Hacker News Reader

Comment by maqr | Hacker News Reader

Between the donation lock-out from every major bank, the heavily biased media coverage, and the clearly false charges against Assange, this has become too painful to watch.

All of this for a guy trying to create a press outlet that tells the real truth, using anonymous and protected (but verified) sources, for free, to the whole world.

View on HN

I'm curious how you were able to come to the conclusion that the charges are "clearly false." The charges sound serious to me, and while I have not concluded on their truth, I cannot dismiss them. They sound like they have enough merit for a trial. For example, "Given that one of the women said she awoke to find Mr. Assange having unprotected sex with her, she could not possibly have given her consent, Ms. Montgomery argued." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/europe/12assange.htm...)

Since when has the burden of proof been with the accused? Do either of these women have evidence other than their own testimony?

The burden of proof is on the accusers, but "not proven" is a long way off from "clearly false".

Men accused of sexual offences have been presumed guilty until proven innocent for the past two decades. Didn't you get the memo?

And that's why so many of them have gone to jail recently...oh wait.

Not sure what you're trying to say there. Men go to jail on all the time purely on the strength of the victim's testimony. Seems like every week I'm reading a story in the newspaper about a guy who got released from jail after being cleared by a DNA test.

I agree that the accusations aren't clearly false, but note that he hasn't been formally charged with a crime. He will be extradited to Sweden to be questioned (!). AFAIK nobody said he's not going to court yet.

That's another scandal. Swedish prosecutors never issue international arrest warrants to question random Joe Sixpacks, certainly not for very dubious accusations like these. It's a shame that such a civilized country is being dragged through the mud by politically-motivated scumbags.

And the same British government refused to extradite General Pinochet to Spain for war crimes because there wasn't enough evidence!

The courts are going to be very busy if months after every club 18-30 holiday you can regret a drunken 'romance' and have the other party extradited.

Uh, no, that's not why he was released.

Agreed, I do not believe the rape accusations were politically motivated but the international warrant obviously was. It is probably the first time ever sexual misconduct with weak evidence has resulted in an international arrest warrant.

s/he's not going/he's going/

The evidence suggests it is highly unlikely they are true.

Most rape victims don't tweet about how it's "amazing" to hang out with "cool" and "smart" people after being raped, or throw a party for their rapist.

http://rixstep.com/1/20101001,01.shtml

Nor do they usually invite their rapist to stay at their house 4 days after the rape.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/crayfish_parties_and_br...

It's also a rather implausible coincidence that after these events, the rape charge only surfaced after a) Assange failed to call either Anna Ardin or Miss W. back and b) Ardin and W each discovered he was sleeping with the other one.

I think the story itself justifies a very low probability of being true - in my estimation, probably considerably less than 1%.

Most rape victims don't tweet about how it's "amazing" to hang out with "cool" and "smart" people after being raped, or throw a party for their rapist.

Nor do they usually invite their rapist to stay at their house 4 days after the rape.

Stockholm syndrome?

i can't figure out if that's sarcasm or a dumb sheeped down comment :p

Why?

I too think the charges are trumped up, but Stockholm is a possibility until one or both of these women come out with the truth of what actually happened.

It's not a possibility, because he did not hold them captive. Stockholm Syndrome only refers to situations where people who are held against their will have positive feelings towards their captors.

I'm pretty sure rape constitutes being held against one's will.

I'm pretty sure HN is the only place where a bad pun can spawn pages of earnest analysis and semantic argument.

Sure it's a possibility, but the burden of proof would be on you to demonstrate that it was Stockholm syndrome. You can't get by just claiming possible scenarios that explain something. You have to actually provide evidence that your claim is true (unless you're defending creationism)

That also applies to the proposed conspiracy theory between the two women.

apply Occam's razor

It's also possible Anna Ardin is suffering from multiple personality disorder and one of her alternate personalities threw the party for Assange, tweeted about how cool he is, and invited him to stay with her 4 days after the rape.

We could make up all sorts of implausible, but theoretically possible scenarios.

But at this point, the most likely possibility seems to be that Ardin and W are jilted lovers who want revenge against Assange.

>We could make up all sorts of implausible, but theoretically possible scenarios.

That is the entire point, none of us know with any degree of certainty what has happened, the evidence does not suggest anything concrete for or against the validity of the charges, so to immediately dismiss one way or dismiss the other way is flawed.

.. or that as his lover, she was convinced to give testimony that lets authorities go after him while simultaneously hurting his reputation. Something very useful if you don't want to prevent further leaks.

Since I've been downmodded about 100 times for this comment, I thought I'd point out that it's Stockholm that's trying to get him extradited.

It was a play on words, guys.

Even as a pun it is the kind of comment that belongs on reddit instead of HN.

How can I even downvote? I only see upvote arrow.

And how did your playfulness bring any relevant information to the discussion? There's nothing wrong with being funny but it should go alongside with usefulness; otherwise you end up with pun-festing.

You don't have enough karma to downvote. At one time, the threshold was 200 points. I'm not sure if it is still the same.

It's more than 400 now and has been for some time.

Very well put!

Isn't it the case when you sympathise with someone one gives them the benefit of doubt --but when one dislikes someone one envisions the worst?

1. Imagine a good friend accused of something (ex. aggr. assault). 2. Imagine a good friend accuses someone of the same thing.

If instead of Assange, the accused were a live Qaddafi, or, say the Dalai Lama, would we not see things a bit differently, in each case, due to bias?

We just don't know. It's all conjecture at this point with he said, she said.

I'm surprised you see the issue in such black and white terms. Certainly some of Mr Assange's comments might lead some to suspect he sees conspiracy where there is none [1] and that his judgement is not impeccable. Wikileaks and Assange have also turned on their partners, notably the Guardian, when circumstances have suited them [2] and their concerns for the safety of those mentioned in their releases have not always appeared sincere [3].

I'm not saying that these pieces of evidence point towards Mr Assange being guilty, evil or anything else, but they do suggest he's human and fallible, and perhaps not 100% pure in his intentions. I don't mean this as a criticism of him, but it does make me question any entirely polarised assertion about the man.

I've not been able to spot anything untoward in the way the UK courts have treated Assange, and I can't help but feel that if the charges are 'clearly false' they can be demonstrated as such in Sweden - a country that Mr Assange himself has in the past admired [4], but now seeks to label as the 'Saudi Arabia of feminism' [5]. Clearly going through such a procedure must be harrowing for all involved, and I'm not dismissing the stress lightly, but accusations of criminality being investigated is a key principle of society and in the Swedish legal system formal charges occur after extradition and questioning. This seems reasonable.

If Wikileaks' cause was noble it does not mean that Assange is automatically innocent, or that any investigation of him is a conspiracy.

[1]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/01/julian-assange-j... [2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/wikileaks-un... [3]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14765837 [4]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/assange-... [5]: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/02/why-is-julia...

If Wikileaks' cause was noble it does not mean that Assange is automatically innocent, or that any investigation of him is a conspiracy.

True... but can you really doubt that US officials (and maybe others) are quietly twisting Sweden's arm to make as much of the investigation as they can? It would be very much out of character for them to pass up the opportunity.

The point which I believe is an attack on Assange is the international arrest warrant. I do not think that if it had been someone else a warrant would have been issued. It seems quite obvious to me that strings were pulled to use the rape allegations as much as possible.

clearly false charges

I was not there to witness what did or did not happen with Assange and the girls in question. As a result I cannot comment on his guilt or innocence. Through what evidence have you concluded that they are clearly false charges?

They're not "girls", they're women, as both females are well past their teenage years.

Wikileaks sadly lost a lot of respect from me and many people I know when some of their comments and many of their followers weren't about Assange's innocence, but instead in defense of rape, both directly and through criticism of conditional consent.
Even if only some zealous defenders had done so rather than wikileaks (most likely) accidentally doing so, it would still taste quite bitter.

While I wholeheartedly agree it's not been handled well at all by the Swedish prosecutors and government, and that there are irregularities and that Wikileaks and Assange should* criticize and question this, seeing people defend rape to defend them is bizarre. Although I am well aware this happens whenever rape is discussed.

Conditional consent IS a legal concept in Sweden, and one I personally agree with.

This saddens me, as I'm a rather big fan of Wikileaks and since I am also a fan of Assange I hope he's innocent.

*Conditional Consent:

While you might argue that there may be a need for different words for varying degrees and types of sexual crimes. Rape, at least for now, is defined solely by the presence of consent, as far as I understand.

If my consent hinges on a condition, and this was explained, my consent is nullified if the person willfully lies about this condition to be able to have sexual contact with me.

Ex: A woman lies about being on birth-control or a man lies about condom or being sterile.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com