When ever we read new articles about Sweden vs Assange, we have to keep in mind that the wishes of the two women in the dcase is not represented by any side.
This does make this case a bit strange. The woman in this case went to the police in order to ask them if it was possible to force a person to take a HIV test. While there she explain how she was half-asleep when Assange initiated un-safe sex, and when she heard about his other sexual partners a few days later she became concerned. When she contacted Assange about a HIV test, he brushed the concept off, which is why she were there at the police station asking them for help.
The result was by all reports (ie news papers), not what she wanted. They charged Assange for rape, which resulted in that she broke of any communication with the police and prosecutor, and refused to sign the written report from the police station.
Now, criminal case do not need that the woman agree with the charges, but it makes for a strange case. It also makes one ask for whose benefit this case is all for. All the men and women who is half-asleep when initiated by sex from a partner they previously that day/night had sex with?
In the 1990s, Micheal Jackson was being investigated for child sexual abuse. He settled out of court with the family of a boy, and they dropped the charges, meaning the case fell apart. California (/USA?) changed the law so that the child/family cannot choose to drop charges like that, and they went after Jackson again.
If the victim of a crime can often be pressured/forced into dropping cases, there can be good reasons to prevent the victim from doing it, to ensure justice is done.
If pressure or force is applied, then yes that would server justice.
But this case is not about a woman that got pressured or forced to dislike the case. Her objective, and her statements has so far been very clear on that point. We have to actually admit that a woman can, as a person, disagree with the decision of the prosecutor.
A child sexual abuse is distinctly different in that a child is normal not held to be able to make that decision. We assume that either the family or the state will do it for them. I strongly object bunching together women and children as individuals that need to have their decision been made by someone else, as that reeks of old-style sexism.
> Her objective, and her statements has so far been very clear on that point.
Yes. They very clearly made accusations in statements to the police, hired a high-profile lawyer to very aggressively press the case after the initial decision to close it and did not retract the allegations.
One of them (the one the Assange defense team claims expressed reluctance to pursue the case in unseen correspondence) got fed up with that lawyer, fired him, and ended up with another one who issued the following very clear statement of her position:
My client has the right to her day in court for the rape she's reported to the police and for which Assange is today suspected of. She has the right as a plaintiff to have her case tried in a customary way in accordance with the Swedish judicial system.
The rape Assange is suspected of has left deep scars and meant a serious violation of her personal integrity. The violation is especially serious and the psychological symptoms are there every day. Assange's behaviour and prolonging of the preliminary investigation in this case exacerbate the suffering of my client when the preliminary investigation does not move forward. The wait is long and the suffering great.
Speculations in the media have been many and directly erroneous. This preliminary investigation is about suspicion of rape for the part concerning my client. There is no form of conspiracy as has been claimed by the media. My client is both a plaintiff and a crime victim just as many others I represent daily in numerous cases. Her rights as a plaintiff shall not be forgotten in the process.
> hired a high-profile lawyer to very aggressively press the case after the initial decision to close it and did not retract the allegations.
hmmm, got source for that statement? Hiring laywers is the exception in Sweden, and the common method is for the state to provide one to everyone involved.
In this case however, it seems that lawyers are being paid by outside parties or provided pro-bono. That means to me that I will take such statements with a slight of salt in favor of direct statements from the person herself. There is a bit too much media circus to take such statements as representable of their client, when the client is not the person paying the bill...
> "While there she explain how she was half-asleep when Assange initiated"
The charge is that she was asleep, not "half-asleep", and woke up when he was penetrating her.
"She fell asleep, but was woken up by his penetration of her. She immediately asked if he was wearing anything. He answered to the effect that he was not. She felt it was too late and, as he was already inside her, she let him continue"
That must have been lost in translation, because the quoted part which got "leaked" to newspapers had the word "half-asleep" in them. The alternative would be that the news papers edited the direct quotes of the woman. I do however find that unlikely.
If I have to speculate, I would think that the prosecutor makes no distinction between half-asleep and asleep. It easier just to leave that part to the courts.
I think its high likely that the UK high court judgment is based on the accusations made by the prosecutor, which, like I said previous, might have simply made no distinction between half-asleep and asleep.
The distinction is less important when deciding arrest warrant, but still relevant when discussing the charges.
>It also makes one ask for whose benefit this case is all for
Other people Assange, or others in society, may want to violate without a condom for his own pleasure at the expense of his partner's well being.
>All the men and women who is half-asleep when initiated by sex from a partner they previously that day/night had sex with?
As per the accusation, Assange purposely penetrated her without using a condom against her wishes while she slept. Previous sex isn't permission for future sex. And certainly not unprotected sex because he doesn't like condoms but managed to catch her with her guard down.
Please be clear that you are describing two different women in two different events in that statement. The rape charges has nothing to do with "holding a woman down".
What you are referring to is the second women which the case states that "Mr Assange must have known", just before he asked what she was doing in middle of sex. A lovely logical statement if I ever seen one. Maybe he should have known, but that's is not the same as "must have known".
The funny "sex without a condom" case is the actual rape charge.
4. Rape
On 17 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [SW] in Enkoping, 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.”
Thanks for the link. I really feel like many people here understate the nature of his accused crimes out of misguided hero worship. The guy can do good things for spreading information and at the same time rape women who believed him to be a friend.
For my part, I think it is pretty clear that Assange acted like a total asshole, whether or not he did anything that amounts to a crime. But at the same time, the whole case stinks enough that one does not need to like Assange, to find it peculiar. One does not even need to think he's innocent.
I don't particularly think it is likely the US is involved. I think a more likely scenario is that Marianne Ny - the prosecutor - wanted to use this case for her own goals, and set an example with Assange, and underestimated how his fear of the US would mess the whole thing up.
And from what we've seen so far, the case seems shaky at best: A he-says / she-says where in the case of a trial, the prosecutors may be unable to even produce a signed statement from one of the women; will face a lot of questions regarding the multiple procedural violations; will have to explain the womens attitude to Assange after the alleged offences and so on. The chance of conviction is tiny even without those problems.
Extradition is easier from the UK than Sweden. If he was in Sweden, you'd need the Swedish and UK govs to agree. If he was in UK, it's just the UK gov who needs to agree.
>And from what we've seen so far, the case seems shaky at best: A he-says / she-says where in the case of a trial, the prosecutors may be unable to even produce a signed statement from one of the women; will face a lot of questions regarding the multiple procedural violations; will have to explain the womens attitude to Assange after the alleged offences and so on. The chance of conviction is tiny even without those problems.
You just described every rape case ever that isn't a masked-stranger-in-a-dark-alley attack.
There are multiple offenses for which Assange will be charged when he is delivered to Swedish custody.
Being pedantic about how Sweden charges suspects will not change the fact that two separate women accused Assange of sexual assaults and Swedish authorities extradited him.
The two women have not accused Assange of sexual assault. Ever.
They merely went to the police and asked if it was possible to pressurize him to submit to STD testing.
The accusations of rape are done by an overzealous prosecution office that has hijacked the case later; it seems they have the right to do that. That the office chose to make the accusations augmented by descriptive statements from the two women gives the impression that the two are the accusers. Both (or at least one, supported by the other) have since requested that the issue be dropped.
To see the entire arguments of the prosecution and the defense in today's session, read the liveblog[1] by Falkvinge (now ended, of course).
Jul 16 18:08 - VERDICT: Julian Assange is to REMAIN in detention in absentia. Just announced.
Looks like an overzealous persecutor found himself in front of an overzealous judge. Combined with the English courts agreeing as well that he be extradited. Quite an international conspiracy!
Or maybe professionals doing their job can see enough evidence exists supporting the accusation that he raped and assaulted women to bring him before a court for trial.
>The two women have not accused Assange of sexual assault. Ever.
The two victims described sex crimes for which the Swedish government has chosen to accuse Assange of committing.
>They merely went to the police and asked if it was possible to pressurize him to submit to STD testing.
If merely walked into a police station and said someone stabbed me with a dirty syringe and I'd really just like to know if he's HIV positive it wouldn't be up to me if the police device to go find him and the prosecutor decides to charge him with assault. Replace dirty syringe with penis.
>Looks like an overzealous persecutor found himself in front of an overzealous judge. Combined with the English courts agreeing as well that he be extradited. Quite an international conspiracy!
This is perhaps the second most politically persecuted person in the western world, after Snowden. Do you really find it so implausible that his persecution would not be overzealous, especially with a Five Eyes collaborator and Sweden, which has extremely close intelligence ties to the US?
>If merely walked into a police station and said someone stabbed me with a dirty syringe and I'd really just like to know if he's HIV positive it wouldn't be up to me if the police device to go find him and the prosecutor decides to charge him with assault. Replace dirty syringe with penis.
Except that people don't stab others with dirty syringes as often as they have sex with each other, and neither are the two remotely related, so you're comparing apples to oranges. If someone simply asks the police if it is possible to force an HIV test, the police should perhaps obtain a court order to get something such done instead of filing a case of sexual assault.
> Victims don't get to dictate justice.
If a woman feels she was raped/not raped, the only opinion that matters there is hers (from a common decency POV). I do not know what Swedish law says in this regard.
Let me expand on my downvote: putting aside the issue of sexual assault entirely, Assange has made enemies of several major intelligence agencies. Leaked documents discuss “the start of an international effort to focus the legal element of national power upon non-state actor Assange, and the human network that supports WikiLeaks”. Assange is indisputably the target of one or more international conspiracies.
He might also be a rapist, but it's intellectually dishonest to dismiss the conspiracy angle offhand.
It's dehumanizing to the victims to dismiss allegations of sexual assault because of a convenient theory that aligns with your politics. While it may be your version of Occam's Razor to assume that this is an internationally-coordinated plot against him, I find it much easier to believe that a person with a lot of public self-regard could be guilty of one of the most common crimes committed by humans: acquaintance rape.
What's really frustrating is watching people conflate Assange with Wikileaks and defend the individual as if he's the organization. It causes people who are skeptical of rapists and cult-of-personality individuals to be made out to be anti-whistleblowers and that's not fair. I think Wikileaks operates best as an anonymous organization and not under the control of a figurehead.
I dismissed no allegations. Let me put this as clearly as possible: Assange is a target of multiple powerful intelligence agencies, all with world-class experience executing dirty tricks. Having the figurehead of Wikileaks charged with an abhorrent crime, guilty or not, is very much in the interest of these groups. Not because Assange matters, but because of the backlash you describe in your second paragraph.
Personally, I think they didn't have to lift a hand. Assange discredited himself, with his own actions. But it's an indisputable fact that Assange is the target of one or more agencies whose job it is to conduct internationally-coordinated plots. If you want to ignore the possibility of foul play that's your choice, but don't pretend that you're standing up for truth and justice by making assumptions.
This does make this case a bit strange. The woman in this case went to the police in order to ask them if it was possible to force a person to take a HIV test. While there she explain how she was half-asleep when Assange initiated un-safe sex, and when she heard about his other sexual partners a few days later she became concerned. When she contacted Assange about a HIV test, he brushed the concept off, which is why she were there at the police station asking them for help.
The result was by all reports (ie news papers), not what she wanted. They charged Assange for rape, which resulted in that she broke of any communication with the police and prosecutor, and refused to sign the written report from the police station.
Now, criminal case do not need that the woman agree with the charges, but it makes for a strange case. It also makes one ask for whose benefit this case is all for. All the men and women who is half-asleep when initiated by sex from a partner they previously that day/night had sex with?