Julian Assange Seeks Asylum In Ecuador Embassy
ecuadorembassyuk.org.uk
ecuadorembassyuk.org.uk
The Piratebay trials have shown how corrupted the Swedish justice system can be, with both police, prosecution and judges having proven private connections with the copyright industry (which in itself is not only organized and financed by the US, but also actively backed up by the US government).
Being extradited to the US would make him a martyr, but being convicted for rape in Sweden would damage his reputation beyond repair. I doubt if the US even wants to deal with the whole circus of getting Assange extradited if there's an easier way to take him out of play.
Two women have accused Assange of rape. They have a fundamental right under law to due process. Assange is attempting to deny them this due process by evading the Swedish courts.
Sweden's justice system really isn't corrupt. Assange knows this. His lawyers know this. If Assange thought he wouldn't get a fair trial he would have argued this point in the English courts. Many people have avoided extradition from the UK to various unpleasant places on the basis they wouldn't get a fair trial.
His legal argument was flimsy at best. Assange tried to argue Sweden lacked the authority to issue the arrest warrant in the first place, an argument that was basically laughed out of court. However, the English courts have had a lot of patience for Assange, and have offered him several avenues of appeal on the basis it's an important and high profile case. The Supreme Court even allowed an additional submission after their judgement (this is very unusual).
This is a criminal case involving two parties. Both parties have guaranteed rights. Think about the women involved for a second. They have accused Assange of rape. Perhaps they are lying: Assange is after all innocent until proven guilty. But is it out of the question they are telling the truth? No, it's not.
And that is why Assange should really willingly return to Sweden to face his accusers. He isn't willing, and his arguments about fearing the US really aren't that convincing given the UK is more than happy to extradite people to the states.
http://falkvinge.net/2011/09/05/cable-reveals-extent-of-lapd...
Wah wah.
ACCUSATION is not guilt.
I might be wrong but there is a slight difference between not wearing a condom and rape. I don't care if Sweden is calling consensual sex without condom rape. In Assange's case, he allegedly sabotaged his condom with one woman and allegedly refused to wear a condom with another one but he did not have sex with them against their will. Nobody can argue that because there are no signs of forceful sex.
IMO, this is crazy. There is no way of proving Assange right since only witnesses are two different women claiming similar accusations and the nature of the crime does not allow much evidence. It might sound like a crazy conspiracy theory (I take into account that even Canadian strategist called for Assange's assassination[1]), but somebody might be paying these two women (or threatening them) to lie in the court.
It's not called rape in Sweden either, it is sexual misconduct. It is a crime. Even in countries where it is not a crime, it is still a terrible thing to do.
I can support WikiLeaks and also think he did these things, just like I can admire Hans Reiser's file systems. These acts are the product of thinking your desires are important enough to disregard someone else's rights to control their own body. That does not even seem out of character for Assange.
It's merely his lawyer quoting the accusations, and the author trying to twist this into an admission of guilt because of, OMG, "the tone". And then there's you piling it on claiming it was Assange who said it, which is a complete fabrication, at least if you take that link as "evidence".
If you want to know where the skepticism is coming from: it comes from these kind of filthy propaganda tactics.
I'm no lawyer but doesn't something have to be a crime in both countries in order to be eligible for extradition?
Also, it is my understanding that the accusation was brought by the police officers after reading the statements given by the women in question. They had only come to ask if Assange could be required to take an HIV test.
http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/02/77/77/cb79a8a3.pdf (page 24, sorry for pdf link)
She may have agreed to sex given certain conditions, he (allegedly) wilfully broke those conditions. There may or may not have been coercion involved but rape is a good shorthand description and there are serious questions to answer and serious charges to be laid if he cannot provide good answers.
Where did this come from? Due process is a right of the accused. I've never heard of accusers having due process rights. After all, anyone can accuse anyone of anything. And prosecutors can just roll their eyes at them, if they want.
Just to be clear: I'm not saying that the accusations against JA are worth an eye-roll; I'm only questioning your assertion about due-process rights for accusers.
Also, I'm generally familiar with U.S. law, less so with English law, and very much less so with Swedish.
None of us know what the US is doing, if anything. We do know, by their own admission, that they began an aggressive investigation into whether or not Assange could be charged. We also know that everyone known associated with Wikileaks had their twitter and other social accounts subpoenaed. Manning's lawyer also indicated that the DoJ discussed the possibility of a plea bargain. As recently as a few weeks ago, US officials said they are waiting to see how the UK case plays out before charging him.
It is more probable than not that after such statements and aggressive investigations, that the US will charge him. It is more probable than not that the reason they have not yet done so, is because it's better for them to let this case finish, as they said.
Assange is not under the impression that he is immune to these inevitable charges and extradition in any of the countries involved. He has resigned to the fact that he is likely to face the US DoJ, and an extradition request, one way or another.
Assange believes that he has a tactical advantage in this case if this does not happen in Sweden. I don't know all of the reasons for this, but this is not surprising, and he has obviously been advised to exhaust this route by his legal counsel. It's safe to assume that this has been their decision, not his.
This is not a conspiracy theory, this is just how court cases work. Even in the US, it is common to fight for the most favorable jurisdiction. The presence of an extradition treaty in both countries does not mean that an extradition request is equally difficult to fight in both countries. This could change depending on laws in a specific country, or even be influenced by public perception or even corruption.
When is the last time someone was held for a year and a half in an international dispute to be questioned about a broken or missing condom incident? That makes the least sense.
Edit: It's worth noting that according to the hacked stratfor emails, the US already has a sealed indictment for him:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/28/1069018/-Leaked-Str...
Edit: I checked, and Ecuador does have extradition treaties with both the UK and the US. I don't know about Sweden though.
Edit2: according to http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/19/assange_seeks... Ecuador has a treaty with the EU as well. But moving to Ecuador puts the decision in Ecuadorian hands instead of UK, so maybe he thinks they will stand up for him better.
It just doesn't sound like a good use of the officers' time.
They've had the guy detained without charge for 500-odd days. Facing some international criticism and generally looking like hypocrites whenever they want to criticize some other country for having political prisoners. The case has been through their Supreme Court and now there's yet another country involved in this international incident.
When I was in London last year there were helicopters circling continuously in some places. If Assange gives them the slip somehow, it's not going to be because the local police preferred to prioritize something else that day.
How many times? This is nothing to do with the US. This is a UK-Sweden extradition of an Australian citizen. If the US DoJ ever gets off its ass and decides to press charges against Julian Assange (they've been sitting on their hands for a couple of years now) it's not gonna do it via some subtle cloak-and-dagger six-country shuffle, it'll just show up with a letter that says "o hai extradition plz".
Is an embassy really obliged to shelter any foreign national who might show up on the run from the law for a fairly prosaic [ahem alleged] crime? If I knock over a gas station can I show up at the Tanzanian embassy, say "Hi, I'm a political refugee" and hang around for long enough for them to process this claim?
I would imagine that if the Ecuadorian government was to grant asylum that its courts would likely find the extradition request to be political persecution and thus dismiss it for violating his rights under the UNHDR and/or Ecuadorian constitutions.
So, yes while most countries have extradition agreements, some have more respect for the rule of law than others.
He's not trying to avoid extradition so much as seeking a jurisdiction where he believe he'll be tried more fairly with respect to the UNHDR and other inalieable rights endowed by his creator.
Maybe Assange thought it was worth trying a known "friendly" country first. Also the Ecuador government claimed it had nothing to lose from wikileaks' leaks, so if they really didn't maybe they'll be less likely to try to screw him.
The Ecuatorian president is introduced as "populist", yet the interview is non-critical. I thought "populist" was globally pejorative?
Edit: the president himself uses the term in a negative context
For example, promising to cut the gasoline tax would be a very populist tactic -- people think "I pay less for gas, that's great!", whereas elites would think, "we'll have less money for infrastructure, leading to decline, or else we'll have to raise taxes elsewhere, making non-drivers subsidize drivers."
And by calling this tactic populist, you would generally be indicating that it appeals to the electorate's ignorance. Most people consider that a bad thing, since it leads to worse outcomes. Hence, populism is a pejorative term. I'm referring to use of the word in the US only.
If you want a positive term, you would describe something as "democratic" instead.
(I'm an American from New York who follows politics a lot.)
For example, I don't often feel like angrily shouting at a republican "you populist!" but I do regularly feel like shouting "you morally bankrupt exploiter of the public's ignorance!"
It's not as you say that "as opposed to appealing to the elites who would presumably understand that the thing's a bad idea". The elites tend to consider something as a bad idea, when that somethings affects their interests. A populist policy, usually does not benefit the elites, au contraire, it usually affects them negatively, by moving benefits from them to the masses. (Also, in favor of a political gain, like raising the approval ratings).
I'll give you a practical and real example: here in Argentina, the vast majority of the agricultural production is in hands of about 2000 elite families, and managed by planting pools (they have around 85% of the productive fields, and only 15% is in hands of small farm-owners). One common practice for those elites historically has been to export the production, but making the transaction outside the country, so they wouldn't pay taxes here. And then, leave their gains in foreign banks (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Uruguay). Then, after our crisis in 2001, the government crated a grain exports tax. Around the 2006/2008, soybean prices skyrocketed[1]. The government wanted to modify the tax, so it would have a sliding-scale taxation system, that would make that the more expensive the international price of a product, the less impact would have in the internal price [2]. It had two objectives. The first, was to avoid having exorbitant food prices inside the country, that would make lots of products inaccessible to large segments of the population (mostly meat). And the second one was to allow the government to get more money from the soybean exports (so they could use that money to finance the industrial sector). Even when the agricultural elites would still have the highest benefits of their entire history, they didn't want the government taking part of those. This bill was seen as a populist measure by the agricultural elites, who forced a lockout that lasted more than four months. Mass media and mainly Clarin, the largest media conglomerate of Argentina, who until then was a governments ally, aligned to those elites interests, and started a heavy campaign against the government (marking the beginning of a war that still lasts).
I'm not referring to any specific government here, but the main problem, I think while seeing it from the outside, is that US politics has only two options: Conservative-Right and Liberal-Right. So, when you see a foreign center or center-left government implementing policies like progressive taxation (as in my previous example), mixed economy or the state regulating the economy, your media tends to jump shelling "populist! populist!". So, even when "populism" is usually used as a pejorative term, it shouldn't be. It should be used for a government who tries to fight for their lower classes against the elites. The term that should be used instead, (and the one you are referring, I believe) is demagogy: "a political leader in a democracy who appeals to the emotions, prejudices, and ignorance of the poorer and less-educated classes in order to gain power" [3].
[1] http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=soybeans...
[2] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_agropecuario_patronal_en_A... (in spanish, sorry)
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue
PS: I also follow politics a lot, my parents where politically active, but they've always let me choose my own believes.
The following headlines are example use of "populist" with negative connotations (they are not the only ones, I just provide anecdotal evidence of the common use of "populist" as a negative trait).
British English:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17837098
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid... (beware starts parliamentary video automatically)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/23/punitive...
French:
http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/ensemble/2012/02/09/le-populisme...
Spanish:
http://www.abc.es/20120515/opinion/abcp-populista-eres-20120...
Edit: I know were not talking directly about the US here, but the reason I made the jump is that I see Sweden as a lot more likely to allow the US to bully it into giving up Assange
But if I were him, I'm not sure I'd be willing to take any chances. The consequences are just too great.
It'd make for one heck of a news day, but I don't think it's that easy.
Assange himself pointed out that it is much easier to be extradited to the US from the UK (which extradites to the US almost anyone for pretty much any reason) than from Sweden (that as far as i know very rarely if ever extradites to the US).
If he was really afraid of being extradited to the US, he would want to be in Sweden rather than in the UK.
The UK can send him to Sweden, saying they complied with EU rules. The UK can then relax, and not deal with the wrath of Australia being pissed off - an ex-commonwealth country.
Once he's convicted in Sweden, he can serve the two-months or whatever. Then he can be extradited to the US. Sweden can relax - he's a convicted sex offender now, extradited from the UK. It's harder for him to get legal support in Sweden - he's English-speaking, as are the majority of his supporters.
And the US gets their man. No government wants some renegade out there leaking their secrets.
The UK and US will obviously have discussed his extradition. They've agreed to try the Swedish route first. It doesn't have a political cost for the UK government.
All this posturing about how the US wants him is a smoke screen - Ecuador has an extradition treaty with the US. Assange may be completely innocent: trying to desperately avoid being questioned about the alleged offences doesn't paint a great picture.
I'm not really sure what's going down here, except it seems the least likely possibility is that Sweden wants to give him a fair trial for the sex allegations.
Anyone who doesn't think the US government is behind this is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Though I back his politics 100% and consider him a hero to be remembered, he has every responsibility to face his accusers in a fair trial. Shame on Sweden if they hand him over to the Americans after his trial has concluded.
With Sweden's looney toons laws, I strongly disagree.
Assange and his legal team have tried every possible angle. Sweden has very different laws to say the US. This is not unexpected. The English courts have determined that Sweden's justice system is fair and balanced. Assange attempted to avoid extradition by arguing Sweden didn't have the right to issue an arrest warrant, not that he was going to get an unfair trial.
This is an act of total desperation. It does nothing to further his innocence. If the US wanted him they would have extradited him from the UK already - Britain has a long history of being more than happy to comply with US extradition requests. It's why Roman Polanski refuses to visit the UK from France.
This is all about accusations of sexual assault and rape which Assange is totally unwilling to face.
Saying this is all about avoid accusations of sexual assault seems to contradict the actual facts.
Assange cannot have his cake and eat it. It is somewhat hypocritical for Assange to seek asylum on the grounds of human rights whilst denying the women who are accusing him of obtaining due process through the law (most countries agree that due process is in itself a fundamental right).
And when faced with insufficient evidence of extraordinary affairs we resort to the status quo: due process in light of a sexual assault charge. The conspiracy theory being invoked is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence that has yet to be forthcoming.
Everything about these allegations are clumsy. While we may never know what has transpired, it should be a wake up call to the legal system - you can't just push the regular processes aside and treat a case exceptionally because the suspect is somewhat of a celebrity. The Swedish legal system has also failed these women, if indeed, they are victims.
Point me to any country in the world where a telephone interview of a suspect or person of interest in a crime is an acceptable totality of due process or investigation.
Not if the law which he is accused of breaking is fucked up (to say the least).
Then again, Julian Assange could very well be safe in a Swedish prison, relatively impervious to a drone strike.
Rational, maybe. Ethical? Not so much. I don't like the idea of a world where people are free to rape and sexually assault with impunity provided that they are not at home.
First off, sexual assault and rape laws are very different in Sweden, and the crimes he has allegedly committed wouldn't be translated as assault or rape in most countries. Though that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't do something bad to someone that requires legal recourse; what currently stands are accusations of crime under Sweden's legal code.
More importantly, suspicion arises because the Swedish prosecutor's office initially withdrew the rape charge and warrant for Assange's arrest, and weeks later the charge was brought back. Some time after that, a European arrest warrant was issued. Some are suspicious that this was due to pressure from the US government, as they would like to see Assange in prison, but I'm not going to give my opinion.
Also, Assange has yet to be charged. I'm not sure how this works in Sweden, but it seems in this case that they don't want to charge Assange until after a second round of questioning. That is what the extradition is for.
It's not a double jeopardy situation.
"Julian was very reluctant to delete those names, to redact them." David Leigh of the Guardian newspaper tells FRONTLINE of meetings he attended with Assange in the run-up to publication of the war logs. "And we said: 'Julian, we've got to do something about these redactions. We really have got to.' And he said: 'These people were collaborators, informants. They deserve to die.' And a silence fell around the table."
This is David Leigh, an fairly reputable guy who runs investigative reporting for _The Guardian_, not exactly an institution known for cowtowing to the military industrial complex of the US. Do you think he made this up? I don't.
The Guardian and David Leigh in particular do seem to have issues with Assange. Personally I wouldn't automatically believe something to be true just because it was in The Guardian.
[1] "Gives Julian Assange no right to reply libelous statements such as "Afghan informers deserve to die". Nick Davies was not present at the conversation described, and John Goertz and Holger Stark from Der Spiegel can attest that they have no notes or recollection of Julian Assange saying this and would have recalled if he had claimed such a position." http://www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-s-WikiLeaks-Secrets-and.ht...
"We did talk with others about David Leigh’s allegation. Several people confirmed that you had initially wanted to publish all the Afghan War Logs without redacting names. We also allowed you to deny the charge. As for content sales, you mentioned in your interview that you had explored financial incentives to improve the reception of the Collateral Murder video. There is more about this in the transcript of your interview that is published on Frontline's website."
That's Marcela Gaviria, a veteran PBS FRONTLINE producer. So that's The Guardian and PBS FRONTLINE --- both extraordinarily reputable newsgathering organizations, and both thoroughly on the liberal side of the spectrum with regards to conflict reporting.
Against that, you have Julian Assange's word and the fact that two Der Spiegel reporters apparently didn't add Assange's statement to their notes.
I tried to track down a denial from John Goertz or Holger Stark; maybe you could point me to one? Leigh's made a bombshell claim. If Der Spiegel reporters are calling into question, it shouldn't be hard to find!
I believe The Guardian and PBS FRONTLINE.
I did also look for a denial from Goertz or Stark, I couldn't find one either. They do have a book, perhaps there is more detail there.
The "they deserve to die" quote is very damaging, and quite frankly probably the kind of thing a journalist would remember, and perhaps even report. You could conversely say that Goertz or Stark should confirm this if it's true. I couldn't find any evidence of this.
I agree that it's a very damaging quote.
While Wikileaks is certainly a motivating factor, and I'm sure it's why this story gets as much press as it does, I don't think it's where his legal problems stem from. As far as I know, the US has nothing to do with it.
EDIT: Nevermind, cousin comment said he is wanted for a second round of questioning in Sweden before they actually charge him. I still don't understand how something as serious as extradition can be used for "questioning", without any charges at all.
Could some random country say they wanted to ask me something and the US would just ship me overseas involuntarily?? That is a terrifying thought.
Why did he not simply remain anonymous? All that Wikileaks has done could be done without having a public figurehead, right?
Being public seems to have been the tactical error. (or was he trying to be anonymous, but got outed at some point and then given that he couldn't be anonymous anymore he decided to embrace it?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.htm... goes into their history. I'm tempted to quote a few paragraphs but it wouldn't be fair since there is a very large picture being painted.
Guess what Bill Keller also wrote?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/opinion/the-i-can-t-believ...
I say no.
Taking a feather from Rock 'n Roll, you need a front-man.
In all seriousness, if you find yourself asking "Why did this man choose fame, glory and groupies over the good of the cause he claims to espouse" then you don't know much about human psychology.