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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Update: 08/21 15:58 GMT by S : Multiple sources are now reporting that the warrant for Assange's arrest has been withdrawn.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Update: 08/21 15:58 GMT by S : Multiple sources are now reporting that the warrant for Assange's arrest has been withdrawn.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.
According to the article the two women did not actually accuse him of rape, only that they asked the police for guidance relating to what allegedly happened.
This point is rather interesting, as in e.g. Norway (which has very similar legal system) you can and often will get a year or more prison sentence if you knowingly falsely accuse someone of rape.
- These characters were randomly selected.
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.
I didn't think Reiser had any enemies with a motive for framing him, though?
You obviously never read LKML!
Bah, as a swede this hurts, but essentially our government is a US lapdog. Witness the fiasco with the pirate bay for a glaring example, where the prosecution initially refused to press any charges because they felt there was no real case. Then suddenly a few months later they got the people behind it sentenced to pay record damages (1.35 M USD) AND jail time corresponding to a major case of assault and battery in a kangaroo court with the chairman being a member of several pro-copyright lobby organisations, and acquaintance of several of the legal counsels on the plaintiffs side.
I don't know about Denmark these days, but something is definitely rotten in the state of Sweden these days, and I think it was a major mistake of Mr Assange to decide to have anything to do with us.
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.
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.
Crime needs three things: motive, means, opportunity.
Motive, no big deal, being a heterosexual male is enough.
Means, easy, every man comes equipped with that.
Opportunity, that's the big problem.
I have lived in Sweden and cannot say I had any difficulty in picking willing girls in bars there, and I'm not even famous like Assange.
A man with his record of fighting government corruption would have an idol status in Sweden, he would have to hire security guards to keep the girls away.
If there's one case where the accused should be presumed innocent, this is it.
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.
In Sweden you can get an rape investigation on you for nothing. Its an well known fact and well used tactic in divorce cases, where the wifes charges the husband of rape, and thus the wife get soil custofy of the child
The proper response to such allegations is not to dismiss them out of hand as a government plot. The proper response is to assume and treat him as completely innocent until such a time that he is found guilty in a court of law - at that point you may want to look into the case to see if the jury was crazy or reasonable. Until then nothing should change to the extent that a "not guilty" verdict should be as if no new information was given. An allegation should be both taken seriously and not believed until it has been verified. That's the proper response. Now of course humans just aren't built to behave like that. If you can't maintain this stance, then you have to choose between being suspicious of him or saying that you are sure the allegations are false. In that choice it's pretty clear that the preponderance of evidence so far is to dismiss the claims. We have no evidence to look at.
An excerpt in a quick-and-dirty translation by me:
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.)
Doesn't have to be, in Sweden, you can be convicted for rape without penetrating anything. Forced petting is enough. You do not even have to use force, only go against the will of the person that is the victim is enough.
The bad thing with this is that it leads to people starting to distrust the law and the authorities.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Actually, it's the plot from the first few episodes of "Blake's 7", in which an anti-government agitator is set up to be tried as a child molester and put away for life.
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.
I was raped once.
Of course I didn't find out until his credit card was declined.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.