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Julian Assange Faces Rape Investigation In Sweden — Updated
mpawlo was one of many readers who have sent news that a warrant has been issued in Stockholm, Sweden for WikiLeaks founder and spokesman Julian Assange. The investigation apparently involves "one report of rape and one report of harassment." The story was broken by Swedish tabloid Expressen (original in Swedish), and later picked up by more reputable sources like CNN and the BBC, who say the warrant has been confirmed by Swedish authorities. The WikiLeaks Twitter feed has commented three times about the charges so far, first saying they were warned of 'dirty tricks,' then that they hadn't been contacted by Swedish police, and then a statement from Assange saying the charges are without basis.
Update: 08/21 15:58 GMT by S : Multiple sources are now reporting that the warrant for Assange's arrest has been withdrawn. Aftonbladet has coverage in Swedish. Chief prosecutor Eva Finne said, "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."
Update: 08/21 15:58 GMT by S : Multiple sources are now reporting that the warrant for Assange's arrest has been withdrawn. Aftonbladet has coverage in Swedish. Chief prosecutor Eva Finne said, "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."
The US Government plays dirty when you expose their secrets
moox. for a new generation.
Something like this was to be expected. I have read as much as there is but I cant see any details of victim(s) or of the crime itself. But surely surely surely he would have to be as stark staring mad as a bottle of chips to commit a crime like while running the worlds biggest whistle blowing web site. It stinks to high heaven.
In space no-one can hear your vuvuzela.
Well, the BBC story says "Swedish police have been trying to contact Mr Assange, but have not yet been able to" while Wikileaks says "No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police". Pity you can't serve someone over Twitter. I agree that the timing is suspicious as hell, but after the Reiser fiasco I'm going to wait and see.
No statement is true, not even this one.
When you are hiding from FBI in another country you don't go raping and harassing people.
Maybe Julian is crazy, but he is not stupid.
Furthermore, one has to remember that even if the accusations are true, it does not in any way invalidate Assange's work or "pro-leak" arguments. Doing so would be a simple, straight ad hominem.
In some ways it doesn't matter if he's never convicted of these charges. Mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh will be able to call him a "rapist and molester" and convince many that any information from Wikileaks is a lie.
If this is a false accusation, and I believe it is, I would also suspect that agents would be assigned to astroturf media sites with posts supporting the accusations and charges.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
In other news, accused rapist, Julian Assange, has released new documents on his WikiLeaks website...
Notice that then, as now, a large number of posters have decided that there is just no way he could have done it. With Reiser when the guilty verdict was handed down there were still plenty of people who decried how stupid the jury was, how there clearly wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty and so on... Until he confessed and gave the location of the body.
Same deal here, people have presupposed Assange's innocence because they like him. I don't mean given him the benefit of the doubt and said "Well let's see what evidence comes up," I mean saying that this is clearly an evil government plot, even though there is, of course, no evidence of that at this point.
It is just how it goes here. Geek heroes can do no wrong in the eyes of some and they'll come up with any number of reasons as to why something they did clearly must be a frame job by someone else.
As for this particular case, I'll have to see what, if anything, comes out. It could be a deliberate smear campaign against him, though I'm a bit doubtful of that as the risk of backfire would be pretty large. Could just be someone making shit up, this happens even to people who aren't well known never mind people who are. Could be he actually did it, the guy has a massive ego and questionable morals and may not have even thought he did anything wrong. We'll just have to see if anything comes of this.
Of course, the utter lack of information at this point won't stop a massive number of conspiracy theories from being posted here about how this is clearly a government frame job.
I assumed they were going to nail him with child porn. But I guess when they went to put it on his computer they discovered that his computer security was off the scale.
If I were the judge on this one I would accept no evidence short of a witness such as Nelson Mandela. I hope they solidly investigate his accusers to check what they have been up to for the last while and see if they have any relations to US interests or large payoffs.
Well what it could do, at least for some people, is call motives in to question. Right now you see two major theories at to why he does what he does and in particular why he chose to leak a bunch of classified data which appears to have little to no public value:
1) He really believes in this "freedom and openness at all costs," thing. He is a zealot perhaps, but an idealistic one. He really thinks that the best thing for the world is to have no secrets that all information from any source should be public for all to see. What he does is not at all about him, it is about the greater good, about making the world a better place. He believes that what he does is necessary.
2) He's an egomaniac with questionable morals who likes puff himself up be getting the better of people and exposing them. He leaks indiscriminately, including documents of no real value (like sorority secrets) because it gets him attention, power, and gives him a thrill. All the "public good" stuff is just bullshit, he doesn't really care, it is all about him and his ego.
Well, if he actually committed a rape, it would indicate that #2 is more likely. You obviously have to have some twisted morals to want to rape someone and ego and power are a big part of it. It is as much about exerting your will on another as the sexual gratification. So it would be an indicator that indeed his work on Wikileaks was for self centered reasons.
Now even if he did it all for selfish reasons that doesn't mean that you are required to find it worthless. You could certainly say "I don't care why he did it *I* believe it is valuable and necessary, and a good thing for society." The value needs to be evaluated independent of anything he says or does and nay reasons he has.
You're assuming the point of rape is to fulfill sexual desire -- it's not, it's about wielding power over someone else. Given this, motive then isn't "heterosexual male" (i.e. horny), but rather "need to assert power over another" which then means opportunity isn't fulfilled by finding a willing participant.
By your argument Mike Tyson would have been innocent of rape purely on his celebrity status granting him a plethora of women willing to sleep with him.
Thought thinks itself.
people have presupposed Assange's innocence because they like him. I don't mean given him the benefit of the doubt and said "Well let's see what evidence comes up," I mean saying that this is clearly an evil government plot, even though there is, of course, no evidence of that at this point.
Yeah, well, quite possibly that is because the majority of /. readers are from the USA. You know, where you are PRESUMED INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY.
So until there is sufficient proof offered, Julian, in the eyes of most Americans, is completely innocent and the charges are completely bogus.
Likewise, until sufficient proof is offered, the US government is not performing a conspiracy. But /. does tend to draw out the conspiracy theories ;)
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Rape is felt by the victim as an act of dominance and control. We have no reason to believe the motivation of the perpetrator and the feeling of the victim are correlated.
He's too high-profile to be killed off without it being obvious. Terrorists don't tend to care about PR all that much, or would even be glad to take credit for an attack. The US government, on the other hand, has an image and moral high ground to protect. Particularly in this case, where the leak greatly damages their credibility, killing the leaker would make it much worse. Hence the character assassination.
(However, Assange should worry about pissing off Mossad. From what they pulled off in Dubai, they don't seem to care about image issues or international opinion much either.)
"Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe"
Highlighted the reason why. Let me make up som example numbers;
Sweden - actual rapes 1,000 - reported 50% = 500 rapes.
Exampleistan - actual rapes 20,000 - reported 1% = 200 rapes.
Which country has the most rapes?
See the problem?
Errr...no, no it isn't. Being in possession of a penis and attracted to women does not make anyone a potential rapist or provide motivation for being one. I simply don't understand this strange correlation you seem to be making here.
--bornagainpenguin
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I was expecting something like this might happen. If this was targeted character assassination that's mission accomplished. Assange's name dragged through the dirt and his as well as Wikileaks' name associated successfully with rape. Now everyone can start using the following in any new press releases on a next wikileaks release: "Julian Assange, who was recently accused of rape in Sweden, has released...."
I am really curious if anyone is going to try to get to the bottom of this and find out what the hell just happened. Where did the accusations come from, why was it decided an arrest warrant should be issued and why has that same arrest warrant been withdrawn not even 24 hours later. This just stinks to high heaven. My guess? Some vague statements will be issued by the Swedish prosecutors office and that's all we'll ever find out.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Here in the US they've coined a term for the PC way of going about sex: Enthusiastic Consent. It is an outgrowth of the PC version of "No means No!" from the 1980's. In the 80's in the US they counseled college kids that they had get permission at each step of the way. They actually had role-playing seminars where you'd ask "is it OK if I touch you here?" "Is it OK if I kiss you there?" You really got the feeling that these people had never had a real sexual encounter in their lives, and wanted to make sure that nobody else did either.
From the women's rights site on Enthusiastic Consent:
Under this model, the person initiating contact is required to take account of and not exploit a relationship, the other person's intoxicated state, or the power of peer pressure or social conditioning.
So this has morphed into an "anything can be considered rape" model, where even getting an affirmative "yes" to each of these questions is not enough. The "yes" has to be truly enthusiastic to count. So telling a girl that you love her and want to have sex with her is rape - because you are exploiting your relationship. Have a couple of drinks together? Rape. Tell her "it's Ok, everybody does it?" Rape. Know somebody who lives in a society that is OK with casual sexual encounters? Ooops, that might be social conditioning - better not try to hook up. 'Cause that's rape.
As anyone who frequents /. knows, the power of PC thinking is pervasive. It is like fight club - you cannot discuss PC, because discussing PC means that you are not PC - and therefore are evil. So even linking to source material that written by PC people and espouses their PC beliefs requires an AC posting - lest ye be branded un-PC and evil! So yeah, I agree with you: rape does seem to be all about power - of the feminist kind.