously.
Rape is sex with a person who does not consent. Period. What Assange is accused of is rape. Anyone who thinks otherwise should get a reality check and realize that there is no shade of grey here. Her body, her rules. Have sex without her consent, and that is rape.
Having sex without birth control with someone who didn't consent to that specific activity is legally rape in both the UK and Sweden. This is based on conditional consent, do something outside of the conditions under which consent existed, and you no longer have consent. More and more jurisdictions are recognizing this. Furthermore sex with someone who cannot consent due to being unconscious or sleeping is rape in a broader set of jurisdictions. (I do think that California goes too far by saying that you cannot consent in advance to being woken that way, but that is a different story. In this case there was no indication of consent given in advance for what he is accused of.)
So Assange is not being charged with some minor crime. He is being charged with rape.
Whether the charges would be pursued if he were someone else, well, that gets into selective enforcement. But this is at worst selective enforcement of a very reasonable law.
I don't think it is that clear in Sweden at least. Especially not if you just say birth control, i.e. what if I woman says she is on the pill and we have sex and it turns out she lied? I don't think she would get a rape charge.
I think it is also likely that someone in Sweden would get charged with a lesser crime than rape if it turns out they just removed the condom during sex. Having sex with someone that is sleeping and has not consented would be rape though.
EDIT: After having verified some more it he was not accused of rape for the condom thing. The rape charge is having sex with a sleeping person without a condom as it can be reasonably argued that she would not have consented to sex.
I know that the UK court which agreed to extradite him concluded that, under UK law, removing the condom was rape. But I'm not as familiar with the actual Swedish charges.
I don't know what else they may have concluded. But standard legal practice is to come to a conclusion about each charge regardless of what others you decided in case some of your conclusions are overruled on appeal.
For example if you conclude that either the condom or the sleep charge is sufficient, then the extradition can go forward even if the sleep charge got dropped.
A year or two?
Why not publicly made an example of?