Slashdot Mirror
Swedish Court Orders Detention of Wikileaks Founder Assange
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is likely to be detained for questioning over his alleged connection to a rape case. The Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has requested the District Court of Stockholm to detain Assange, claiming that they have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations. 'I request the district court of Stockholm to detain Mr Assange in his absence, suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion,' Ny said in a statement."
[sarcasm]Nobody in the spotlight/limelight/under a microscope has ever committed a serious crime such as this, before![/sarcasm]
The powers that be want Assange captured and made an example of. So if he's not done in by these charges, they'll find something else to go after him with, and keep trying until he's in prison, killed, or the world hates him. And that's not to say these charges aren't legit. It's just awfully suspicious, especially since the first time they went after him for this another prosecutor stepped in and had the matter dropped.
I think we can also safely give Assange the title of International Man of Mystery.
I am officially gone from
I highly doubt that someone in the public eye as much as Assange (not to mention someone who is under a microscope already) would have something to do with rape.
Yeah, public figures who do bad thing, that could never happen...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I highly doubt that someone in the public eye as much as Assange (not to mention someone who is under a microscope already) would have something to do with rape.
So you get a free pass with the law because you're a celebrity?
Justice is blind. Try not to forget that.
Hell, I would argue that people in power are often egomaniacs who think they can get away with murder, rape, fraud, cheating, mistresses, etc. If you are a popular football player or billionaire or web sensation, you're probably doing whatever you want. I think the opposite logic is more applicable than yours. But, again, justice is blind so I don't think that should even be taken into account. If the accuser is a shill, the court and lawyers should be able to figure that out. If the accuser is not a shill, however, you would basically be protecting a rapist because he runs a site you like. Let justice run its course and just try to have faith in the Swedish Justice system.
As someone who is not popular, I'm not too keen on your line of reasoning regardless of how much I like or dislike Julian Assange.
My work here is dung.
Given Assange's choice of professions, I find it highly likely that government would start making up crap about him just to detain him. I don't like crying conspiracy, but given how much he's ticked officials off in the past...
For fucks sake, they say they want to charge him, and then they let him go. Then they say they want to charge him, and yet again they say he can go. Now this. I mean come on, either you want him or not. Either you stand in the face of the bullies who are asking you to do this, or you bend all the way, there is no I am half-way bent.
Clearly Julian Assange has committed a crime of raping the US intelligence and military, which is punishable by every means possible. He needs to be taken care of, he is clearly a sexual deviant, coercing the innocent intelligence and military structures into an uncomfortable position with him in a room in Stockholm.
I believe the safe word was "9-11!". I think the military would have just needed to say that and I'm sure he would have stopped..."
"Lawful coercion" does exist: it's called "arrest" or "detainment".
Yes, also taxes, jury duty, mandatory school attendance, eminent domain...
Set your phasers on "funky"!
When I saw this article I thought "Oh look, I must have gotten the main page cached or something"
Seriously, why hasn't this whole fiasco/media circus died already?
The problem with Wikileaks is that only half of the participants are anonymous. For it to work over a long period of time the people helping to disseminate the information need to be anonymous, too. I'm not sure if that's technically possible, though.
check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
You mean like Phil Spector?
On the other hand this case has been considered of such low importance that they are still trying to decide whether it is worth questioning the suspect for the first time. That should put this case nicely in perspective because rape is normally taken very seriously.
To back this up a bit, check out this abstract claiming that the rape rate in Sweden is 3x the rest of Europe. At least 2/3s of those people are considered rapists in Sweden, when they would not be in any other country. It sounds like Sweden is going through some sort of moral panic concerning rape. So I'm disinclined to believe any rape claims coming out of Sweden.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"Nobody is above the law" is the principle Wikileaks seems to be standing for. Assange should not be exempt from the laws either. By all means, if there is sufficient evidence to warrant some questions, question him.
I personally have no opinion as to whether these charges are true or not - there just isn't enough data to support any conclusion. It could be an attempt to discredit the organization, or it could be true. So, then, go get the data, and examine the evidence, and see if there's even enough to warrant a trial.
It seems like a pretty flaky way to ruin the guy, considering how much difficulty victims have in securing a conviction where there has been a rape (either because it's difficult to collect evidence or because a lot of the time it comes down to one person's word against another). If there were shady government-funded agencies at work here, couldn't they have come up with something that left no shadow of doubt as to guilt to ensure a conviction, an acquaintance stabbed and a bloody knife found in his car, or indecent images planted on his computer or something? It seems like subjecting him to a craps shoot where there's a reasonable chance he'll come out of it looking better than he went in isn't the best way to ruin him (of course, it could be a double bluff because they know they'll get a conviction, but it's a lot riskier rigging a trial than planting some evidence).
If you keep repeating an accusation, the public will only remember his face and the word "rape".
As is so often the case these days, your being detained implies reasonable suspicion of your having committed something, and since a lot of people are never formally suspected of any wrongdoing, surely a person who's been detained based on reasonable suspicion on several occasions is guilty at least of something, and cannot be trusted...
Or it could simply be that he feels safer if everyone knows his name. Otherwise he could just be rubbed out and noone would be the wiser.
This has CIA character assassination written all over it with a huge marker. Nice to see that Swedish courts are either lapdogs or dupes (or both). This is exactly what I expected the CIA to do to.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think this isn't about a conviction, but rather casting doubt at the person. Wikileaks is already being associated as 'that rapist club' by people who only casually follow the news. Some see this latest news and ask 'is that creep still out raping those lovely women?'. You analyzed right, but doubt isn't a problem here, it's what they need most to discredit him and his organization.
This is an attempt to discredit the Wikileaks website
Wikileaks has discredited themselves quite well all on their own. It started out as a site for people in oppressed countries to leak out information that their rulers would rather keep under wraps. It evolved into a site that would accept leaks from anyone. It then turned into a site whose primary propose seems to be to embarrass the United States Government.
Mind you, my Government deserves to be embarassed at times but this war that Assange is waging is hardly compatible with the lofty ideas that got Wikileaks started. Some of Wikileaks own people have said as much.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No, because the very fact that you can imagine said shady agencies doing this means there's always a shadow of doubt one did. That's why the bar is "reasonable doubt", not "any doubt".
In any case, for purposes of character assasination, rape charges work much better than murder ones. The shadowy organizations simply want the words "Julian Assange" and "rape" to be repeated together often enough that the public starts associating them. Whether or not a court convicts him is irrelevant; it's sufficient that the court of public opinion does.
Of course, all this does is increase the credibility of Wikileaks, since obviously someone powerful is scared of what they have to say.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Ex post facto is an important concept here. When you gave consent, you gave consent, which makes the sex not rape, by definition. That you might have been stupid to do so doesn't mean that you can retroactively revoke your consent. And this is an important issue with this particular crime, because there have been rape cases that have turned out to be simply a case of morning-after regrets.
Which of course brings me to an important lesson: If you're going to sleep with someone, either wear a condom or demand they get tested for HIV.
I am officially gone from
Yes of course there are some people who are wrongfully accused for rape and that sucks but that is probably not the case most of the time.
In courts in Sweden the girls character is always in question. Was she drunk, has she had many boyfriends, is she a slut? Any of that could be reason not to convict. There has even been a case where the girl didn't have time to say no before the guy showed his pipe organ in her throat and at least one where the girl was too drunk to be able to speak where both guys where acquitted since the girls didn't protest enough
This is hardly the signs of a country in moral panic (oh and your link goes nowhere).
So why are there so many cases of rape in Sweden? There's a couple of reasons. The police most often don't laugh at the girls or kick them out again and we do take it serious when it comes to rape even if the courts sometimes fubar things. Another reason is that the spouse in Sweden can be convicted for rape of his wife. There are still, strangely enough, countries where the husband can't be convicted for raping his wife.
Don't confuse higher numbers for larger amounts of rapists or moral panic, it might just be that we are doing more things right than you are.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
I thought he was innocent too...
Ah; and now for a classic manipulator trick;
'You used a negative term for women about a particular woman.. that means you hate all women.'
Yeah.. whatever. Fool
That was actually quite a deliberate choice of words; it can be quite useful to use extreme language sometimes.. That is why expletives exist; to allow the free expression of strong emotion.
'Been rejected by the prom queen' huh.. not everybody went through the US college education pantomime.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
"a site for people in oppressed countries to leak out information that their rulers would rather keep under wraps"
That statement covers every country in the world. The people with money and power always have things to hide, as they fear loosing their money and power over others as others (just like them and really as ruthless as them) seek to take their money and power. (Ultimately because they want others to be less powerful than them). Also the act of seeking power over others is inherently the act of seeking to oppress others into following the wishes of the people in power. Therefore all their words are really to hide this core truth of their behavior, regardless of which political party they are in.
Its why democracy partly works as it attempts to balance the competing sides against each other, preventing any one side from totally getting all their own way at the expense of everyone else. Unfortunately democracy totally fails when all the competing sides find some common ground ideas they share, where they all want the same thing. Which is exactly what we are getting with the moves towards ever more Police State levels of spying and control over us all, ultimately because everyone who seeks power over others, all wants the same thing, they all want power over others. Therefore they keep seeking more ways to gain power over others and they fear others like them getting these powers first.
In such a world we need a way to monitor and feedback against governmental excesses which grow without limit, such as the increasing spying and control, so we need sites like Wikileaks to allow us all to see and so publically police the people in power to prevent them increasingly undermining democracy to create their increasingly totalitarian levels of control.
Also, the title is inaccurate. There is no court order, someone is just making a show of requesting one. Even Slashdot editors are useful tools.
Wow, the GP's wordplay joke just went right over your head, didn't it? You may wish to wipe the foam off your chin and reread.
Advice: on VPS providers
It evolved into a site that would accept leaks from anyone. It then turned into a site whose primary propose seems to be to embarrass the United States Government.
Being what the united states government has been for the last 10 years, I'd be suspicious if wikileaks didn't have a whole section on it. The bush administration would baffle the people of nigeria for its corruption.