Ecuador grants Julian Assange asylum
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
The same goes for LibDems and Labour, but I've given up on them a long time ago (and to be fair, Labour are not even in power). Human/civil rights was just about the last platform where LibDems had a shred of credibility, and now it's shot. To maintain a few perks, they will let the Tories destroy centuries of civilisation - the Vienna Convention is a cornerstone of international relations, and hence, of world peace; threatening it over a silly man is just irresponsible. Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador and old-time LibDem, is just about as shocked as I am, and it's the only reasonable voice I've heard in the last 24 hours: http://pastebin.com/s98KhnYD
Supporting journalists in Belarus, China, Syria, Iran without supporting Assange is not grassroot activism: it's cynical, masqueraded foreign policy.
Tell me please: how will Swedish rape victims' human rights be offended by the Swedish inability to ship him to another country? Are Swedish punishment terms not enough?
If Swedish public opinion were horrified to discover Assange was a serial killer in Montana, they could ship him over pronto, agreement or no agreement, and Ecuador would understand why their agreement had to be broken. No loss of trust, no loss of face.
The fact that the Swedish government won't accept this sort of agreement has nothing to do with what they can or cannot do, and all about what they plan to do. Accepting such an agreement and then turning around to extradite him to the US on espionage charges would be taken as bad faith by the international community, so Swedish diplomats cannot do it. Is this why they refused? I guess we won't know until they get hold of him.
Sweden was invited to interview Assange in the embassy in London. They declined.
> A very different perspective from Vaughan Smith, a friend of Assange who put him up for more than a year at his Norfolk residence. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World at One this afternoon, Smith said:
>> [...] >> I think there's a lot of pride involved here... They have interviewed an alleged murderer in Serbia but they choose not to come to London to interview Julian Assange. I think that's very disappointing.
They have not charged him with a crime (rape victims should be furious about this). They want him for 'questioning' but refuse to question him in London (again, furious).
Well there's your problem.
Now the Metropolitan Police is banging at the door of a foreign embassy to get hold of a suspect, and the time for jokes is all but gone. Now it's not about who's the best-looking media-darling, it's about principles and long-standing conventions in international relations.
They would look fabulous by coming out swinging, saying "we can't stand the man, but the asylum principle is inviolable and not worth losing just to score a cheap point, so let him go to Ecuador if they want him."
But no, silence. Had it happened in China or some godforsaken African hellhole, we wouldn't hear the end of it. It happens in London, chips are down, and now we're failing HARD at world peace.
It make me very sad.
European rules can and will be broken whenever national governments see fit, often without real consequences. You should know by now, after years of haggling on broken treaties about economy, national budgets etc. Besides, the UK government could simply broker an agreement between Sweden and Ecuador, where Sweden renounces the warrant in exchange for something else. Obviously, they are not even trying. This is what Amnesty should complain about, and loudly.
So no, the UK government has not had its hands tied. Craig Murray states that Foreign Office civil servants rightly opposed the decision to pressure the embassy, and were overruled by William Hague. This is because they know what they're doing, whereas Hague is just the last of a long list of amateurish Tory hacks.
There may be a risk of an extradition request from the US but that can't override the fact that there is a serious crime that needs to be properly investigated and that Assange appears to have questions to answer.
And it's not as if he's being sent to somewhere with a shitty human rights record or a dodgy judicial system. It's Sweden. Even if he doesn't trust them as a member of the Council of Europe they're signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights so he has the right of appeal all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. I honestly can't think of too many places I'd rather be if I wanted my rights respected. It's certainly way above Ecuador on my list.
See here: http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/01/54/35/77809ec6.pdf. Page 3, Section 12, Point 3.
Worth noting that this is the text of the "THE EXTRADITION FOR CRIMINAL OFFENCES ACT (1957:668)", rather than some statement of government position and therefore is binding in Swedish law. The government simply couldn't send him to the US without suitable assurances.
Regardless, there are many ways of going about obtaining justice for alleged "simple" crimes. Violating the Vienna Convention and jeopardising the basic cornerstones of human-rights policies is simply not worth it for such a small-time criminal matter. A long-sighted view would see that, and find a compromise that Sweden could live with.
Personally I'd class it as the second most significant crime against the person that the law recognises after murder.
There's no suggestion that these charges have been manufactured or that he's only being prosecuted for who he is. There are real victims who have made real accusations and for all the other bullshit going on, Julian Assange isn't above the law
(And before we get into the whole "it was about using a condom" thing, one accusation is that he had sex with a sleeping woman which, as well as being really classy, is something that would be recognised as rape in pretty much every civilised country in the world including the UK and the US.)
The UK's threat to change the status of the embassy is a massively stupid move (and would violate the Vienna Convention as far as I can see) but everything else is a distraction. Julian Assange may be a freedom fighter, a brave campaigner for truth and whatever else people want to believe, but he's also an accused rapist and none of the other stuff over rides that.
> There are real victims who have made real accusations
This is misleading at best.The current prosecutor made the accusations in the forms they have been presented. The only hint we have of what may be in the police's version of the statements from the women are in illegally leaked documents and in statements made by a prosecutor who took over the case after a previous prosecutor claimed the same police investigation showed that no crime had taken place.
At least one of the women stated early on that she refuses to sign the statements the police took down because she was severely distraught at the manner in which the police was pursuing this. Said statements were further taken down in violation of Swedish police procedure, by failing to record them, so ensuring that we don't have a reliable way of ascertaining how the wording in the statements were arrived at, or whether the police documents actually match what the women actually said.
Having had to read and sign statements taken down by police, I see exactly zero reason to assume that just because police has written it down that it bears any resemblance to what was actually said. In my case, it was because I was refusing conscription in Norway, and it is a formality to be interviewed by a police officer as to the reason why; said officer was friendly and trying to accurately represent what I was saying, but despite that it took several hours of hard work to correct the statement before it represented what I had said in a remotely accurate manner. Of course this is just one anecdote, but it did make me appreciate why recordings are so important).
If it is indeed correct that one of the women is categorically refusing to sign, that is significant.
In either case, not even the prosecution have claimed that either alleged victim have made any statement claiming rape or sexual assault, nor have they filed complaints, nor as I understand have the police claimed to even have asked whether or not they considered themselves to have been victims of anything.
Any inference of the presence of a crime thus rests with the prosecutor, based on information of an unclear provenance, and where the public record is full of holes.
When another senior prosecutor came to the opposite conclusion, it does seem not seem unreasonable to ask the question whether or not there are in fact any real accusations from real victims.
One or the other of two senior Swedish prosecutors have necessarily made a substantial mistake in their assessment, or been biased or motivated by other factors. None of the alternatives surrounding that are particularly pleasant to consider.
Maybe Assange did commit these crimes. Maybe he didn't. Regardless, the Swedish prosecutors do have some serious questions to answer about why this case has been handled in this highly unusual manner. Not least for the sake of the alleged victims and the future public trust in their office.
Even if the people who set this up drop everything and don't try for an extradition to the united states, they will have succeeded in thoroughly sliming Julian. They don't need to kill him or imprison him (that would probably backfire anyhow), they only need to classically condition people to associate JULIAN ASSANGE and RAPIST. You realize that the central intelligence agency actually had plans to make Castro's beard fall out because they believed that Cubans would view him as less virile and thus easier to depose? Or that they wanted to dose him with LSD so he would act crazy during a major speech? You really think the United States intelligence apparatus wouldn't try to break someone that burned them very hard by playing on views like "Personally I'd class it as the second most significant crime against the person that the law recognises after murder"???? Particularly given that rape can be her word versus his, and that can be sufficient to get a conviction? With murder, you need a body, and that can be hard to produce.
And the fact that the CIA have a real history of crap like this doesn't change the possibility that this is a real accusation of a real crime with real victims.
I'm not saying he's guilty and I agree that what we know of the evidence at the moment means that the whole thing isn't cut and dried (rape cases rarely are, the nature of the crime makes the investigation and prosecution of them messy in the extreme and there are far too many false accusations - something which should be a crime). What I am saying that he's wanted for questioning and that situations like this where things aren't clear are why we have due process.
Is it possible that he's being set up? Yes. Is it possible that he's committed a significant crime? Yes.
How best to deal with this? Using an established, public process based on solid principals of justice established over centuries which may be flawed but is the best thing we have at present, or some curious combination of political manoeuvring, PR and who knows what else?
The Swedish justice system may not be perfect, but it's surely a far better way of establishing what might have happened between Assange and the two women than what we're seeing now. If the case is that weak and the police have been that remiss then his lawyers should have a field day.
Given that, I see no reason at all to trust that he would get a fair trial, if he'd get one at all.
No, it's pretty obvious you're just another anti-Wikileaks crusader because you ignore everything relevant such as how he was already questioned and released, how even with allegations of murder questioning takes place in the defendants country of residence UNTIL adequate proof has been collected for extradition, etc.
As for the possibility of Assange being a rapist, there's the same possibility you're a rapist.
But regarding probability, yes, that the CIA has pulled this shit before, and the Swedish police aren't following protocol at all, does make it far less likely that the case is real. They wouldn't need these games if he was actually accused of a real crime.
I only wish you were trolling, and not representative of Fox News viewers.
I live in the UK and have voted for left wing parties every election (local, national and Euopean) for over 20 years now. My political ideals are so far from Fox News it's not true.
In terms of questioning and release, who knows maybe they'd question someone as many often as twice before charging them with rape. If you think that's suspicious then you have an odd idea of what comprises a thorough criminal investigation.
Yes, I could be a rapist though there is a key difference between Assange and myself when it comes to the possibility which is that there are currently at least two ore women making suggestions that he might have than are saying the same about me.
In terms of being anti-rape. Sorry, guilty as charged. It's a controversial view that people shouldn't be forced into sex against their will but thats the kind of troll I am. I wish that the police investigated them all with this level of vigour but the fact that they don't has no real significance here other than another example of how high profile figures of all sorts tend to get more attention in these cases.
What you are trying very hard to miss is that Assange is available for questioning. He pretty much always has been. Sweden doesn't want to question him or they would have, they want him in custody and don't want to state charges.
As for being a rapist yourself, you keep speaking in possibility. And you're still a possible rapist. You mean to speak in probability. But you fail the understand that normal probability (of charges being false, or the purpose of his arrest being limited to those charges) can't be assumed when there's obvious evidence of the circumstances being abnormal.
Your political ideals may be miles from a Fox News broadcast but your rhetorical techniques aren't that different.
But being handled as a normal person means that he doesn't get to dictate terms to the police about how and where he'll be questioned. If he were a witness then maybe but he's not, he's a suspect being questioned for the second time. People talk about him not having been charged but if you read the UK appeals court judgement they say that the claim he's not been charged is a semantic distinction based on specifics of the Swedish legal system and that it is clear that "legal proceedings have begun against him".
Under those circumstances I don't think it would be normal or reasonable to allow him to dictate the terms under which he's questioned.
My intent in using possibility as opposed to probability is simply not not prejudge his guilt or innocence because I don't think anyone at this point has the evidence to do that.
I do believe that there is a case to be answered (I believe that's close to certain given the number of legal appeals and judges in the UK that have examined the question and the various objections) but all the evidence hasn't been heard so I don't want to start assessing likely guilt. If you have a greater level of certainty one way or another for whatever reason I have no issue with that, but I say possible because I think that's the most appropriate description at this point from what I've read and heard.
The ultimate problem is that the whole thing is messy. It's messy because rape investigations always are, it's messy because of Wikileaks and what may or may not happen as a result of that, it's messy because both of those are highly charged situations, it's messy because Assange is a complex figure and it's messy because of his actions and the ill considered actions of at least four governments have only made things worse.
The rhetoric it's a function of the medium where we all just pick up on the bits we disagree with rather than writing long form balanced pieces on the whole thing. If that's what you're interested in then this isn't a bad approximation of my view: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/julian-a... though there are issues with it (specifically the fact that it doesn't mention that the Swedes have handed over people to the US in the past in ways that were, to put it mildly, troubling).
The main reason I have banged on about the rape position is that it's something that a lot of people seem to be willing to discard almost completely, in some cases to the point of misogyny (to be clear that's not an accusation I'm levelling at you).
My rhetoric may be wound up but I could say the same about discussions of me as a potential rapist (just one example among several I could pick from your original post), a suggestion which even hypothetically is clearly charged enough to likely override any clarity it offers and I'd venture given it's personal nature is beyond anything I said. Dare I say that it's a touch Fox News?
Unpleasant as these things are, it's part of the medium. Hastily banged out messages, only picking up the bits you have specific issue with, little time to consider subtlety. At least we have an excuse, unlike Fox.
I do not know why it's so hard to believe that a driven, virile man who is gathering the reins of power into his hands for the GOOD OF MANKIND must be pure of heart and soul. My experience with suchlike is that they are bullies at heart. We hope they will be bullies on the side of light and goodness, but-- maybe not in every part of their lives.
People who KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR MANKIND often KNOW WHAT IS GOOD IN BED too, and go for it regardless.
I do feel that these women have the right to air their grievances publicly, and be afforded the opportunity for an impartial legal process. Unfortunately, I have very strong doubts that any impartial legal process will occur, but rather a highly partial extra-legal process.
I respect that you have observed situations where men have taken advantage of women, or a woman's rights have been disregarded; it happens with alarming frequency, and it saddens me greatly. I do feel that society in general (in the west anyhow) is very sympathetic to the woman in instances of sexual assault. Because of its horrible frequency, it is very easy for any man to imagine that the woman who was raped was his mother, his wife, his daughter, his sister or a close female friend. This fills us with wrath and gives us a desire for terrible vengeance; that is precisely why we must collect ourselves and be rational. did you know that rapists and child molesters tend to be treated so savagely by other inmates that special prisons (or special wings in regular prisons) are constructed to keep them alive?
But you said it yourself: rape (like murder) is a crime against the person. Not against the nation. Nations shouldn't be violating treaties just to 'get their man'. It's a bit like the point of the 5th Amendment in the US: sure, some bad guys get away with it, but overall it protects everyone.
Here's another example: elsewhere in the thread someone mentions China not going into the US embassy to get their man. But if the UK does this, China now has a clear and more importantly very public precedent and the UK embassy becomes more insecure in China: "Hey, you've shown us that if you really want the guy, it's okay to break the rules".
But asylum was never meant for this either and while they shouldn't go in and get him I see no reason why they should grant him safe passage either.
I suspect that the next step may well be a legal challenge to the grant of immunity.
Even the UK has engaged in this renaming of terrorist/paramilitary actions as "criminals", especially in their own country. Just look at the recent history of "political status" for prisoners in Northern Ireland ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike )
One can reasonably believe that persecuting journalists who expose government wrongdoing is good or bad, of course, but to deny that political motivations exist here is simply lying. It's not a position that can be honestly held.
But for whatever reason, lying about this case appears to be important to you - as if the Hacker News discussion is somehow going to affect the course of world events - so go right ahead.
What I believe is that two women have made serious allegations which I think deserve to be properly heard and subject to due process.
Whatever else Julian Assange has or has not done (on which I have mixed opinions) and whatever political manoeuvering has gone on around it, there is a serious criminal allegation with two alleged victims and I think that matters.
If the case is that weak, the evidence that circumstantial and the police process that unprofessional, I'm sure his lawyers will do just fine.
Is there a risk to Assange? Maybe, but if the Americans really want him we in the UK have a long history of being America's bitch and I suspect would have handed him over in a trice. I simply can't see how being in Sweden is a greater risk to him than being here.
I believe in due process. Not because it's perfect, but because it's better than all the other stuff that's been tried in these situations. You can call me naive or ill-informed but please don't call me a liar, it adds nothing to the debate and you really haven't enough evidence to back it up.
And so on. Sorry, I know that rape is very serious crime and should be punished, but I don't think your stance in this matter - that Assange is guilty of RAPE, omg, omg! - is valid. I think you're needlessly emotional about the matter. You may dislike him, but you should at least try being objective - you'd realize that finding him guilty here on forum is not a good thing at all, not to law, not to his victims, and not even to you.
That threat in itself is shocking. If they were to go through with it, dictatorships everywhere would instantly ensure every dissident who as much as looks towards a foreign embassy will get slapped with criminal charges so they can use it to justify entering the embassy to pull them out.
> And it's not as if he's being sent to somewhere with a shitty human rights record or a dodgy judicial system. It's Sweden
It's Sweden, the country who has admitted to having handed Egyptian dissidents over to masked CIA agents who proceeded to strip them, drug them, chain them, and ship them off to Mubarak to be tortured, in violation of Swedish law and international treaties.
The European Court of Human Rights didn't help them much.
The kicker?
Said Egyptians were in Sweden seeking political asylum because they presumably believed the same you do.
In terms of the being charged thing, that's a technical distinction based on how the Swedish process works where you have to be formally questioned before you can be charged. As the UK judges at his appeal stated, it's misleading to say that, criminal charges have in effect been bought.
But that still doesn't justify storming the embassy.
I'm not saying that mistakes haven't been made in the past but Assange will, I suspect have far better legal representation and a far better PR apparatus than the Egyptian's had. This is a trial that would be in the glare of the world's media which makes any kind of cover up far, far harder.
It took another prosecutor to take the extremely unusual step of swooping in and reopening the case before it was suddenly imperative he was questioned in Sweden, after he had been given the go-ahead to leave.
Meanwhile the Swedish police are happily interviewing suspected murderers elsewhere without the same insistence.
As for the Egyptians - it caused a massive uproar, then as stated, the US was shown to be right back at it again shortly afterwards, ignoring the political fallout of the initial cases. Even if Sweden doesn't want to be involved in the dirty work - and they have a lengthy history of bending over for the US -, that is by no means any guarantee of anything.
Unnecessary. As I pointed out the last time you made this argument, dictatorships already have more effective ways of doing this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/chen-guangcheng...
You'll note that China found it less troublesome to threaten someones family with violence than to risk a diplomatic incident by violating the integrity of a diplomatic mission.
Basically, even if the US thought there was a political/persecutorial aspect to this, they recognized the gravity of the situation (that there were overriding factors) and in the spirit of maintaining relations, decided to send Wang, LiJung out on the street.
Had the US not handed him back to China, China would have made things very difficult for the US, in other areas, as they are wont to do. This illustrates, that asylum and Vienna conventions and such are respected to a good degree, but there comes a time when most actors recognize that there can be extreme extenuating circumstances which make it impractical to be strictly principled in cases resemble local disputes. In this case, Ecuador is willing to burn bridges as it were --on the other hand, it's convenient for them. It gains them some cred in their circles and have nothing to lose (immediately, commerce wise). I mean, it's not as though they are the paragon of freedom in LatAm.
See the highlighted section. She was asleep. That's almost certainly going to be rape in the UK, the US, Australia or pretty much anywhere else you'd count as civilised.
I agree, it's not clear cut. That's why we have due process, and that's all I want to see.
If a woman lies naked and spread eagle, and a man begins to have intercourse with her, and she makes no move to stop it, but tells him to stop in a calm tone, but in a language he does not understand, is the man raping her?
If her compliance comes from fear (the threat may be real or perceived), if she had been clear previously about a lack of consent or a whole bunch of other situations.
Whethe you could get a criminal conviction under those circumstances is another question but sure, it could be rape.
The point is: There is an extradition order to Sweden. The Swedish police want to talk to him. He fled the country before his interview.
Last time I checked, you don't get to just tell the police "sorry, not interested" when they are investigating rape allegations. I'm pretty sure that in just about every country in the world, at some point, there are rules dictated that you have a certain level of cooperation with authority. And if you don't, there are consequences.
How is this so hard to understand?
Because people are too caught up in America-wants-to-kill-Assange conspiracy theories to bother trying to understand.
Assange is transparently a scumbag at best, and rapist at worst, but this isn't true.
He was given permission to leave Sweden: the authorities had finished with him. They changed their minds weeks later.
And they can talk to him as much as they like. In London. Even in the Ecuadorean embassy. He's offered this much many times.
He cooperated, and now it's escalated due to political motivation.
How is this so hard to understand?
In further depositions, his attorney said he "can't remember" if he mentioned to his client the pending interview.
And furthermore: What is your point? Politically motivated or not, the police are engaged in an investigation. They have, at some point in time (regardless of the timeframe) decided they are seeking a second interview and will most likely be charging Assange with a crime.
Even if what you said was true (it's not), so what? The simple fact of the matter is, as I said, that Sweden has issued an extradition order. Whether you personally agree or not, it's legal. Everyone involved knows that he will eventually be extradited. Because there is no legal reason for it not to go through.
So as I said previously: I am missing something? How is this so hard to understand?
In the London extradition court case, the lawyer for the Swedish authorities (Clare Montgomery) admitted giving Assange permission to leave:
'She said Mr. Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, was told on Sept. 15 that his client was "not subject to any restraint and could leave Sweden."'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870442220457612...
The authorities were in full possession of the facts of the case at this time.
Then -- weeks later -- they changed their minds.
> There are transcripts of his lawyer setting up the 2nd interview with the authorities.
Montgomery -- Sweden's counsel, remember -- also said that during this conversation, his lawyer said he was unable to contact Assange. Is that in the transcript?
> And furthermore: What is your point?
My point is that the accusation that he fled Sweden is not an established fact.
> Politically motivated or not, the police are engaged in an investigation.
You really don't think it makes any difference if it's politically motivated? No equal access to justice regardless of political opinions?
This is what you are missing.
If everything that was 'legal' was in black and white as you suggest, there would be no need of lawyers or appeal courts.
[edit] wont let me respond to your comment below, so I'll just say that while I'm not sure how you measure 'what the world sees as a greater good', its a reasonable point and that the Amnesty blogpost would have made much more sense if it had used the argument that you do...
Assange is fighting a personal criminal charge against himself.
If you're going to pick up dubious allies, then you should do so in a cause which justifies it, where the trade offs are worth the costs.
If you're holding up the Chinese not violating the sanctity of the US embassy as a noble example, surely the annexing the entire nation of Tibet should counter that. Tibet was small fry. The US has the largest economy, military, and set of military allies in the world.
EDIT: Also, the "Freedom Fries" period in the last decade caused some damage to the French economy over a preceived slight that didn't even exist. Having China march into the US embassy would have a ton of ramifications from the US public pulling business, not just the government.
If Amnesty cannot see that, they're unworthy of their fame. Unfortunately, I suspect they do see that, and nevertheless they're not acting. Which is even more damning.
Hint: the women in Sweden won't be the point of inquiry then. It will be his actions on the internet, for which he most definitely should not face death.
At the most extreme interpretation, slavery is legal under islamic law - see Sultanhussein Tabandeh, "A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". And the Cairo Declaration says that there is no crime except that proscribed by sharia. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen had slaves well into the 20th century (a 1951 UN report estimated that 5% of the population of those countries were slaves), and they only "outlawed" slavery under duress from the west. There is still slave-taking and trading in Mauritania and Sudan.
There are now plenty of serious works on the 1300 years of the islamic slave trade, e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Islams-Black-Slaves-History-Diaspora... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Slaves-Muslim-Masters-Medi...
It beggars belief that Amnesty can simply ignore it when the islamic world rejects universal human rights. But as long as Amnesty ignores it, the OIC's Cairo Declaration can fly under the radar, and be ignored by mainstream media and governments.
My understanding of the Cairo Declaration might be wrong. But until it starts to be discussed by organisations like Amnesty, it is not going to be subjected to extensive critical examination.
So what I can conclude from your post is that you are disappointed that Amnesty does not go beyond specific human rights criticisms to some kind of blanket condemnation of all Muslims, which would serve absolutely no constructive purpose except to satisfy bigotry.
'Islamic world' does not equate to 'all Muslims'. The 'Catholic Church' does not equate to all those who are Catholic Christians etc.,
What I find shocking is that they spend most of their time supporting this or that journalist in this or that country, and when something so egregious happens in the UK, in London, they stay mum because it's happening to somebody they don't like. They are failing spectacularly, in their own backyard, without any risk of repercussions whatsoever (this government is not friendly to them, they're not friendly to anyone really, so there's nothing to lose by criticising them).
I fail to see why I should support the rights of Russian rock bands to criticize Putin, but I should ignore the Metropolitan Police, down the road, banging on the door of foreign embassies to get hold of Assange. One day they might be looking for me on some trumped-up charge or other, and will Amnesty then stay silent if I'm not their pal?
That's just not how it works, and that's why Amnesty won't get any more money from me.
It makes as much sense to say that the Cairo Declaration "subordinates all human rights to sharia law" as to say that the UNDHR "subordinates all human rights to the will of the UN General Assembly". And characterizing the signing of the Cairo Declaration as "rejecting universal human rights" is exactly opposite of the truth: the Cairo Declaration is an affirmation of universal human rights.
If he leaves he'll be arrested, if he manages to get in a diplomatic car the car will be stopped with Assange in it and there'll be a stand off. If Ecuador tries to make him into a diplomat the UK can simply refuse to accept that he is a diplomat. And if they try to use a diplomatic bag then the UK will claim that it's being used for improper purposes and block it. IMHO Assange is stuck there until a deal is worked out.
The granting of asylum is just one step in what will continue to be a tedious soap opera.
My interpretation of the letter that the FO sent to Ecuador is as a statement of a negotiating position given that the FO got wind of the fact that he was going to be offered asylum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
That asked, I tend to agree that the most likely case is that Ecuador is only involved because they want unrelated concessions from the UK and will likely turn him over after some brief negotiations.
I'm American. It's been a while.
My hat is truly off to Ecuador and its people if they're taking the altruistic route.
There is still something very funny about this insistence that the questioning happens in Sweden. Swedish police can come to UK to question. UK police could question on behalf of Swedish police, there are arrangements for that I think.
Extradition when there are no charges is unusual.
The UK have been here before, General Pinochet and the Spanish judges spring to mind.
Edit: further reading on European arrest warrants makes me realise that each country in Europe has a different definition of 'arrest'.
Ecuador offered this, saying they are welcome to question him in their embassy but the Swedes refused. It's blatantly obvious the US is leaning very hard on both the UK and SE.
There are a number of legitimate reasons Sweden would refuse this idea. Foremost among them is that, in the event this questioning leads to a decision to arrest, it likely can't be performed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-184038/Police-smash-...
http://www.sussex.police.uk/about-us/policies-and-procedures...
(UK has around 40 regional police forces along with various national agencies.)
Unusual yes, but not unheard of.
As a personal anecdote, there is a close friend of my family who has been facing extradition to another country merely for questioning over something that he allegedly did in 1944.
Seems very similar.
Not sure it applies here, though.
Has any international incident ever happened over a college date rape?! Do you recall an incident that a nation threatens to violate sovereignty of another nation over questioning of sexual misconduct?! Maybe the Trojan war!
An Interpol Red notice issued over sexual misconduct, while Assad is butchering the Syrian population by the thousands...
A farce.
Of course sexual assault is a serious crime!
Personally, I just find it interesting that only Strauss Khan and now Assange get this kind of persecution when it fits someone's agenda.
If you read something else - sort out your own demons.
Don't understand your reference to Democracy or what it has to do with this case.
Regardless of all aforementioned responses: My point remains the same. shrugs
The more people can see you, the more people will want to see what happen to you, and the more careful you need to be since people are always looking.
The question is really why would the UK want to piss Sweden off and not honour their agreement?
Perhaps the UK is serious about its relations with Sweden as well.
There are many things for the UK to be serious about short of alleged sexual assault in Sweden (not that one shouldn't be serious about sexual assault, in general, in any country...)
There is no legal risk of Assange facing death in the US, is there? As far as I've read, he's just a nuisance to the US government, not wanted for any crimes. Or is that mistaken?
It shouldn't surprise me to learn the Ecuadorans are making more of some reference than is actually there. I can't see what interest they have in Assange beyond tweaking the US, which is probably great domestic and regional politics for their government.
Nor would it surprise me if the British letter included some clarification of that embassy's status, without suggestion of entry in this matter. The British have had at least one police officer shot dead by a sniper from an embassy and are probably at pains that everyone understands there are limits.
The British aren't going to complicate diplomatic immunities over a two-bit twerp like Assange. They'll be content to let him get moldy in there. Eventually people will lose interest, he'll get bored, and he'll likely emerge of his own will to get back into the papers.
Assange is hardly Nelson Mandela.
My point is that although Assange is well known, he is not a prisoner of conscience like Mandela, Ai WeiWei, Ghandi etc etc. He is not being pursued for bravely standing up to an oppressive regime. He is being pursued for taking sexual advantage of two women.
Ah, there's where we have to part ways. I believe that's willful ignorance of the situation.
Assange on the other hand has made the newspaper here many times.
For Ecuador's government he is worth a little more - as a way of proving that they are anti-colonialist and not afraid of Uncle Sam. Other than that, Wikileaks doesn't require Assange to function, which means both that protecting Assange is incidental to protecting Wikileaks and also that attacking Assange is not an effective way of suppressing Wikileaks.
In the case of Pinochet, there were four extradition requests: Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and France.
However, the British government took Mr. Pinochet's frail health into account and ultimately released him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_August...
And so what if you make a bad decision historically? Are you suggesting that having made one that's a precedent and we should continue doing the wrong thing?
The rights and wrongs of this case aren't determined about mistakes that may or may not have been made in the past.
What do Everton and General Pinochet have in common?
They both force people into football stadiums and torture them.
As it was Blair then obviously a decent, honest humanitarian decision... joke
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-05/americas/world_americas_v...
The States aren't going to extradite him from Sweden nor, evidently, from the UK. It makes me feel like a kiljoy to say it, but there isn't any conspiracy here, and nor will any play out. Let's face it - everything will play out normally and boringly, no matter how many people shout "conspiracy!"
My gut instinct is that one way or another he'll end up in Sweden, either walking free or serving a year or two in jail, and then - what? Sitting in Parisian cafes gazing wistfully upon what once could have been?
Why not? It seems a fair number of powerful people in the US would love to extradite him.
In other words: The US is very successful at getting "ordinary criminals" extradited from the UK, but not so much when it comes to thornier cases like or example McKinnon's. Maybe he eventually gets extradited, but it might still drag on for ages.
Meanwhile, Sweden has a history of having had its police drive people who were in their country seeking political asylum to the airport, handing them over to masked CIA agents and waiting while said CIA agents stripped the asylum seekers naked, drugged, handcuffed and chained them, and threw them on a plane to send them back to the Mubarak regime where they were tortured - Sweden has admitted as much, and paid restitution to at least one victim for torture as a direct result of Swedish actions in blatant contradiction of Swedish law.
There was a massive outrage. Shortly afterwards, Swedish military intelligence determined that US intelligence agencies where still carrying out illegal rendition flights via Swedish airports with full knowing compliance from Swedish airport staff who apparently didn't get the memo... Or who got the wrong memo. Or something.
I know which of the two places I would take my chances if I'd pissed off the US government.
The same endgame he has had for a while: more attention, more publicity, more people donating to his bank account (which is basically what wikileaks functions as) to make up for those that got burned when he jumped bail, more book deals, who knows, perhaps a film. Whatever feeds his ego.
Proof? Evidence?
Even after that, to this day, Wikileaks lists his personal P.O. BOX in Australia as a way to donate, as far as I know no auditing of what has happened to any money sent there so far over the years. This is a curious detail that I have not seen anyone report, and that can be checked if you look at his pre-wikileaks website in archive.org, which lists the same P.O. BOX.
For all practical purposes, Assange is Wikileaks and Wikileaks is Assange, anyone that disagreed or questioned the wisdom of his actions has been kicked out or left in frustration at his dictatorial and self-serving management style.
Edit: Oh, and almost forgot how Wikileaks kept most of the money that they had supposedly raised for Bradley Manning's defense, who in the end, is the real hero of this saga, and who is languishing in jail while Assange goes on with his egotistical show.
Just to clarify, I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat, I just have seen the circumstances of some drone attacks: against US citizens in places where no war was declared and with collateral damage shrugged off. From the US perspective, it is an easy means of getting rid of people they don't like with neither the need for judicial proceedings nor formal declaration of war. The only thing that is really stopping them right now is that Assange is currently in a highly populated part of the UK, and not in the middle of nowhere in Yemen.
If you are wrong, you go about your daily life just as you do now. If he thought as you do and he was wrong, he would face torture and possibly execution.
If the stakes were equal, would you still feel as confident?
Adrian Lamo similarly declared that Bradley Manning would do less than 6 months (Manning has been in jail for more than a year and hasn't even been sentenced yet). If the US will extradict low-level software pirates, they'll likely extradict Assange.
That's because he's awaiting trial, which has been delayed by both sides for various reasons. This is normal judicial process.
>For most of his time at the brig, Manning was held in highly restrictive pretrial confinement. Designated a maximum-custody detainee under prevention-of-injury watch, or POI, he was confined to his cell for all but an hour a day, and has a number of other restrictions placed on him. At one point his clothes were taken away, and he was forced to sleep naked.
>The ACLU called his treatment “gratuitously harsh” in a letter sent to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was forced to resign after publicly calling Manning’s treatment at Quantico “counterproductive and stupid.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/general-manning-jai...
>The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-...
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2012/08/unlawful-pre...
If this WAS a conspiracy, consider this: the folks at Langley aren't stupid, they know that killing Julian or tossing him in Gitmo would only throw a keg of gasoline on the fire. The best way to erase Wikileaks from existence is to make everyone look at Julian as an evil, nasty, vile person unfit to spit upon. What are the most reviled crimes available for this? Setting him up for murder is very tricky and could easily unravel. Child molestation would be great, but this would be even harder than murder. Rape on the other hand is REALLY easy, because people have been convicted of rape with ZERO evidence, in a he-said-she-said dispute. Additionally, even if someone beats rape charges, the aura of it will linger around them basically forever; Julian will ALWAYS be an accused rapist, until the end of time. The analysts at the CIA would have looked this over from a lot of different angles, and known that this would play out as a win pretty much no matter what. What they didn't expect is that powerful conservative civilians in the united states would run their mouths so much about extradition, tribunals and treason that it would give another sovereign nation grounds to protect him.
The Swedish Police officially wants him for questioning, and for that reason they requested his arrest through Interpol. The UK legal system only argued on whether there's any impediment, under British Law, which would not allow him to be extradited.
Under pressure from the current government, Lord Justices ruled that they cannot find anything of the sort. Hardly a trial or "going through the entire legal system".
And I did not say he had. Your entire comment is based on a false premise (that I believed that he had been convicted) that you have invented.
But who cares, he's just a man. The problem here is the sanctity of the asylum principle, which is not worth losing over such a petty dispute.
As a result the fact he's not been convicted is potentially somewhat misleading as he's made it impossible to do so up to this point.
And what would be the point? He can't be punished as he's not there so why not just wait until you actually have him?
> And what would be the point? He can't be punished as he's not there so why not just wait until you actually have him?
I can see your point here, but after some time I would think that it would become difficult to continue with the case. Witnesses get hard to track down, evidence lost, etc..
The whole point of asylum is to protect against persecution, which is usually justified in the home country under some law.
There is no evidence that he is being persecuted by the US in this matter: if Ecuador has some they should publish it.
Actually they have. Enough was presented to the Ecuadorian Government that they agreed he faced potential political prosecution. That's why he's been granted asylum.
> Sweden issued a legitimate European Arrest Warrant, and the UK allowed Assange to appeal that to the highest court.
Sweden issued an extremely unusual arrest warrant, and in the highest UK legal circles there is an opinion that the final Supreme court decision was simply wrong:
"The Supreme Court wrongly, and without any analysis, assumed that VCLT Article 31(3)(b) is applicable in the interpretation of secondary European acts such as the Framework Decision. It also neglected to look into the interpretative rules of the EU. The result was a fundamental mistake in the legal reasoning of the Court." [1]
Assange is a Western dissident. You don't have to like him or agree with WikiLeaks mission, but the actions against WikiLeaks have been highly political, and manouverings by Sweden, the UK, and the US in line with the actions of any states acting against dissidents through various channels.
[1] http://www.cjicl.org.uk/index.php?option=com_easyblog&vi...
For the suspicious mind, it could be seen that a disinclination to examine in full the very matter presented for examination, is indicative of at worst, bias, and at worst, as argued in the citation, error. Any further avenue of appeal in the UK has been refused.
I also find it ironic that British courts are willing to refuse extradition requests for terrorism suspects, say to Jordan, when an ambiguity regarding their immunity from torture or death arises, but will apparently allow it in other cases.
It could just be that he had bail terms set and broke them and the Swedes want a chat about those pesky rape allegations. Don't invent something where it doesn't exist.
You could argue the opposite side: how many embassies offer protection to famous rape suspects?
This is not an ordinary occurrence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski#Sexual_abuse_cas...
Which is why I wrote: This is not an ordinary occurrence meaning that it happens rarely, not that such things never happen.
The only reasons you would want a suspect extradited to your country are: to press charges and make an arrest, to torture, to make a media scene, or to 'punish' someone by detaining them even though you can't make the case stick.
The only acceptable reason is the first one, in which case you should press charges before extradition.
At this point in the US he'd probably be charged with obstruction of justice, at which point venue is again no longer up to him.
In the US there's the 5th Amendment to the Constitution.
Even if you know nothing of the law, surely you've at least seen a television show or movie where someone says "Am I being charged with a crime? ... Then am I free to go?"
That's all you need to say.
Assange has a perfectly justified fear that the request for interview functions as a strategy for entrapping & extraditing him. The notion that this is nothing more than a disinterested preference in procedure is implausible.
This is true in the US. It's not quite true here in Australia - a refusal to talk to police can be used against you in a court of law. It's not going to make or break a case, but you can't just 'plead the 5th' here and have no consequences. I imagine it's similar in the UK as our law is quite similar to theirs.
"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_A...
http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgment...
"Rape - On 17 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [SW] in Enköping, 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."
I would consider that to be rape, but I have no idea whether the US in general or legally would agree.
"In England and Wales, a decision to charge is taken at a very early stage; there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced. If the commencement of criminal proceedings were to be viewed in this way, it would be to look at Swedish procedure through the narrowest of eyes. On this basis, criminal proceedings have commenced against Mr Assange"
Link in the cousin comment.
In the morning, she woke up to Assange on top of her having sex with her. She asked if he had obtained a condom and he said no. She told him to get off, and, well, he got off, but not in the way she meant--he kept going, came, and then withdrew.
That would arguably be rape in the US.
Either way, it would be interesting how the whole story will play-out.
At least that is what I heard.
"Blocking supplies" is a weird concept for a building where and of the non-Assange residents can simply exit the building, walk 20m to the nearest Tesco, and return with 4 bags of vegetables and microwave dinners...
Whatever happens, and regardless of the man, today has been a sad day for international relations, and hence for peace. I thought this government couldn't get any worse; I was wrong.
Funny you should mention Tehran, given that the Iranians recently stormed the British embassy there, and ... the world didn't end!
Actually, no, Iran is NOT a pariah state that 'nobody' wants any dealings with
Iran does not have the breadth of interests and worldwide presence Britain has, nor a problematic (recent) colonial past. Despite this, their actions make it very difficult for them to build solid, trusted alliances with reliable partners.
Britain has a worldwide web of influence because it has proved through recent history to be a trusted and reliable partner for many allied countries. If they start pissing all over the Vienna Convention and be branded as unreliable by their peers, less people will be keen to hear their reasons on all sort of matters, and the already-waning British influence will see a dramatic decline.
It's already hard enough to lecture China as it is; if Hague "renditions" Assange, the Chinese will rightly feel entitled to simply laugh to his face whenever he brings up "human rights".
A bona fide political circus, in which the main performer, Assange, turns out to be an extremely talented clown.
Onto the other topic of the rape charges, I think some people don't fully understand the facts surrounding the charge. I didn't either until I spent thirty minutes and read this article: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.ht...
But from this transcript... these are the key points:
-------------
The "sexual assault/rape/molestation" charges were filed after two women Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen went to the police to seek advice if they could compel Assange to take a STD test since they did not use a condom during sex.
Both of the women went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm, however, it is mentioned that Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen.
Ardin had been frequently in the company of Assange. She had previously described him as such a "cool man" (Twitter). They also arrived and left together at a Crayfish party (equivalent of a cocktail party). Ardin was sharing accomodation with Assange and had refused an offer from someone else for temporary accomodation.
The day after the accusation of rape and molesation Ardin sent a SMS saying : "I've just spent some time with the coolest people in the world".
SMS text messages were also exchanged between Sofia and Ardin, which showed that the two of them knew of the relationship between each other and Assange.
Ardin responded to a friend who was looking for Assange : "He's not here. He's planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?"
The Swedish police, totally railroaded the investigation. Interviews have been leaked with Assange, and Wilen commented initially "that she became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.". Assange went freely for interview to the police station and was released without immediate charge, and was free to travel. Almost immediately there after, another warrant was issued for his arrest.
Eventually, it was also upgraded to an Interpol "Red Notice".
It's alleged (from the transcripts), that Sweden has frankly always been the United States' lap dog and it's not a matter we are particularly proud of. The Swedish Government has... essentially, whenever a US official says, "Jump", the Sweden Government asks, "How high?"
Assange's legal team are clearly trying to point out that US is coercing all of this behind the scenes so that he can then be extradited from Sweden and face trial for conspiracy to commit espionage.
> The burden should be on the United States Government to say, "We are not planning to prosecute Julian Assange". If they just gave that assurance, I can guarantee you that Julian Assange would go to Sweden tomorrow.
----------------
This is hugely and unequivocally politically motivated. I'm British, and I am largely ashamed that pressure is not being placed on Sweden by the foreign minister to have them reinvestigate the extradition request. Also, Sweden will, and has previously done all it can to scratch America's back.
Assange should stay put, until US says "we will not pursue extradition from Sweden". (Which they will not do.)
Even if based on everything they know right now they honestly believed that to be true, what if they found new evidence tomorrow that changed their view?
The best you could ever get from them is "we have no plans based on what we know now" and that simply wouldn't be enough.
Patiño made it clear that Ecuador had asked Sweden for a guarantee that it would not extradite him to the US, were such a request made. But Sweden had said no, he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/16/julian-assange-e...
If not, revoke the extradition request. Problem solved.
The current situation is probably costing each country involved more time and money per hour than the travel expenses for the questioning trip would be.
If so, why even fly anyone in? Just dismiss the charge if that is what you really intend to do.
You either have this deadlock continuing indefinitely with nobody getting justice, or Sweden takes the more pragmatic approach and questions Assange in London (by flying whatever people would've been questioning him in Sweden there).
By the same argument they could have him charged in absentia. It is just complete nonsense from the Swedish prosecutor to pretend as if that is not possible under Swedish law.
So why this circus? A formal charge much earlier on would have stripped a bunch of issues from the case. E.g. the fact there is no formal charge was a big issue during the extradition hearings.
But of course a formal charge would also mean that the prosecutor would have to make fairly public binding statements in front of a Swedish court, and provide wider discovery to Assange's lawyers. Perhaps she is not prepared to do that.
By now, I imagine they could be flown in by singing angels for every day of the questioning and it would still be cheaper than maintaining the current mess.
Everything makes sense, always. It just may be that you are looking at it the wrong way, or assuming the wrong motivations.
None of the facts you presented would lead me to adjust the probability that a rape actually occurred down.
Most commonly rape happens between people who know each other, not in some dark alley between total strangers. The fact that the women knew Assange and even expressed that they liked him doesn’t make rape less plausible. I can’t see how that can be evidence for some sort of conspiracy.
Similarly, victims of rape becoming distraught with the process and essentially giving up on it – especially with one that is so very public – isn’t something that would surprise me, so I’m also not sure why that is evidence in favor of a government conspiracy.
I don’t really care whether Assange really raped someone (I think the very capable Swedish justice system is perfectly able to sort that out), I’m only interested in whether there is any evidence that points to a government conspiracy – and I honestly do not see anything.
If these women approached a lawyer in the US with their side of what happened, the lawyer would advise not to bring the matter to criminal court, with civil court also being a waste of time.
That's like fucking a prostitute (somewhere where it's legal) and then refusing to pay her. You didn't rape her, you simply tricked (defrauded) her! Rape can't be decided upon after sex! (Unless you were legally unable to give consent in the first place.)
Saying that it's rape is really inconsiderate and insulting to the actual rape victims...
EDIT: Preemptively: yes, I know; men can be raped, and not just in prison. Believe me, I know this better than you even want to guess at or speculate about. That doesn't change one whit the fact that people tend to talk shit and judge the world from their own categories and preconceptions, and not others'. This (generally, not specifically; your comment was simply the one that pushed my "Okay, I need to say something about this nonsense" button hard enough to actually respond) is just one of the more egregious examples of that.
As a man, I'd just like to know when it's ok to have sex with a woman without risking being accused of rape. Therefore, my opinion is that rape can not be declared after the fact.
If you feel that you won't get laid because women "always say no when they mean yes" you can remind them that nowadays, if they mean yes they'd better say yes, or THEY won't get laid.
eventually it will all shake out.
Let me give another example of a broad term: Violence. It can mean one kid pushing another on the play ground. It can also mean dropping a nuclear bomb on a city. Do you also think it's disrespectful to the victims of Hiroshima to ask the boy on the playground to stop being violent?
Better. Somethings really are lost in translation, I guess.
However, extraditing someone for questioniong for an alleged våldtäkt (not rape) case? I'm guessing there's more than meets the eyes.
> Saying that it's rape is really inconsiderate and insulting to the actual rape victims...
I'm glad you've apparently surveyed every rape victim and asked them if this law is insulting to them. I'm sure you're not just talking out of your ass about an extremely delicate and traumatic subject.
Thank god, I say (as a man, the sex usually accused of rape). Otherwise it would be too easy to accuse everybody of rape. I believe that a necessary ingredient of rape is intent, as well. So, if she seems willing to have sex with me (and she's not too drunk with me being sober), I will have sex with her, and it would be really bad form for her to come after me the next morning and say that she didn't really want to have sex. I can only hope that the law doesn't allow that.
Also, see above my example of a prostitute. Is that also rape by deception?
I can hardly fantom that regret for having had sex with someone can be as traumatic as being forced/drugged into having sex.
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#FBI_st...
Women aren't going around changing their mind post coitus about whether they wanted to have sex with you just like you aren't about them. It's incredibly rare and a notion perpetuated by people who really don't want to face the fact that rape and sexual assault are problems in our society.
Also, I never said that rape isn't a problem. It is. But so are false accusations of rape. Maybe a smaller problem, but a problem nonetheless.
I am not saying he should be extradited to Sweden without a guaranty he will not be sent to the US. But the allegations are serious.
Many myths about Swedish law floating around in these comments.
Actually no, that's not what he's been 'charged' with. Read the appeal to the extradition ( http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html ). He's been 'charged' with:
• "Unlawful coercion" - Holding down a woman with his body and forcing her to have sex. • "Sexual molestation" - Having sex with someone without a condom when they said they would only have with a condom (this would be illegal in the UK aswell BTW). • "Sexual molestation" - "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." • "Rape" - Having sex with someone who was asleep.
I'm pretty sure having sex with someone who's asleep is illegal in the USA as well. Various countries (incl. UK) have the "I'll have sex with you only if you use a condom", and then taking off a condom later, would count as sex without consent.
- The two women involved asked whether Assange could be compelled to take a test for sexually transmitted diseases (STD). They did not allege rape.
- The initial prosecutor dropped their investigation as not meeting criteria that would merit its continuance.
- Later, a second prosecutor -- in a different district and with no prior involvement -- picked the case up and pursued it further. Why?
- Assange stayed in Sweden upwards of a month and did participate in questioning. He left after the case was supposedly dropped and he was told, in response to his question, that he was free to travel abroad.
- Subsequent to his travel to England, Swedish authorities reopened the case and sought him for further questioning.
- Assange was willing to participate in further questioning, but upon advice of his attorneys declined to return to Sweden. Swedish law permits questioning to procede under such circumstances.
- Up to this point, Assange was not charged with any crime. He was simply "wanted for further questioning". If anything, the Swedish prosecutors seemed to be going out of their way to avoid charging him with any crime -- perhaps seeking to avoid causing any "warning", either informally or in some legal sense.
- When Assange refused to return, Sweden finally issued an Interpol Red Notice. Red Notices are the highest level of Interpol "flag". They are very rarely used. This was issued for someone wanted for questioning regarding alleged rape -- an allegation apparently made by a prosecutor but not by the actual alleged victims.
- Some fairly convincing, if circumstantial, evidence has been identified and reported that the U.S. has indeed convened a grand jury. This includes someone having identified the specific grand jury identification number. Decomposition of said number (it's constructed using various aspects of the grand jury timing and topic) shows that the grand jury is investigating a topic pertaining the Espionage Act.
- Apparently (I've seen less on this), one of the women involved has refused to sign her initial statements or to participate further in the Swedish investigation. The other woman has left Sweden. Now, granted, publicity and "blowback" from Assange supporters might well be a cause for this. But we don't have any reports of this being the case nor of specific events that might show such activity. On the other hand, it does not present a picture of two victims of rape seeking justice (in Sweden, where women's rights are much more supported than in many countries).
--
I don't mean to minimize the very real crime and trauma of rape. But upon digging into the specific details and timeline of this situation, it really starts to stink.
P.S. I'm reading some of the more specific, step by step descriptions of the sexual activity allegedly involved. If Assange did indeed force intercourse without the use of a condom, then I'm all for him being charged. Although this still seems at odds with the publicly observed personal interactions that continued for days after the alleged events.
Even if this were to be the case, it does not mean that the U.S. is not leaving no stone unturned in its effort to get its hands on Assange. And, if nothing else, the treatment of Manning -- now formally classified as torture by the U.N. -- seems to provide clear indication that extradition to the U.S. might well result in the violation of Assange's rights.
This is what happens when a government stoops to criminal activity. It no longer has any credence, even were its case to be legitimate.
And finally, once again, I'll ask: Where are the reprimands and punishments for those responsible who mis-designed and mis-managed such a fucked up intelligence information system? And for those whose criminal activities were identified by the leaked information.
U.S.A. -- land of hypocrisy.
Really? that doesn't say ANYTHING to you?
the day AFTER. Very few people go out of their way to advertise how cool their rapists are.
So no, that doesn't say anything to me.
When someone has BEEN raped, and I know you don't want to hear this, there is very often a reluctance to admit that's what happened. And of course, a HUGE reluctance to be treated like a filthy liar by people who really want their hero to not have raped someone.
It is, in fact, perfectly possible for someone to fuck up and create a situation that will be a huge political debility. It's perfectly possible that your idol- and mine-- isn't so great when his 'nads get involved.
Sure they do. "Oh he's a good man really, he doesn't mean to beat me, it's just that he gets angry sometime"
Whereas the UK has to act commensurately with their official belief that it's "just" a rape charge.
But that doesn't follow. It is ABSOLUTELY relevant that UK's unusual actions occur in an unusual context they didn't set up: indeed, most rape charges do not coincide with diplomatic shielding by an embassy, so diplomatic issues do not arise.
Nefarious, deceptive motivations on the part of the UK are not a necessary condition for its response, because shielding someone from the host country's criminal justice system is highly diplomatically sensitive even where it is justified.
Yes, for the UK it CAN be about something other than the rape charge, WITHOUT it being about some nefarious plot to assassinate Assange for Uncle Sam: it can be about what the UK sees as abuse of the privileges it gives to the embassy.
"Yes, it absolutely would be common practice to raid an embassy over (what started as) a rape charge, in the unlikely event that the accused and the embassy had both been silly enough to escalate it into a faux diplomatic immunity situation by unreasonably seeking and unreasonably granting asylum."
The situation is that Assange says he's politically persecuted in the UK and therefore his asylum request is legitimate, the UK says he's not and it isn't.
But what else was the UK going to say? It doesn't seem reasonable to me to have the UK be the final arbiter on this point.
Since there's no other authority we can reasonably appeal to, we must accept Ecuador's judgement as final, and consequently, the UK should not override this judgement by force.
- Ecuador decides to harbor a fugitive from British law. This itself is not 'standard practice' and it may or may not be justified.
- This alone can create a sensitive, high-profile diplomatic situation. There is really no 'standard practice' for when an embassy harbors someone over a rape charge. It is already an international incident.
- That situation easily explains the sharpness of the exchange, including e.g. legal discussion of the UK's rights with respect to embassy closure - and, in reply, public statements to pressure the UK. In both directions, such sharpness is not at all unexpected for a dispute like this. There is no international law principle of 'well, it's only rape so there is nothing we can do about it.'
- So it is not necessary to assume other motives for the UK to explain the UK's actions (whether they are sensible actions or not is a separate issue from whether there are other motives - they can be idiots who are very concerned with some matter of the international relationship or principle far out of proportion with the practical importance of Assange)
- So it cannot serve as the basis to an 'argument to the best explanation' concluding with an ulterior UK motive
That's all I argued in the post you were replying to.
APART from that, you seem to want to talk about other things . I don't want to encourage you to conflate those with the argument I gave above, but it seems rude to ignore your distinct topic, so I'll write a paragraph about it as well.
I can't say that your reasoning makes sense to me: 'it is unreasonable for the UK to be the final arbiter, therefore Ecuador must be the final arbiter.' If this argument has a basis, you haven't stated it; by what principle do you reject 'it is unreasonable for Ecuador to be the final arbiter, therefore the UK must be'? Insofar as they are both sovereign states and one does not start out with partisan assumptions, any legal basis for settlement would lie in the mutually agreed terms for the hosting of the embassy. And the upshot of this is not 100% obvious because sovereign countries do have the right under international treaties to close embassies - although that does not necessarily mean it is a prudent thing to do in any case, or in this case.
The UK didn't raid the embassy.
If the embassy says 'we are harboring this criminal' that is inherently diplomatically difficult. There is absolutely historical precedent for sharply worded letters back and forth.
"Is it common practice to grant asylum to a man wanted for questioning over accusations that he sexually assaulted two women?"
Not as much punch?
What's with all the miss-leading statements? Is it safe to assume they're intentional? After all, this is Hacker News, and people wouldn't just pipe in on a topic without having at least a tiny bit of information on the subject right?
Is it normal for an embassy's shielding of someone from the host country's criminal justice system to become a diplomatic issue? Yes, of course it is. Even if the accusation is minor, the diplomatic issue is between the UK and Ecuador and its severity is not determined by the accused, but by the legal interactions of the UK and Ecuador.
However, if you are on one side of the issue it is much more persuasive to say that the UK is treating Ecuador like a colony, that the UK wants to send Assange to Sweden so he will be secretly sent someplace and assassinated by the CIA. None of which is actually substantiated.
Neither is the rape that he is accused of...
In the UK, as far as I know it has happened exactly _once_: To evict squatters from the Cambodian embassy after it had been unused by the Cambodian government for nearly 12 years in order to prevent them from gaining title to the property.
The UK has, despite having had this law on the books for 25 years, not used it a single time against an embassy that is actually in use. Most countries does not have laws authorising this kind of entry at all.
Even dictatorships none of us like to compare us generally treat embassies as entirely inviolate, and more than once have provided free passage for people who have obtained asylum in an embassy. Many of said regimes routinely claim these people are common criminals.
In other words: The UK has done something that is absolutely outrageous by even bringing this up.
On the other hand, what is not unheard of, is CIA agents getting people of interest gift wrapped by Swedish police in violation of Swedish law, and being allowed to strip them, drug them, chain them and ship them off to be tortured by dictatorial regimes.
That is something the Swedish government has admitted to having been complicit in.
Especially when making use of said law might very well be in violation of international treaties, and have severe implications for the diplomatic protections of embassies worldwide.
I'm sure I could have formulated it otherwise, but your suggestion states something different, which implies no condemnation of the action they have already taken: They have already used the law in question as a threat by mentioning it in their letter to the government of Ecuador.
Actually making use of it would not merely be outrageous, it would be a violation of international law.
However, I believe what Ecuador has done is also unheard of. Based off a pedantic reply to my mail, has anyone else ever given asylum to somehow who is wanted for questioning over accusations that he sexually assaulted two women.
The UK government claims all that is happening here is that normal UK, Swedish and European law is being applied to investigate a sexual assault charge.
One important thing, which I'm not sure I'll word right which is unfortunate. One important thing to remember is that by giving asylum Ecuador can be seen as highly insulting the UK, by effectively saying they can not be trusted to deal with this issue in a fair, non-political way. The UK government must respond to this accusation in the highest possible terms.
Saying "wanted for rape" gets people riled up and makes him look like a douche (which he may very well be, but that's irrelevant). It derails intelligent and logical discussion in favour of emotional reaction. Fox News 101.
There are provisions in place between us and Sweden for relevant interviews to be done by video phone, by their police visiting, or by proxy (with our police handling the interview). Apparently all such options have been offered and refused.
If this were just about the rape case, there would be no such effort to retrieve him physically until charges were officially recorded.
Even if the general conspiracy theory is complete hogswash, there is definitely something extra to be considered here. The rape allegations and the way he has been pursued have become two separate matters because the way he has been pursued is significantly disproportionate to how such a case would normally progress. Whether he did it or not (and if he did significant punishment should be served) the authorities still have questions to answer as to why they are pushing in an unusual manner.
The one thing that's very fishy about this is how determined they are to prosecute this rape case.
Your argument is that the government is evil enough to extradite him on trumped up charges in order to have him killed, but also somehow incapable of telling a lie.
Would that be two consecutive sentences, or would they be served in parallel?
He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently “consented to … continuation” of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.
In the other incident, in which Assange is alleged to have held a woman down against her will during a sexual encounter, Emmerson offered this summary: “[The complainant] was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her … [she] felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … [she] tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. [She] says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.”
That's rape.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/julian-assange-e...
This is from testimony given by Assange's lawyer.
It does lose the context of the lawyer continuing on that Assange eventually did find and use a condom.
In other words, this is Assange's lawyers presentation of the prosecutions claims followed by his attempt at making the claim there is no case even if the facts are entirely as alleged by the opposing party.
Presenting this as Assange's lawyers somehow agreeing that these are the facts is misleading at best. His lawyer goes on to specifically state that for the purposes of the hearing it is irrelevant whether or not Assange agrees with this version of events.
The only issue being litigated in this thread and in UK court is "is this rape charge so ridiculous that the UK should refuse to honor its extradition treaty with Sweden over it". I don't see any reasonable argument for that assertion here.
Sweden is not an Orwellian dystopia. It's an especially enlightened and socially conscious state, even (perhaps especially) compared to the US.
While it did cause an uproar, it took a couple of months before Swedish military intelligence uncovered that illegal CIA rendition were still ongoing, with the involvement of Swedish airport staff.
Sweden has an extensive history of various services violating Swedish law in order to bend over for the US behind the scenes.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/government-tyranny/the-...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yta55u2zP2U&list=PL849AE3...
Now, before you downvote me, as I see some 'enlightened' readers already have, consider whether a male would get a fair trial in Sweden on any sexual accusation.
Is this not 'radical feminism'? Is it not also kind of insane? Don't shoot the messenger.
Burning Ken Dolls in front of a camera is not journalism.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/hen_s...
Insane? Radical? You decide!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
Is there a chance in hell that he is being extradited for these crimes if the US didn't want him for leaking documents? Once you realize the answer is a firm no, this whole side story becomes irrelevant. There is no way Sweden is extraditing a rapist from the UK UNLESS someone like the US puts on pressure because of something else.
The rest of the argument is to my ears just fever talk. Some US muckity muck said Assange should be killed? Ok. I won't vote for that moron. There are also US politicians who believe we should have nuked Iraq. There was never any real risk that we we going to fire nuclear weapons at a 3rd world country. Random politicians say all sorts of idiotic things. Thankfully, they cannot suspend criminal law as a result.
The suggestion that Sweden can't handle basic criminal law when they have political motivations for their actions has been well demonstrated by the fact that Swedish police have in the past violated Swedish law and international treaties by handing political asylum seekers over to the CIA without due process. In fact, without any process at all. In order for them to be shipped off to be tortured.
How many of these people faced charges?
Of course this is ignoring the fact there is no rape charge as of yet.
In reality, the investigation will most likely be dropped since they don't seem to have any evidence and it's their words against his.
If this is politically motivated, Sweden wants Assange in their jurisdiction to extradite him -- which seems plausible given that Sweden refuses to interview Assange over phone or in the UK. Does that seem normal to you? To have a suspect extradited for "interviewing"?
Politically convenient rather than politically motivated I suspect.
No that's not the question, because 1) Assange has not been charged with anything and 2) Sweden has been offered the chance to question him in the UK (as they did in a murder case involving a trip to Serbia for questioning), or alternatively question him in Sweden, but guarantee that he will not be extradited to a third country. That they've refused all offers is a clear indication that their primary motive is not quick resolution of this particular case.
> If they can, the UK must honor its extradition treaty. If they can't, the UK shouldn't.
The UK denied an extradition request for the Chilean dictator Pinochet, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of public record. "'If they can' the UK 'must' honor its extradition treaty" is a statement that doesn't seem to say much at all.
Also, considering this situation involves the West's most famous dissident, it is important to consider all actions and irregularities in a more considered light. The issuing of the Interpol notice was highly irregular, Sweden's actions were highly political, and the Supreme Court's final consideration of the legality of the request was found to be wrong by the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law:
The Supreme Court wrongly, and without any analysis, assumed that VCLT Article 31(3)(b) is applicable in the interpretation of secondary European acts such as the Framework Decision. It also neglected to look into the interpretative rules of the EU. The result was a fundamental mistake in the legal reasoning of the Court. [1]
Does a law journal's opinion take legal precedence over the final decision of a Supreme court? Of course not. Does Assange's status as a Western dissident absolve him from any transgressions? Of course not. But the totality of these highly irregular and unusual actions demonstrate a clear pattern of political persecution. The naive political / legal reduction of this case that some undertake just seems like wilful ignorance.
[1] http://www.cjicl.org.uk/index.php?option=com_easyblog&vi...
I don't know the particulars of the rape allegations against Assange (nor do I care); however, automatically dismissing them because of hos other involvements seems to me wrong.
The purpose was for Assanges lawyers to explain why even if the facts are as stated by the prosecution there would be no case for Assange to answer. The purpose was not to present a defence for Assange, nor to present Assange's version of events.
Emmerson went on to make it clear that whether or not Assange agreed with this version of events was immaterial for the extradition hearing, as in the extradition hearing, the evidence will be interpreted as favorably as reasonable for the prosecution.
In other words, this is Assange's lawyer saying "even if all you say is true this is why we believe there is no case". And you conveniently ignored the part where he provided that explanation for your last paragraph.
Whether or not you agree with his justification is also immaterial - this was not Assanges defence against the accusations.
But you're also mischaracterizing the testimony a little bit, since I don't believe it's the case that everything Assange's lawyers stipulated was directly drawn from the extradition request. "She may have been upset, but she clearly consented" (I've slightly paraphrased) is an argument defending Assange from a valid charge, not an argument that the charge is invalid.
The testimony in this hearing probably does presage the testimony that'll be given in Sweden.
'In other words, this is Assange's lawyer saying "even if all you say is true this is why we believe there is no case". And you conveniently ignored the part where he provided that explanation for your last paragraph.'
It is not only the prosecutions claims, but it is also not in any way Assange's side of the story. It is the prosecutions claims plus an attempt by the lawyers at creating a plausible narrative within the constraints already laid down by the prosecutions claims without altering any of the prosecutions alleged facts.
That's a highly significant constraint.
I support Assange, although not without reservation, and I refuse to speak out for him in public because of his rape charges (charges which have not been proven).
I doubt he will successfully flee the UK.
To paraphrase the old Radiohead song, Assange, "you did it to yourself".
I'm not saying he's guilty (or innocent), just that when you halt due process, terms like this become a little less meaningful as they're one part of a larger thing which is being blocked.
Unfortunately, his sexual desires superseded his common sense and that of the greater good.
On another note, it's easy to remain on one's moral high horse while surrounded by comfort and taking relatively light responsibility on one self. I suspect the perfect moral hero that gives up all of them selves to protect some perfect ideals is something you're more likely to encounter in fiction like Star Trek than reality.
He runs Wikileaks giving his name a prominent billing, and has sex with some of his fans. It all comes from the same source.
Anyway! His comment was dumb, your loaded question is dumb, and this entire thread is dumb.
Assange didn't take kindly to their suggestion, and they didn't last long at wikileaks.
Much more convenient for him to create a claim conspiracy theory and take cover in the hard and actually risky work done by wikileaks, and say that if he goes down, he will take the whole organization with him.
In fact, it's rather easy in this information age.
Which Bradley Manning did not do.
>>> "Bradley Manning is an example of what happens to people who leak stuff the State doesn't want leaked."
Yes... Bradley Manning is a perfect example of what happens when you illegally releases hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, violating oaths you swore to your country. You go to jail. For a long time. What is your point?
And I'm sorry, but as the family member of someone who has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for over 100 combat missions, and the recipient of a bronze star (with valor).... I have a different definition of what exactly "courage" is.
Different strokes for different folks............
My point about Manning is that he could form an idea about what would happen to him if he got caught doing what he considered the right thing. Similarly, Assange could form an idea of what harassment and possibly jail time he'd have to go through by controlling the first distribution channel. Typically people consider taking such known risks courageous, with foolishness often tagging along.
> Different strokes for different folks............
Well yes, I could argue that participating in the US military at all within the last decade is a display of complete cowardice--character cowardice, moral cowardice, and intellectual cowardice. I could argue that courage is just foolishness, that they're not separate things but the same thing, and that medals award stupidity. There are many ways to disagree on the nature of courage, what's your point with toting out your family? Just to display one of the ways? Fair enough.
[0] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/16/julian-assange-e...
"Although most persons with diplomatic immunity carry diplomatic passports, having a diplomatic passport is not the equivalent of having diplomatic immunity. A grant of diplomatic status, a privilege of which is diplomatic immunity, has to come from the government of the country in relation to which diplomatic status is claimed. Also, having a diplomatic passport does not mean visa-free travel. A holder of a diplomatic passport must obtain a non-diplomatic visa when traveling to a country where he is not currently nor is going to be accredited as a diplomat, if visas are required to nationals of his country."
More frequently, I hear of UK embassies not offering full diplomatic protection to their non-political staff in foreign countries. If you're sending someone from your Tourism Board to the British embassy in Thailand, you simply don't want the hassle of having to specifically revoke his diplomatic privilege when he shows up in Pattaya with a dead hooker, where you're happy to give them diplomatic car plates so the traffic police don't try and get 500THB from them for speeding... I assume this is an international trend, rather than something the Brits thought up.
You expel my diplomat, I expel your diplomat.
So far it's, Mr Assange applies (key word!) for asylum. Britain threatens Ecuador with a letter, Ecuador gives him asylum.
Ecuador pretty much has to give him asylum or risk looking to be diplomatically weak.
The next move will be the British's move because Mr. Assange doesn't have to leave the embassy. He could stay there the rest of his life and do pretty well. He got famous for leaking documents on the internet and I'm pretty sure the embassy has the internet. So he can continue leaking documents on the internet.
The bonus is now that he is "on the run" he will have credibility and he can pretty much expose whatever he wants except for leaks of Ecuadorian issues.
Sure, but so are the Ecuadors - Diplomatic Immunity wasn't set up to allow embassies to offer temporary asylum for non-national fugitives :-)
> They could do this, but should they do this? The UK risks it's ties with Ecuador to get Mr. Assange
And Ecuador risks its ties by not giving him up, not to mention millions of pounds of development aid the UK gives them. These things are historically quietly resolved outside of the limelight. Sending this letter is just putting pressure on the Ecuadors ... they'll eventually give him up, and magically the EU's development budget for Ecuador increases in the next year...
> The next move will be the British's move because Mr. Assange doesn't have to leave the embassy. He could stay there the rest of his life and do pretty well.
I think you're mistaken there. In six months time, if he's still there, he'll quietly become a bargaining chip, and one day the Ecuadors will announce that "new evidence has come to light", and he'll be handed over, and some Ecuador-originated bill at the UN will have British support a few months later...
Originally no, but there are centuries of precedent for using it that way.
It might not have been, but there's plenty of precedent:
Jozsef Mindszenty stayed at the US embassy in Budapest for 15 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty#Confinem...
It's not a technicality, diplomatic ties are broken and restarted all the time.
> The UK risks it's ties with Ecuador
Arguably, Ecuador risked it's ties with the UK first by habouring a wanted suspect.
> Ecuador pretty much has to give him asylum or risk looking to be diplomatically weak.
If they can't spin "no, he's wanted for rape, he should go on trial", they ARE weak, and not just diplomatically.
> except for leaks of Ecuadorian issues
How.. convenient for Ecuador. http://www.hrw.org/americas/ecuador
IMO the proper diplomatic response from the UK would be to use a diplomatic back channel and ask Ecuador to deny him asylum. In exchange the UK can give Ecuador some under the table concessions. Even if Ecuador resisted, Ecuador could give him asylum and then the UK could issue it's letter. The Order of Ops matters. Many UK foreign diplomats agree.
Article 31. The host nation may not enter the consular premises, and must protect the premises from intrusion or damage. [0]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Consular_R...
Either outcome will see the UK have further problems on the world stage, and neither is something they can easily negotiate their way out of. In such a situation, it might be imagined that they would rather risk their reputation with the rest of the world than alienate their allies.
The US will just stop the Ecuadoran vessel, board it, and take Assange. We've got historic precedent for their lack of Give a Fuck in situations of this nature.
When Chen Guangcheng sought refuge in the American embassy, the Chinese govt didn't use any trumped up criminal charges against him as an excuse to threaten to invade the American embassy and arrest Mr Chen.
Britain is threatening to invade the embassy of Ecuador by using a local 1987 law to revoke the diplomatic status of the embassy. Next time around, the Chinese and every authoritarian govt around the world will know how to handle any asylum seekers in any British embassy in the world.
Some of this is for his protection they say.
Assange is wise to fear the wrath of the USA and its special friend the UK.
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." ~ Frank Zappa
1. Apparently there is a two-stage interview process in Sweden with criminal investigations. A first interview, which Assange has done, and a second that is equivalent to being charged. Is this true?
2. It has been argued that Swedish authorities have done interviews in embassies and other countries in other cases but have refused to do so here. In those other cases, are they first or second interviews (assuming (1) is correct)?
3. Has the US formally charged, indicated they would charge, sought extradition or otherwise indicated they would seek extradition of Assange or is it merely assumed?
4. Is there any substantive difference in extradition proceedings from the UK or Sweden? The US could seek extradition from the UK. It is argued by Assange's defenders that it is easier from Sweden and a UK judge may well throw out the request as being politically motivated whereas extradition from Sweden, it is argued, can be done politically rather than through the courts. How true is this?
5. Sweden has refused to not extradite Assange, should he return, to the US. How normal is this? Can Sweden legally do this? I know EU countries have, in the past, as a condition of extradition required the US to guarantee that the death penalty won't be sought or applied. I assume in those cases that is a real issue so it seems like there is some room for movement when it comes to extradition;
6. What is the status of Assange's legal proceedings against extradition to Sweden? The High Court has ruled I believe so the only recourse now is the European Court of Human Rights? Is that still ongoing? Can it make a binding ruling against extradition that the UK must abide by?
7. When it comes to criminal charges in any country I'm familiar with there are two things: how the law is written and how it is applied. Many things are illegal that the authorities don't actively pursue. Partially this is simply convention, partially its policing and partially (IMHO) it's holding things in reserve, meaning if you really want to get someone you have something. Is this also the case for Sweden? Given the facts as (publicly) known regarding the rape allegations, how normal is it to seek criminal charges in this case?
8. With regards to political asylum. How normal is it for a country to offer political asylum to someone in another country who is a citizen of a third country resisting extradition to a fourth? Hell, you can probably add "because of fears of being extradited to a fifth"!
Assange is an Australian citizen. As an Australian citizen myself I'm disappointed but not at all surprised in the silence of the Australian government on this issue and the apparent acquiescence to US demands. It's often pointed out that citizenship is not only a privilege but a responsibility. The government likewise has a responsibility to defend the interests of its citizens and I see that sadly lacking here.
For (6), I'm not sure if the case is with the ECHR, but yes they can make binding decisions over the UK government.
> Is there any substantive difference in extradition
> proceedings from the UK or Sweden?
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death...
Whoever, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any foreign government, or to any faction or party or military or naval force within a foreign country, whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States, or to any representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen thereof, either directly or indirectly, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, note, instrument, appliance, or information relating to the national defense, shall be punished by death or by inprisonment [...]
Clearly he is guilty of that.
"...for any term of years or for life, except that the sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the jury or, if there is no jury, the court, further finds that the offense resulted in the identification by a foreign power (as defined in section 101(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) of an individual acting as an agent of the United States and consequently in the death of that individual, or directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack; war plans; communications intelligence or cryptographic information; or any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy."
tl;dr - the death penalty is only applicable if you expose our spies and they are killed, or if you communicate certain kinds of information. (Those listed are usually classified "Top Secret", which to my knowledge, nothing published by Wikileaks has been.)
Still there were some claims that some names were exposed in the documents. I can imagine that somebody from all the exposed names got killed in one way or another. Would that be enough then? If something like that existed, Manning is then the first to be sentenced to death.
As the UN panel notes this is in violation of the very treaty you cite. This is precisely the fear and it is clear the fear is reasonable and well founded in fact. The UN findings are unequivocal.
If they're willing to go that far I really don't know why they don't just let him go to Equador and have him assassinated there, it would be a whole load easier.
It is equally illegal in Sweden to extradite people to countries where they could face the death penalty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/julian-a...
> Where did you get this disinformation?
http://wlcentral.org/node/2671
> Why did you trust it enough to post it
> under your name, John Millikin?
"Julian Assange's mother Christine recently tweeted the following facts about extraditions involving the US, the UK, Sweden, and Australia."
So basically, Julian's mom told you so. Okay...
Sweden has been breaking international law for some time now, at the USA's behest. As the UN panel noted there is no reason to think Sweden might uphold their own diplomatic assurances as they have been caught violating them repeatedly.
I don't understand in which way I am "flippantly rude" when pointing this out.
This is the text if the actual Swedish extradition law from the government web site. It clearly states on Page 3, section 12, point 3 that someone can not be extradited if they are to face the death penalty. The Swedes would have to get assurances from the US that this wasn't the case to extradite him.
Basically the process should be:
1) International arrest warrant
2) Police interview in London
3) Charges are laid
4) Extradition to Sweden
5) 24:8 interview to check if Assange is likely to leave the country.
6) Trial
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.ht...
4Corners is an excellent in-depth news program, along the lines of Frontline in the US. You can watch the video or simply read a transcript of the entire program.
It seems fairly clear that the Swedish authorities have behaved very strangely: 1) the "victims" don't think they were raped, they wanted Assange to submit to an STD test, 2) the first prosecutor didn't think there was a criminal case, 3) the Swedes used an "Interpol Red Notice" -- normally reserved for imminent terrorist threads -- on Julian Assange (apparently neither Gaddafi, when he was on the run, nor the current president of Syria have warranted such a notice).
As regards your last question -- political asylum is generally unusual to begin with, and the number of parties involved is hardly unusual. A "typical" asylum case from the cold war would usually involve a citizen of an Eastern Bloc country seeking protection in an embassy (usually the US or a country friendly to the US) in another country. So that's three or four jurisdictions involved off that bat.
During WWII you'd have a fairly typical case of an allied airman fleeing from occupied France (two jurisdictions to begin with) into Spain, and getting to an allied embassy.
Again -- per the 4Corners report, the Australian government has not so much been "silent" as has been "all in" with the US government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...
And it is extremely problematic in many ways for anyone (Judge or Politician) to promise at this stage what will happen when the Swedish judicial system deals with a hypothetical extradition request.
[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/we-dont-c...
[2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/were-not-...
EU (& other countries bound by the European Convention on Human Rights) are not allowed to extradite people to countries where they might face a breech of the ECHR, ergo you cannot extradite unless there is a guarantee of no capital punishment.
According to the English courts, he has already been the equivalent of "charged": ""there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged" (§153 of http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html)
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=76447...
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/tag/Ecuador/
I suppose he's going to live his life like Roman Polanski, on the run from rape charges.
Also the type of rape in this case and the Roman Polanski case aren't even remotely similar. In the UK, USA, or most other Western countries what he did isn't even illegal.
It is essentially the sex version of fraud: lying to get ahead.
Also, the crusader for freedom has fled to a regime that is demonstrably un-free.
Paragraph 86:
"..The allegation is clear and covers the alternatives; it not an allegation that the condom came off accidentally or was damaged accidentally. It would plainly be open to a jury to hold that, if AA had made clear that she would only consent to sexual intercourse if Mr Assange used a condom, then there would be no consent if, without her consent, he did not use a condom, or removed or tore the condom without her consent. His conduct in having sexual intercourse without a condom in circumstances where she had made clear she would only have sexual intercourse if he used a condom would therefore amount to an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, whatever the position may have been prior to that Act."
The UK Judge in his first extradition trial said he would be guilty of rape or sexual assault in the UK.
"His conduct in having sexual intercourse without a condom in circumstances where she had made clear she would only have sexual intercourse if he used a condom would therefore amount to an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, whatever the position may have been prior to that Act"
The boss of the original prosecutor (Eva Finné) reduced the suspicion from rape to "ofredande" (not sure how to translate that but it is a very minor crime which almost never results in jail, it is not a sex offense either). Then a third prosecutor (Marianne Ny) joined and brought the suspicion up to rape again since she want to have it tried in court of this is rape or not.
So really this seems to me like Marianne Ny just wants to use this case to determine how Swedish law works in cases like this.
Sex, Lies and Julian Assange http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.ht...
People admire Assange for what he has done as part of wikileaks, whilst also simultaneously loathing rapists.
I felt the same when Mike Tyson was convicted of rape. As a follower of boxing, I was a huge fan of his power and skill. And then he got convicted of rape.
I tried to tell myself that it was a fix, the "victim" was after his money etc etc. But now I realise that both things are true. He was one of the best boxers ever, and he did rape that woman.
Steve Jobs could be a fantastic businessman and innovator, and a bit of an arsehole to work with.
Benjamin Britten could be a great composer and sexually attracted to youg boys.
Assange could be a brave "dissident" and sexually taken advantage of those two women.
Unless you have got a sustainable plan for maintaining a vacuum, you can reasonably assume that nature will fill it.
This is key, and pretty much proves what's going on. They didn't want to take extradition to the US off the table, yet supposedly this is only about answering to rape charges.
EPIC.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/editorials/ecuador...
"As for Mr. Assange, he should step out of doors and defend himself."
Somehow I feel that when this is over, he'll return to Australia and make a quick political career and become very influential.
England would refuse to grant credentials.
> Somehow I feel that when this is over, he'll return to Australia and make a quick political career and become very influential.
Given Australia's close ties to the US, that's pretty unlikely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_DoctrineOtherwise could they hide him in some kind of cargo? I heard that they can't pull over and search a diplomats car but the transition from car to plane is when they could get him.
The police have the power to stop the car, but not search it. Do diplomatic vehicles have toilets?
Sweden also has a history of dropping prisoners off at the airport where they get met by people who are DEFINITELY NOT CIA agents and disappeared.
Sweden has recent form for taking legal shortcuts in this area.
From all evidence it is clear that he will be extradited to the US where he just might face the death penalty.
Because there is none, it is a matter of legal record that it is MUCH easier for the US to extradite somebody from the UK than from Sweden.
But that simple fact (which Assange himself acknowledged in the past!) is rather inconvenient when you are trying to build some conspiracy theory.
Further, no such charges have been brought in the US, and more importantly, even several prosecutors have claimed such a charge will be difficult to produce, given the protections we provide the press here.
Finally, this whole "fear of death," is completely manufactured. He will get a much fairer shake than all of the Chinese dissidents whose names he released unredacted.
Also the US has, in recent years, demonstrated that its protections are primarily intended for their own citizens. Apparently it's OK to strip foreigners of any such rights, if they are perceived as enemies and this is deemed convenient.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/...
What evidence? So far all I've seen produced is speculation based on quotes from political figures that lack the power to make this happen.
Edit: Helicopters specifically; but with the ground-to-air missile sites installed around the Greater London area (ostensibly for protecting the Sporting-Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named; a WTF in and of itself), I'd be very careful in mucking around the British airspace: http://everything2.com/title/crashing+a+helicopter+in+Centra...
1. The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.
3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.
The Innocence Project reports that the number one crime for which they release wrongfully convicted individuals from prison is rape.
Why are these women not in prison? http://www.register-her.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
"Only those submissions that can be corroborated by either a link(s) to a recognized news affiliate and/or digital copies of court records, with correct contact information for that court, or other compelling, substantiated documentation, will be accepted as proof.
All submissions based on court records must be verified by our staff before they will be posted. "
You want the actual court documents on the site? That is not going to happen.
To be fair, one of those reasons could be because the allegation actually is false.
But the common reason is because men don't want the allegations to be true-- as you have demonstrated in these threads, and have the power, unlike yourself, to rubber stamp them away.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/us-in-pursuit-of-assange-c...