Assange

[Salka]

He may easily be guilty of the crimes he's been accused of, but take a look at the unprecedented manhunt for him based on something he hasn't even been charged for, and a crime for which the cases are usually woefully neglected or badly managed or or just dropped on lack of evidence/caring... I think it's pretty obvious to see he's a victim of conspiracy of some kind, although the extent of it we don't know yet.

[Sal Limones]

Of course, if he weren't the face of Wikileaks or involved with them in any way the rape cases would probably never even have made it to court. :/ Or if they did, we certainly wouldn't be hearing about it in the international news.

[elmuerte]

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

Could have been lost in translation somewhere. I used to follow the story in the beginning, but I more or less lost interest after I parked my ass in the "this is all a scheme to discredit Assange and thereby WikiLeaks and move attention away of the WL publications"-park.

At this moment it's probably impossible to get any straight information when searching for it, and it's probably biased either way (like my own opinion).

Anyway, of what I have read when I did follow pretty much came down to: he had consential sex with both women; and days, if not weeks, after the fact the women suddenly pressed charges.

I'm not going to defend Assange to be a great guy. I don't know him, for all I know he is an ass, and from the various reliable articles I read about him and the WL work he's involved in, is that he's quite invested in the WL stuff and often quite detached from reality. He relies on people to take care of "simple" things, like getting on the plane on time, or eating, or getting his clothes cleaned. But that's not much different from quite a lot of people in similar ideological positions. Read this article for a good indication on the man.

[circadianwolf]

Yeah, the problem is that Assange the person (who, as any person, has done some shitty things, and in his particular case may have done some incredibly wrong and disgusting things) is so closely tied as to be in many ways indistinguishable from Wikileaks the organization (and by association the mechanics & ethos of leaking) that there's no way Assange or his (alleged) victims can get a trial without it also being a trial on Wikileaks.

Which, honestly, is Wikileaks' fault; they should have realized--and based on Assange's various comments on the systems of Western power, likely did realize--that making Assange so highly visible would lead to him being used as a proxy target to take down the organization as a whole. (Avoiding this is one of the virtues of leaderlessness, of course, which Occupy reaped well before the US said fuck it, just send in the tanks.)

Politically, I feel like Assange & Wikileaks are dead in the water no matter what happens, unfortunately. Which means we need someone else to prominently take up the cause of transparency & accountability (preferably under a leaderless and more decentralized system--maybe Anonymous, though they have their own baggage of course)--unfortunately, any new organization, in addition to not having Wikileaks' established reputation, is facing an incredibly harsh climate toward leakers that is certainly creating a chilling effect. (B. Manning's pre-trial treatment counts as torture by international definitions, ffs, not to mention that kangaroo court they've set up.)

[Sal Limones]

Here's a very useful post that covers a lot of the legal questions we were having:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

[Salka]

On the first point Sal, under English law (http://en.wikipedia...._in_English_law): "

Rape

(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—

(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person ( with his penis,

( B does not consent to the penetration, and

© A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

So actually I'm not entirely sure if it does *necessarily* constitute rape (legally speaking, that is) that he initiated sex with someone if he could show that he believed she would give consent, which is the one that most people seem to be focusing on. Do you know what the other scenarios are? I'm at work and don't want to research rape too much ¬¬ but I remember there being one in which pinning-down occurred. So I'm not sure about that one, but in Sweden it isn't actually being pinned as a rape but as a minor sexual offence, right? Can someone confirm? I've already typed "rape" into google too many times today...

Regarding point four, Sweden has actually interviewed suspects away from home (http://www.unt.se/up...en-1701566.aspx for instance) so I'm not sure what to make of this as it seems to be untrue.

Point five raises a good point, I've seen Assange interviewing the Ecuadorian president and it makes my skin crawl. I'm assuming he's cosying up to him to save his own skin and I guess he has been left with very few options, so while it's hugely hypocritical, I suppose to an extent I can understand it. However it's all very well pointing out that Ecuador has human rights issues, but remember that Sweden has been implicit in the shipping of suspected terrorists to third countries previously, where they were tortured, Britain faked some documents in order to start a war that killed around 100,000 people, and the USA has fucking torture camps and Bradley Manning. I'm very disheartened about the world, I do think every government anywhere will do as much as it thinks it can get away with. However, it doesn't make it much less irritating to see Assange cosying up in such a hypocritical way.

I don't know about the other points. I would certainly be very worried if I was Assange and I'm not really convinced that with a red notice out on him and Britain threatening to storm an embassy in London, that this is as simple as a being wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. But I do wonder how much of it is two very real things - Assange trying to worm his way out of a sexual assault conviction, and Governments wanting to silence him - coming together to form a clusterfuck of false information, lies and bullshit.

I also wonder if the women have any chance of having a proper trial ever, considering that apparently the Swedish authorities interviewed them together which is ridiculously bad practice, and one of them deleted favourable tweets about Assange after bringing the case. Looks dodgy as fuck and does not support her case at all. Sadly though, in lots of rape cases the victims do dumb shit like that afterwards because they're afraid of not being believed. It still boggles my mind that people who go to the police about rape are not first briefed about how important absolute truth is in their statements. A lot of cases get through out of court here because the victim lied about having taken drugs for instance, and even if they tell the truth afterwards instead of getting caught out lying, they are still no longer considered reliable witnesses to their own rape.

[Salka]

Interesting, when I read that article the other day comments were locked, which I found extremely annoying because then people can't debate the content which I already find questionable in parts.

They've opened them up now though and there are some really good points below. God, this whole debacle really is one of the most amazing things to watch unfold.

Further reading: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4568041.stm

[Sal Limones]

On the first point Sal, under English law (http://en.wikipedia...._in_English_law): "

So actually I'm not entirely sure if it does *necessarily* constitute rape (legally speaking, that is)

The sexual offense Assange committed that is considered rape in both countries is not the pinning down incident, but the one where he had sex with Sofia while she was asleep.

Regarding the man in Serbia case, there are some differences... he had not been interviewed yet (Assange has, and now he is wanted for the second interview and for arrest), and he had agreed to extradition (Assange has not). Sweden doesn't have arrest power in the UK so it would make sense that they'd want to interview him in Sweden rather than there.

The "storming" that the UK has allegedly threatened the Ecuadorian Embassy with is actually just a threat to revoke the its diplomatic protection, which would result in the Ecuadorian diplomats leaving the country and the UK cops swooping in to snatch Assange up.

In conclusion, the Swedish legal system is weird, if they really wanted to frame Assange they should've accused him of a crime that isn't so universally and frequently dismissed for no reason, all the countries involved are also awful, and Assange is an asshole and very probably a rapist.

[Salka]

Thanks Sal. Well by UK law then the alleged incident is not necessarily going to be rape either, since he could make a case for believing he reasonably had consent, I guess.

The storming thing - have you read the letter? It was an incredibly embarrassing and very threatening. Some bits of this are nuanced but that is not. They made a serious threat to take a serious action that would result in British embassies across the world also being at threat. You don't just "revoke" the status of an embassy, particularly not to get someone who has not yet been charged, even, with a crime. Christ, imagine if Governments always just did that whenever they wanted to get someone who was seeking refuge in an embassy - what would be the point? The threat they sent was unbelievable, I think that was one of the things that really sent out a clear message that this is about more than just a sexual assault allegation. Whether or not that's true, god fucking damnit that's what it looks like now.

It's not my place to judge whether the allegations are true or not, but if they aren't and it is a set-up then I would have thought it a very clever one... I've seen repeated accusations of Assange supporters (even when they're supporting his asylum rather than actually commenting on the allegations against him) as being rape-enablers. It's been so hugely divisive, and enabled his supporters to be widely mocked in the press about a really sensitive issue, and given the Anti-Assange and Anti-Wikileaks crowds an easy stick to beat everyone else down with. Also, Sweden is super liberal and super feminist, so it won't have gone down well there. In addition, he looked like a hero to a lot of people before this happened - now he looks like a pathetic rapist to many people. Details of anyones sex life are going to make people look at them in a new light - god knows if some of you people knew things about me you'd think I was batshit insane, I'm sure. Sex is a great tool to use to control and sway people. Look at Christianity...

[Sal Limones]

No, I haven't read the letter, but I did hear that it was a pretty embarrassing ordeal. Yes, it definitely shows that their investment in the case goes WAY beyond just wanting him to get his just desserts for rape, and yeah this is all pretty obviously a circus. I don't doubt that most of the scandal surrounding him is because of Wikileaks and not because of what he did to the women, but I haven't seen anything that conclusively proves that the accusations are fabricated. After the initial interview he was allowed to go because they still had to review the evidence; now they have and they seem to have reached the conclusion that the evidence is sufficient for an arrest.

Personally, I haven't seen anything to make me disbelieve the women's testimony. The fact that they brought the charges days or weeks later doesn't mean anything and is consistent with how rape charges are usually brought forward. The deletion of tweets, as you said, is a common and understandable thing; the woman having had a good opinion of the man or having consented to sex with him on a previous occasion is used by defendants in rape cases very often to discredit accusations (even though this is precisely how date rape or acquaintance rape works). However, from what I've read they initially wanted to push for sexual assault charges, not rape. I'm not very clear on what exactly happened there, does anyone have more details?

I disagree with you on one thing, though -- how can a sleeping person consent to sex?

[Salka]

Well they can't, but I can understand why it would be presumed that it would be okay to do that. Fair enough in Assange's case I don't think he had much of a case for that, having not built up that much of a relationship with the woman beforehand, but then his brain works differently to mine. Personally er... maybe TMI but ¬¬ when I have been woken up in that way by my long-term partner, I have always found it to be a really wonderful experience - and we never discussed it beforehand. Similarly, having woken others up in that way (¬¬ sorry TMI TMI TMI ¬¬) has been well-received, because it's always been in the confines of a trusting, loving relationship where we (think we) know each others boundaries.

So I guess I can see why someone might take that experience and apply it incorrectly to someone else, or think "oh man I'd like if someone did that to me, so maybe I'll wake my girlfriend up that way!" and it goes horribly wrong. But then that doesn't make that person, necessarily, a rapist.

On the other hand I think my consent with partners is pretty much implied, and if I was woken up that way and I didn't like it I would comfortable enough with them to say "oi fuck off, I'm sleeping now" or whatever, and not being fucking traumatized to death by it or think of it as anything other than annoying that I'd been woken up for a while.

Then again, if a guy did that to me on week one... I would not like it so much, perhaps. I guess it's all about building trust and an understanding of each others boundaries, so I can see where people can go so badly wrong on this without realising the gravitas of their actions.

Anyway so in answer to your question, I guess if B thinks A would consent to it if she was awake and would enjoy it, and then goes ahead with that and is wrong, so long as he could prove that he genuinely believed that and had some sort of a reason to, it would be less likely to be deemed a rape by the courts.

I wish we had some sort of a system where it could be recognised that rape can happen without, necessarily, a rapist. A guy (for instance) can make that mistake and cause a woman (for instance, also) hurt without being a dreadful person, but without that lessening the impact of what has happened through her eyes. Instead we just have this system where it seems to be either "yeah he's a rapist and you got raped", or "well, it's a bit nuanced really so you didn't get raped after all", with the occasional actual rape conviction occurring. Maybe something like the Swedish system that recognises different levels of sexual crime against a person would be beneficial in helping to get more convictions, but then apparently Sweden's track record on convictions isn't that great anyway.

I have worded this message poorly but I hope you know what I mean.

[Sal Limones]

If we take the witness accounts as truth, he had very good reason to believe that she would NOT consent to unprotected sex, which is what he then went and did while she was sleeping.

"She told her the uncomfortable part was that Assange had unprotected sex with her when she was asleep. Sofia also said Assange had nagged and tried to have unprotected sex with Sofia during the night but Sofia got him to wear a condom. Sofia had spoken to Assange several times about condoms."

[Salka]

That's pretty full on dickmunch city if that's true. But I can still see how "mistakes" happen (for lack of a better word) and so in other cases perhaps it is less clear cut.

Have you ever read Assange's old blog or his OKcupid? It paints a sad picture :-/

[circadianwolf]

Shouldn't it be the initiator's responsibility to err on the side of caution in those situations, Rusalka?

Guys are generally encouraged to see consent where there is none, so excusing them for "mistakes" seems really dangerous.

I wish we had some sort of a system where it could be recognised that rape can happen without, necessarily, a rapist. A guy (for instance) can make that mistake and cause a woman (for instance, also) hurt without being a dreadful person, but without that lessening the impact of what has happened through her eyes. Instead we just have this system where it seems to be either "yeah he's a rapist and you got raped", or "well, it's a bit nuanced really so you didn't get raped after all", with the occasional actual rape conviction occurring. Maybe something like the Swedish system that recognises different levels of sexual crime against a person would be beneficial in helping to get more convictions, but then apparently Sweden's track record on convictions isn't that great anyway.

This, of course, is a larger problem with how we view a person vs their actions--a person who has committed a crime in the past is a "criminal" forever, a stupid model of morality that suggests you start off pure/innocent and then every bad thing you do stains you forever and you can't ever change for the better, so as result everyone's terrified of admitting to doing something terrible because it means you're a terrible person (forever), which makes the preferable solution almost always ignoring a terrible thing (and allowing it to continue) rather than dealing with it (because generally "dealing with it" would mean examining and critiquing the larger sociocultural systems that allow, encourage, and normalize pervasive rape, among many other terrible things, and make us all complicit in these crimes.)

[empika]

[Salka]

Did everyone see this? http://wikileaks.org...ntions-and.html

Circadian: it should be the initiators response to err on the side of caution generally, but most of the time sex is initiated mutually, together, so you don't really have one person initiating who feels responsible I guess. Christ, I hope not, because that would be pretty much non-consent from the start ¬¬. Reading that Reddit thread a while back where people who had committed a rape posted their stories, really opened my eyes to how something that is initiated together and mutually agreed upon and mutually enjoyable, can suddenly take a nasty twist because an assumption was made by one, things taken a bit further, and then everything changes in a matter of seconds. I can't say that I believe everyone who makes a human error of judgement is a rapist at their core, though I don't think that that necessarily lessens the impact on a victim and that's not what I'm trying to suggest.

Mistakes happen in every area of life and to assume that good people should be incapable of making an error of judgement in the bedroom where already people are likely to be a bit mixed up, fog-brained and over-excited, seems a bit much. I don't think those mistakes should have to go unpunished or unjudged, btw, but I don't think they necessarily always indicate what should be thought of as a rapist. (NB I'm not talking about the Assange case here, just generally throwing an idea out there). I think to say that no mistakes should be tolerated ever shows a gross mistrust in the ability of humans to not make a dumbfuck mistake, whether or not they generally err on the side of caution.

But maybe I am wrong, I have been amazed by the amount of people who seem to think that in every case it's black and white and people should just fucking know.

I'm also aware that lots of people get angry and defensive when discussions about what exactly rape is or isn't. "Rape is rape" is a popular way to simplify it and shut down discussion, but the problem for me is that actually, sometimes rape isn't rape. For instance, in the UK a woman BY LAW can't be a rapist. Or how a violent sexual assault that involves violation of someone using something other than a penis is not considered a rape by law, and is punishable by a maximum of ten years instead of the life imprisonment max term of rape, even though for me that scenario would in essence be a type of rape. So for me, what is and isn't rape is something I'm not happy about and I think to suggest we've reached some point where we've got exactly the right formula is a bit presumptuous, particularly when we've got such a bollocks system behind it all to back up the fact that we probably don't have it quite right yet.

[circadianwolf]

most of the time sex is initiated mutually, together, so you don't really have one person initiating who feels responsible I guess.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is, most of the time...

something that is initiated together and mutually agreed upon and mutually enjoyable, can suddenly take a nasty twist because an assumption was made by one, things taken a bit further, and then everything changes in a matter of seconds.

...because this happens very, very often.

Mistakes happen in every area of life and to assume that good people should be incapable of making an error of judgement in the bedroom where already people are likely to be a bit mixed up, fog-brained and over-excited, seems a bit much. I don't think those mistakes should have to go unpunished or unjudged, btw, but I don't think they necessarily always indicate what should be thought of as a rapist. (NB I'm not talking about the Assange case here, just generally throwing an idea out there). I think to say that no mistakes should be tolerated ever shows a gross mistrust in the ability of humans to not make a dumbfuck mistake, whether or not they generally err on the side of caution.

But maybe I am wrong, I have been amazed by the amount of people who seem to think that in every case it's black and white and people should just fucking know.

I agree, people don't just fucking know, and it's a real problem when some anti-rape activists assume they should. And declaring rape the act of Rapists, singular individuals are all alike and innately evil and not regular people taught to rape by the culture they inhabit and who don't even understand what they're doing, is unhelpful for the victims, the aggressors, and society at large (though I'm not sure how often that actually happens). But my problem with this is that yes, mistakes are easy to make, but they're also really fucking easy to avoid. Ask.* The amount of effort required to avoid any mistakes (very little) vs. the amount of damage that can be done by a mistake (a horrific, traumatizing tragedy that can damage a person permanently) does make it pretty fucking reprehensible. The objections that people have to asking (it interrupts the mood or whatever) are just so... petty in comparison to the risk.

Some people definitely have relationships where you don't need to ask, because they do understand each other that well, and have a healthy and already communicative relationship. But most people don't. Many people will never have that kind of relationship in their lives, which is really sad, and also happens a lot because they think they should just understand from the start, and that understanding (about anything) isn't built from actual communication.

That said, again, I agree people shouldn't be thought of as "rapists", because that singles out individuals for a crime that is caused by society. People rape because they've been taught to. Because they've had people telling them, and books and movies and TV and everything else telling them, since they were born, this is how it works. Even beyond the normalization of the actual mechanics of rape, we live in a society of dominating, hierarchical power relations where people are violently subjugated all the time, in many situations, and it's deemed perfectly acceptable and even the Right Thing. People can't fight rape unless they're also fighting the larger inequalities that rape is a particularly visible and nasty product of.

*Even when asking, there may be cases of coercion, pressure, etc., but asking at least eliminates the simple mistakes you're talking about.

(Also, hopefully I'm not coming across too intense or like I'm attacking you. I agree with most of what you're saying and am just trying to work things out as much as you. It's a really difficult subject obviously.)

[brkl]

Hey, let's do the Feminism thread again from the start.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yay!

[brkl]

Hmm, I'm not sure I'm happy with how that post of mine reads. It just felt like this thread was becoming a recap of the other one. Here's what's going on with Assange: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19377110

More of the same that is. Look at that picture! If only the guy looked the tiniest bit more sympathetic, this debate would probably be different But it's so easy to believe that guy probably did exactly the sorts of things he's accused of.

[Skalpadda]

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster etc.

I see a lot of the same questions pop up in discussions about this all over the place and the news coverage of the Assange saga has been more than a little peculiar. While I'm certainly no legal expert and I don't know everyhing about this case I am Swedish and have access to our media and at least some familiarity with our legal system, so perhaps I can give a slightly different perspective on some of these things. A lot of this may have been covered already (I didn't read every post in the thread thoroughly) but these are some of the most common things I see pop up around this.

1. He's not charged with a crime and the arrest warrant was issued by a prosecutor, not a court.

The Swedish equivalent to being charged with a crime is called Lagföring and in order for that to happen Assange needs to be questioned and the case against him needs to be ready to go to court. For obvious reasons this isn't the case and while you can argue that there's something wrong with the way the Swedish legal system works it's a bit disingenuous to claim that the case against him should be dismissed simply because the formalities of the Swedish legal system don't exactly mirror those in Britain or the US.

The fact that the arrest warrant was issued by a prosecutor rather than a judge also seems to have caused a lot of raised eyebrows but again this is not an uncommon thing here (nor in many other European countries) and what those criticising the case often conveniently leave out is that the arrest warrant has been upheld by both the district and appeals courts here in Sweden.

2. Why can't they just question Assange in the UK?

They certainly could and I personally think it would have been a good idea to do so. What the prosecutor's office have told Swedish media is that a) If the case goes on to court they're going to need him in Sweden anyway, and b ) The prosecutor chose to issue an arrest warrant and that's the line they're going to follow. Basically "we don't want to lose face".

3. He is being accused of rape because a condom broke / he is accused of "minor rape", etc.

He is accused of initiating unprotected sex with a sleeping woman. That may not be the kind of violent act we commonly associate with rape, but under Swedish law it is and according to the British courts it would be considered rape in the UK as well.

4. Why can't the Swedish Government give guarantees that he won't be extradited?

The counter question is: Why should they? It would be quite an extraordinary thing to do and Swedish law as well as international law prohibits anyone from being extradited if it is believed that the motives are political or that they risk torture, inhumane treatment or the death penalty. That's not to mention the shitstorm of epic proportions that would blow over the government if they did allow Assange's extradition to the US (the Swedish media and population generally aren't very US-friendly). It would also give the impression that the government didn't trust Swedish courts, which I very much doubt is a signal they'd want to send.

Those who say that the government are unable do this are wrong however, since the Riksdag have the right to overturn court decisions in matters of extradition - there's just no good reason for them to give any kind of guarantee in advance.

5. Getting him to Sweden is only first step in a conspiracy to send him on to the US.

It just doesn't add up for me. First of all, by trying to get him from Sweden the US would need not only the approval of Swedish courts and the Swedish government (which would effectively suicide by approving an extradition), but also the permission of the UK. Add to that that nothing Wikileaks has done is criminal under Swedish law (whistleblowing is in fact specifically protected by law) and they'd have to be pretty gosh darned creative to even make a case against him.

The notion that Sweden is somehow more vulnerable to US pressure than the UK also seems odd, given that we're comparing a neutral country with largely social democratic values and 200 years of peace and the UK which as far as I'm aware has extremely close political, economic and military ties with the US. Perhaps I'm missing something, but that equation seems off.

This is getting awfully long, so I'll leave it there. I'd just like to make clear that I have no personal beliefs on whether he's guilty or not; I don't know nearly enough about the case to form any solid opinion. He seems like a rather unpleasant character which I'm sure isn't doing him any favours, but being a bit of a dick isn't illegal and he's certainly not the only one guilty to what a great big mess this whole thing is. I can't think of any case that's been so poorly handled by everyone from media to prosecutors to the governments involved as well as mr Assange and Wikileaks themselves. Then again he's managed to avoid being hauled over here for a good while now, so perhaps he's secretly a genious.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!