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Would be really interesting to hear everyone's opinion on this.

Currently the media seems to reckon he'll be granted asylum but then the UK police will simply storm the embassy and take him.

I was watching a live videostream but it was fucking appalling and after the guy with the camera told a female police officer to take her clothes off, I decided against watching any further. So if anyone has any better links to share....

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/will-ecuadorian-embassy-be-stormed New Statesmen has an interesting take.

If only all rape allegations were investigated this thoroughly, eh?

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Is this guy not just being scapegoated like fuck because of the whole leak thing? This whole situation is ridiculous.

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Well I can't help but think things that verge on a bit of conspiracy. I mean, there's the very obvious fact that nobody gives a shit about rape cases. It's a sad fact, but most rape allegations don't make it to court, or are lost due to lack of evidence or the victim not being a reliable witness to their own rape, etc. That in itself is a huge issue that interests me and saddens me greatly. Many victims are still asked what they were wearing before the rape. The way rape cases are dealt with is horrific, and it's really sad.

But considering this, it then seems completely implausible that there are police standing outside the Ecuadorian embassy right now waiting for a man who hasn't even been charged with a rape yet, who invited the Swedish authorities to question him over the allegations but within the Ecuadorian embassy and was turned down.

Apparently a medic has just gone into the Embassy...

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The rape and assault charges materialised when he gave bloody noses to every western democracy. It comes as no surprise that Theresa May wants him to disappear, especially as the Home Office know Wikileaks probably have an awful lot of dirt on the police, including unpublished equality, corruption and brutality enquiries.

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I think they need to realise that Assange isn't the problem, if it weren't him it'd be someone else. The real problem is the things they have to be ashamed of, and the people within their own organisations leaking them. If Assange and his crew were hacking this stuff then fair enough, but as far as I'm aware they're not. It's an absolutely ludicrous situation that's come about because the upper levels in every country have decided someone needs to pay for this shit getting out.

What really pisses me off is that because most people are relatively indifferent about the whole thing, he's going to inevitably get absolutely arseholed.

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It was (is) all very unusual. Way back when, when the accusations first came to light, I think they'd've had a case. They then dropped the charges. Then they re-instated them. To those without the inside knowledge, it looked like that the Swede had bowed to US gov't pressure as a way to get their grubby mitts on him to lock him up and throw away the key.

Then all the big payment companies removed his (WL) accounts and froze what money was currently in them. Another unusual twist.

It's very hard for the average person with a passing interest in this case to not think that there is a concerted effort to burn him because of the sensitive nature of the docs released.

The Manning case in the states is proceeding unusually too. The US Gov't is trying to screw him totally, and not allowing his defence to see documents that are pertinent to the case. The whole Manning issue is again strange - he was due to be (dishonourably) discharged, was a week or so away from it (in a special camp full of dishonourably discharged soldiers that were also awaiting their papers), and then was recalled to active service that by all accounts he was totally not suitable for - mental state and so on and so forth.

We don't know the full story, but from a layman's perspective, it's coming from a position of acute embarrassment from the US Gov't. Occam's razor suggests that the simplest reason is often the pertinent one. Potentially this means a long succession of large cock-ups on behalf of the US military that led to him simply downloading all those files and sending them to WL.

Adrian Lamo hasn't necessarily covered himself in glory either, revealing himself to be a snake in the grass of the highest order (my opinion). From a personal viewpoint, that fact that he and Jacob Applebaum (who's outlook I respect) hold fundamentally opposing views also means that he is a guy who is only out for himself.

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To add to this, Assange doesn't actually seem like an especially nice person either. But that doesn't stop the whole situation being most weird.

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Well yeah he seems like he could be a bit of a jerk, but that's kinda besides the point. The first time the case was thrown out of court, as far as I know, it was dismissed by the woman reviewing the case who said there was not even a suspicion that a rape had occurred. It was then reinstated by someone who had an agenda against Assange if I remember correctly. Then there have been reports of the women who accused him having apparently felt pressured into giving statements or having their statements changed or blah blah blah... and then at first it was rape and then it was changed to sexual assault... the whole thing is a huge fucking mess.

However, the man has not been charged with anything and no evidence has been shown to the UK courts, not even the statements of the women. Ecuador granted asylum on the grounds that Sweden had refused to promise not to extradite him to the US and the US had refused to promise not to request extradition. He offered to be interviewed by Swedish authorities in the Ecuadorian embassy and that was refused.

I'm wary of being a conspiracy theorist but holy crap, I mean something is clearly going on there. I don't know whether the rapes actually happened or whether it's all made up, and I feel bad commenting on something like that, but the other circumstances surrounding it all are ridiculous. If all rape accusations were treated in this way there we be no more rape ever.

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I've been following this for some time and the thing that really struck me was the refusal of the Swedish prosecutors to interview Assange either through tele-conference (which happens in courts across the world) or in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Surely they have interview facilities there.

I believe that he will eventually be extradited to Sweden, then undoubtedly the US will request whilst he is there an extradition for him to answer the leaks case.

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They can't extradite him for political reasons so they'll have to come up with something unrelated to Wikileaks won't they? Which they are framing as espionage or something?

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It's not a rape charge, because 1) he hasn't been charged 2) the crime is "sex with revoked consent".

Anyway, I hope the UK invades the embassy, cause an international incident (very close to declaring war), and show that the UK really is a lapdog of the US.

Lastly, the distraction is working. People focus on Jullian Assange rather than the stuff WikiLeaks is reporting.

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You can revoke consent nowadays? Man, that's great. I totally need to revoke consent after waking up beside a munt in the morning.

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As regards the extradition, I don't think they *have* to have a reason as such. The Swedes and the US apparently have a bi-lateral agreement whereby they can send someone to either country if he is deemed to have broken laws in both countries. Whether it has to be the same law is a point I'm a bit hazy on. I suspect not, as he hasn't (allegedly) raped anyone in the US, or been party to any stolen Swedish intelligence.

The whole think stinks, if I'm honest.

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What he's accused of is rape, even if that's not the legal charge they'd use.

Assange is a creep, and he may well have committed rape, but yes, obviously this has nothing to do with rape accusations and everything to do with punishing the man held responsible by the US government for making it look bad. (Hilariously/horribly/appropriately, O & co. seem a lot more upset about e.g. the leaks about Hillary ordering state department officials to spy on people, which everybody does and just pretends not to, than the leaks of e.g. covering up the detainment and straight-up execution of an Iraqi family including a bunch of children and an infant, which is obviously much, much worse but/therefore nobody in the MSM paid much attention to.)

The rumor is that the US already has a secret, sealed indictment for Assange (as violation of the Espionage Act as part of his Wikileaks activities), and the case in Sweden may well just get forgotten as soon as he gets there to instead just send him on a plane to the US.

The Espionage Act is a ridiculously broad and dangerous statute that had been used a total of 3 times between its enactment in 1917 (during the first Red Scare) and the beginning of O's administration in 2009, and 6 times since then.

Wikileaks made a strategic & ideological mistake in tying itself to the personage of Assange so closely (though obviously he is instrumental to the organization and it was probably largely his decision--he does seem to be something of an egomaniac, though he's an egomaniac dedicated to stopping mass murder rather than enacting it like most national politicians so that's nice). They can't really change that now--they're stuck supporting Assange or losing a lot of credibility, and certianly he doesn't deserve the treatment regardless of what he actually did--but hopefully future organizations & movements will learn from this.

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You can revoke consent nowadays? Man, that's great. I totally need to revoke consent after waking up beside a munt in the morning.

In Sweden women can. One woman revoked consent because she found out he was also dating/seeing an other woman or something. The other woman revoked consent because the condom broken and claims Assange did that on purpose.

If you want to know more about it, read the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_The_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority

I think it's really weird that he's not charged with anything. They want him for a 2nd round of questioning, after that they might charge him with sexuellt ofredande

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You can revoke consent? That's a weird thing. I understand that it can happen (probably too often) that a person has sex under false premises, so to speak, but that doesn't make it rape.

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While the details of the alleged "rapes" or whatever (revoked consent, molestation, I'm so confused) are actually not my main focus on this case, I'm not sure I understand things correctly. I thought that he was being questioned about coercing the women into sex ie repeatedly asking for sex without a condom, and for having sex with one woman while she was asleep and so couldn't have consented.

I didn't know that they had retrospectively withdrawn consent because they found out he'd cheated on them - is this true? It seems unlikely even in super-feminist Sweden that this would be a thing... I hate that some people think it's okay to lie and exaggerate to get in your pants for a classic 'pump and dump' or whatever, and I do think it's morally dubious as fuck, but to allow all incidents of consent to be revoked after the fact would be madness MADNESS I tell you. So I must be understanding something incorrectly.

Also I didn't think that's what he was being questioned about.

The details of the allegations are different every single place I read about them. I'm so confused.

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There was a long PDF released that was the interviews with the two ladies, where all your questions will be answered. I will see if I can find it for you.

Edit. Here they are.

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?id=5856#newspost

Now, it might not be what *actually* happened, but it's what the law is proceeding on, so it's the best we will get I think.

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El Muerte, where did you see the phrase "sex with revoked consent"? Is that your own translation?

Also, reading all those witness statements, that definitely sounds like consent was revoked during the act in Anna's case, and in Sofia's case there never was any consent at all.

I'm not finding the part where consent was revoked retroactively because he was seeing other women or something?

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This is horrific. A lot of the people I follow are basically divided along lines of "What's being done to him is disgusting and hypocritical" and "He's a rapist, fuck due process". I don't think those two views necessarily conflict, and being outraged about the way the UK, US, and Sweden are working does not equate to thinking he's a good person or any kind of hero.

By the witness statements and various accounts of other events, he seems to be a terrible human being. He should face justice for whatever he's done to those women. However, in that event it's likely that he'll also be extradited to the US for a show trial, creating a very real possibility of facing great injustice for humiliating a super power. Whatever ultimately happens, it's going to be a shit sandwich.

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Yeah Nach I agree. I'm wary of a lot of what I read probably being smears (he bullied some dude's cat and didn't flush the toilet ever!!!) but also I'm aware that someone of his position is probably somewhat of a dickhead, and there have been rumours of him talking of Jewish conspiracies... and there was a quote about Feminism that made him seem a bit ¬¬

Nonetheless, the issue of what's happening to him in terms of the manhunt, the fact they've issued a code red for him which they didn't even do for Gaddafi, and how the law may or may not be being manipulated to the end of some very powerful people... that's terrifying, and a separate issue.

But then it quite often gets confused because at the heart of it all there's a lot of confusion. Nobody seems clear as to whether or not he's actually been charged, or what for, or what happened, or what Sweden is and isn't allowed to do. Someone said to me that the reason Sweden rejected the invite to interview him in the Embassy was because they are not allowed to do that, someone else told me that's not true; they interviewed a murderer in Serbia via videolink just a few weeks ago.

It's the confusion at the heart of it, I think, that it part makes it so difficult to separate the two issues at hand, because inevitably every conversation turns into people discussing the intricacies of the case when someone else gets them wrong.

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When I hear 'revoked consent', I presume that's during.

I believe that's the usual definition.

As Nach said, it's all to easy to see him as a scapegoat or victim of conspiracy. He may actually be guilty, and it won't mean the end of Wikileaks if he is.

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