Slashdot Mirror
WikiLeaks Calls For Assange To Step Down
Stoobalou writes "A member of Iceland's parliament and prominent organizer for whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has turned on the site's spokesman, Julian Assange, urging him to step down over rape allegations made against him in Sweden. Birgitta Jonsdottir told news site The Daily Beast that she did not believe Assange's repeated assertion that the allegations of rape and molestation made against him were part of a US-backed smear campaign to distract attention from documents posted on the site laying bare US involvement in the war in Afghanistan and further promised revelations."
There is a bit of a problem with not enough information about this case, so I'll try to summary what I know so far.
1: Two women who had sex with Assange went to the police and were adviced to file charges of rape ...
2: A prosecutor releases the accusations publicly to the press (not a common thing here in Sweden afaik)
3: The case is withdrawn because they realize Assange cannot be nailed for rape. The remaining charge is something akin to sexual harassment.
4: The rape charges are revived
5:
6: Profit?
No seriously I'm starting to wonder what the fuck is up with the swedish legal system.
By those standards, all anti-US terrorists in US history are automatically innocent.
You mean until proven guilty? Or do you think anyone the US labels as an enemy should be considered automatically guilty and get locked away indefinitely with no habeas corpus rights?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I can't I know what the exact charges/circumstances are fo rin Assange's case. But i can say that the legal definition of rape changes nation to nation, so it would be nice to have the actual details of the situation. Heck in Israel you can be charged with rape for lying to a woman, or misrepresenting your marital status to get laid. I have friends that qualify to go to jail in Israel - here they are just being douchebags.
Other Wikileaks people are urging him to separate this personal situation from Wikileaks. Really? Why? So far, I haven't seen any evidence and so all I know is that I have heard there is a rape and a case of molestation against him. I also know that the charges were initially dropped and I can only assume it was because the evidence is shaky if non-existent.
It seems to me that this has all come about because he is in charge of Wikileaks. If he were to go quiet and let someone else run the show, who knows what they will do? I'm not sure it is in his best interests to disconnect himself from Wikileaks.
Let's see some evidence. Let's get some details. If he was a "nobody" that no one has ever heard of and had nothing to fear from world governments, that would be one thing. But this guy is an enemy to some very powerful individuals and organizations. Remaining in the spotlight is all he has to defend himself at the moment. Asking him to give up his post now would be a problem.
How is it that a politician is reviewing the evidence in an ongoing police case and furthermore, commenting on it in public? In most civilized countries that would be cause for an investigation into the police, and the firing of the prosecutor for not running a tight ship with a clear separation between the judiciary and the executive brances.
This doesn't pass the "smell test." Not one bit.
Did Assange do anything wrong? I don't know - but this sort of tampering by politicians makes it sure seem like someone, somewhere, *is* out to get him.
I'm not a conspiracy nut but....
If it looks like a horse, smells like a horse, sound like a horse and feels like a horse, it is most likely a horse.
Government officials tell directly to the public that if Assange doesn't hand over the files they will get him by other means and one week later you see rape charges.
How come there are still people thinking that something might be even remotely true concerning these allegations.
Sure, the allegations could be true, but - Birgitta Jonsdottir is a politician, and like everyone else has a price to do or say anything. It is within the realm of probability that she has been paid to take this highly public stance.
The fact is, a smear campaign is not just a simple accusation (in this case two coincidentally made on the same day), but rather a string of questionable accusations presented to people. Sure each one can easily be disproved in most cases, but if you make enough false allegations and pay a few people (especially those who appear to give credibility to an accusation) then these lies appear to be true.
Does ANYONE actually believe the USA can illegally invade another country, kill hundreds of thousands of people and manage to hide it.... yet would just stop at a simple rape allegation?? Uh, no! It has been widely covered that the US government is actively trying to destroy credibility of wikileaks, and sadly that will involve putting US operatives or paid rats inside wikileaks with the ultimate goal of taking this organization down.
The CIA has set up dozens of puppet governments in similar ways, so taking down an enemy website by 'framing' those who run it will happen. Truth be told, that "Collateral Murder" video makes much of what has happened look like a child's birthday party. For example, the blast and shockwave from the MOAB bomb can destroy about 8-10 blocks radius of a city, and we used these in Iraq... how many people who be disgusted if we saw the aftermath of just one?
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Isn't crying "rape" such an awesome tool for character assassination? You don't have to be a bad person at all. You could be the most saintly person in the world, but as long as I find a female or maybe a little boy to claim you did something vague, I can ruin the rest of your entire life.
I'm all for rapists being punished. However I also believe a woman who knowingly falsely accuses a man of rape should have to serve the maximum sentence he would have served if convicted. If this were enforced, I think you'd see a huge reduction in the number of rape allegations....and for those feminists who cry foul, I'm not suggesting that if the man isn't convicted the woman should be - I'm only talking about applying this to blatant false accusation.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
From what's leaked it sounds like it's basically a case of someone sleeping with more than one woman, being sloppy with protection, women getting pissed off and anxious about STD's and involving the Swedish judiciary which gets the brilliant (and internally divisive) idea to use it as a pilot case on whether consent can be considered having not been given, if it was predicated upon the use of effective protection. Which is why you get one attorney saying 'rape!', the next one saying 'idiot, it's barely even minor assault in the worst case, if even intentional', and the third going 'hmmm... interesting theory, lets victimize someone (and maybe save the first attorney) to test it'.
Ah, well, if consent can be predicated upon such issues I suspect we'll get a whole load of 'rape' charges against women who said they were on the pill...