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In Response to Open Letter, France Rejects Asylum For Julian Assange
Several outlets report that Julian Assange has requested, but been denied, political asylum in France, by means of an open letter published by Le Monde.
From The Globe and Mail's coverage, linked above: Less than an hour after his letter was published by Le Monde's website, Hollande's office issued a statement saying the asylum request was rejected.
"France has received the letter from Mr. Assange. An in-depth review shows that in view of the legal and material elements of Mr Assange's situation, France cannot grant his request," the statement said.
"The situation of Mr. Assange does not present any immediate danger. He is also the target of a European arrest warrant," it noted.
Assange wrote in the letter that his youngest child is French, and so is the child’s mother. "I haven't been able to see them in five years, since the political persecution against me started," he said. Worth noting: Assange's legal team says that Assange's letter has been mischaracterized, and that it is in fact not a request for asylum per se; instead, they assert, the letter merely expresses Assange's "willingness 'to be hosted in France if and only if an initiative was taken by the competent authorities.'"
"France has received the letter from Mr. Assange. An in-depth review shows that in view of the legal and material elements of Mr Assange's situation, France cannot grant his request," the statement said.
"The situation of Mr. Assange does not present any immediate danger. He is also the target of a European arrest warrant," it noted.
Assange wrote in the letter that his youngest child is French, and so is the child’s mother. "I haven't been able to see them in five years, since the political persecution against me started," he said. Worth noting: Assange's legal team says that Assange's letter has been mischaracterized, and that it is in fact not a request for asylum per se; instead, they assert, the letter merely expresses Assange's "willingness 'to be hosted in France if and only if an initiative was taken by the competent authorities.'"
Not much has changed in france since Vichy.
some Freedom Fries with that?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
and that it is in fact not a request for asylum per se; instead, they assert, the letter merely expresses Assange's "willingness 'to be hosted in France if and only if an initiative was taken by the competent authorities.'
First off, thats a request even if you continue your typical bullshit lying Assange.
Second, I'm 100% certain he doesn't want competent authorities involved, if they are, he's fucked,
The only reason he's not in jail in Sweden already is because Ecuador feels like trying to be a dick to the US.
He's been utterly destroy. He's shown his true colors. He's shown wikileaks is about his ego, not truth. He's shown he thinks he's above the law and that he thinks EVERYONE else is corrupt and out to get him. He has no friends and his only followers are those to stupid to recognize his bullshit and college kids who think they have to fight everyone else battles for them even when they have no fucking clue what they're doing it for.
At some point, Ecuador is going to get tired of him, after which, someone is going to put him in jail.
The only thing that shocks me so far is that Sweden has a statute of limitations that doesn't take into account that the accused is running from the law. Its one thing to timeout on things when you have no idea who you're looking for ... but they know who and where he is.
He's a douche, so much a douche that even France thinks he's a douche. How sad do you have to be when even France doesn't capitulate?
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And to think. France usually loves to harbor rapists.
That makes for rather "odd" timing, don't you think? Just days after Wikileaks leaks pilfered documents revealing NSA spying in France Assange makes an open appeal to be "invited" to France, and throws in everything but the kitchen sink in the appeal?
... In his letter to Hollande, Assange said that the mother of his youngest child is French. He said he is restricted to a space of 5.5 square meters (60 square feet), lacking access to “fresh air, sun as well as any possibility to go to a hospital,” and noted that police say round-the-clock surveillance of him has cost $17.6 million."
"only France now has the ability to offer me the necessary protection against, and exclusively against, the political persecution that I am currently the object of". Such an offer of protection would be a "humanitarian and symbolic gesture" and send a message of encouragement "to journalists and whistleblowers around the world".
It seems that the attempted quid pro quo failed. SInce there are no doubt many French people in solidarity with Wikileaks that have access to secrets I suppose France should brace itself for retaliation by Wikileaks. That could be a much more dangerous game for Assange than what he has played with the Americans. The French state is known to play rough when it feels it is needed in ways that the Americans are very unlikely to match.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
[... long rambling personal attack against Assange...]
He's a douche, so much a douche that even France thinks he's a douche. How sad do you have to be when even France doesn't capitulate?
Apropos of nothing, where are you getting your information?
Your post reads almost like one of those sock puppet things, you know? Paid to promote a particular point of view, without regard to truth or logic.
I'm not saying you're a sock puppet, mind you. It just that your post was a little one-sided, overly emotional and outspoken for the scope of the incident.
Sort of like the "say it loud enough and often enough" propaganda type of post.
How has this incident personally affected you, that you get so riled up about it?
Besides the fact Assange already knows it would be suicide to go to France, I am left wondering what was he thinking?
Every banker from the west wants this guy dead, lead alone the politicians.
Until the banking industry is destroyed, preferably and the power structures are rebuilt around honest banking, this guy better not step foot out of that Embassy if he knows whats good for him.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Every time it's been a few months since Assange has made the headlines, he pulls some useless stunt like this to keep himself in the news. He's become nothing more than a media whore/glory hound.
He hasn't done anything relevant or useful in years.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
... the letter merely expresses Assange's "willingness 'to be hosted in France if and only if an initiative was taken by the competent authorities.'"
Competent authorities? No danger of that happening in France.
Assange's legal team says that Assange's letter has been mischaracterized, and that it is in fact not a request for asylum per se; instead, they assert, the letter merely expresses Assange's "willingness 'to be hosted in France if and only if an initiative was taken by the competent authorities.'"
"Hosted?"
How gracious of Assange to say he would willing to trade his Ecuadorian broom closet for a rent-free garden flat in Paris, if France would be kind enough to send him an engraved invitation.
There are two particularly flavorful Yiddish words that come to mind here, "chutzpah" being one of them.
What about his work ?
Well he's shown that he is willing to lie in his work also. Editing videos to remove information that doesn't fit his desired portrayal of events, absolutely distorting the true context of events.
The UK now has a case against him, and a very strong one. He fled bail, and that is a crime. That crime is still ongoing since he's still fleeing said bail. So they can arrest and charge him for that. Doesn't matter if the original matter is log dropped, he is still on the hook for this.
That's the thing with court dates, bail, and all that jazz: Even if the case against you was going to be dismissed, if you skip bail you are now guilty of another crime. You have agreed to appear in court and a failure to do so is against the law.
The UK had no beef in this originally, they were just acting on an EU arrest warrant. Sweden said "We want this guy," the UK looked at the warrant and said "looks valid per the treaty" and thus arrested him. They had no interest or ability to decide on the validity of the charges, only if the request required them to act per treaty. It did so he was arrested, and then released on bail.
He challenged the extradition all the way up to the high UK court, but the courts found it was a valid request that the UK had to honour. Nothing to do with his guilt, just that the request was a valid one and they were bound by treaty to hand him over. Had he gone to Sweden then, that would have been the end of the UK's involvement. His bail would be returned and the UK would have no further interest in what happened.
However he fled rather than handing himself over. So at that point, he became a fugitive in the UK. They now have a case against him. It is totally separate from the original case, it is simply a case of skipping bail.
Likely they'll want to act on it too, since he's been flaunting it in their face for years.
The French political elite are stuck. French cryptography was linked to US and UK methods and hardware from the early 1970's on.
If France wants to keep its top staff at the NSA/GCHQ standard to enjoy total network collection France will have to take into account how the US and UK will respond.
France should have fully understood what it was doing politically when it had its early 1970's French (~JIC) meeting with the GCHQ.
What was the French SDECE worked very well with the UK over the what would have been the UK Zircon sigint satellite projects and options for sharing resulting material with the French. The UK French deal and later sharing was more about making France dependent on US and UK access than helping France share with the UK.
Generations of French crypto officials have now worked with and under UK and US advisors and now like the US/UK systems France is using globally.
France was very happy to help with UK with all aspects and details of its weapons sales during the Falklands war.
The US did not help New Zealand re the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.
France cannot easily undo its linked hardware, access and software that the US and UK now offer.
It seems the French political elite understand what the French security services have been doing for decades and what France can do or will not have access to. France also seems more aware of just how deep the US is to French crypto and networks.
France should have understood the lessons from the 1950's when the US and UK had near total access to all French communications at all levels.
How or why the French left their secure networks so open to the US after the 1950-60's is a mystery. Decades later the upgraded French networks are still open to the US and UK??
French political policy has to always reflect on obligations back to the UK and UK for that collect it all sharing access.
The only long term option for France politically is to secure its own codes "again" and spend big on better quality French sigint for France globally.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
And out will roll the US government shills wth their usual lies about Assange, a genuine modern hero. It amuses me they think were stupid enough to believe them.
Amazing how quickly they vote down the truth. This used to be a good tech site before a Republican corporation took it over.
Given the awfully broad "rape" law in Sweden, I don't mind.
Nowadays it's practically sexual harassment to even flirt with or compliment a woman. And God forbid the woman didn't like consensual sex. The next morning, she goes to the police, claims she was raped, and now it's guilty until proven innocent for the man.
And yet feminists still go around claiming women are discriminated against and need more protections? Feminism has really fucked up western society, and it seems to be irreversible at this point, especially as women keep gaining more and more power. And you can't even criticize women without a horde of SJW beta males rushing to her protection. These males have been brainwashed so much by feminism to believe that this will get them laid, but in reality, after the woman has thanked them profusely for being there for her to protect her against the assholes, she goes off to fuck one of these assholes. I'd put "lol" here if it wasn't so sad at the same time.
Men, please start acting like men instead of sissies. And women, realize that there are differences between men and women, that things will never be entirely equal, and that you are not oppressed, but rather have a huge advantage over men and always will because you have the power of mate choice on your side (men have to impress women, women are just able to choose whichever she wants. Yes there are a few exceptions where men have mate choice, like the ultra rich and powerful, but for 99.99% of cases, the woman has this power).
Snowden deserves asylum - he's wanted for a political crime, he's clearly guilty of violating US laws, and the US government doesn't accept a necessity defense when they're the ones he blew the whistle on, and even if he got a jury trial they'd make sure no juror who supports him would be picked.
Assange is a different case - the US wants him for political reasons, but Sweden wants him on trial for rape. There's a significant risk that if he goes back, gets a fair trial, and is found not guilty, the US will kidnap\\\\\\extradite him so they can try him for political crimes, and asylum would be appropriate then. But it's not appropriate now.
Bill Stewart
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Too many people in the geek/nerd/slashdot/etc communities treat Julian Assange like the women of the Manson family treated Charlie; they worshipped the dirtbag and refused to see his flaws - even today, decades later they worship the guy who carved a swastika into his own forehead and blames THEM for the murders.
WAKE UP!
Assange is a nasty piece of work. He pretends to be hiding out from the big bad American government as his excuse for actually hiding out in an embassy to avoid facing a trial for rape in Europe. The US, under the Obama administration, has shown itself perfectly willing to spy on everybody including its best allies and to use drones to kill anybody (even a US citizen) anywhere (even the Bush administration limited its drone kills to actual war zones) under the broad umbrella of "national security". In fact, the current generation of wimps running the Republican party have shown they are completely unwilling to do ANYTHING to stop Obama (they've sworn they would never impeach him, because people might accuse them of racism) so he is completely above the law, and he knows it. In case you don't see the point, let me explain: If the US was really so desperate to get Assange, it would get Assange - without the need for any bizarre indirect fake rape prosecution bankshot through Sweden.
I would never allow any daughter of mine to be anywhere near Assange; he has poked the most powerful nation on Earth in the eye and gotten away with it - such a person can be VERY dangerous, and can be end-up believing that no lesser power will be able to touch him for any lesser offense. Let him go already, he never WAS the advocate for openness and peace and freedom you thought he was - he only exposed bad stuff about (and harmed) the imperfect but generally free Western nations; where are all the leaks that damage Russia? How about China?
The UK courts heard the matter, all the way to the top, and decided that it was a valid request. Your opinion on that doesn't particularly matter, only the opinion of their courts. That is how it works in any case of a nation which has an extradition treaty with another nation: The courts of the nation being asked to extradite decide if said request is allowable per the treaty. What that requires varies treaty by treaty.
In the EU, the extradition treaties are pretty strong. Countries don't have a lot of choice to say no. If a fellow EU member asks and the paperwork is all in order, you more or less have to comply. That is precisely what the British courts found in this case. They reviewed it, found it valid, he appealed, they found it valid and so on.
Doesn't matter if you don't like it, that is how the justice process works there. This was not a case that was handled in some shady back channel matter, it went through the court system properly and the rulings fell against him. That's all there is to it.
Given the awfully broad "rape" law in Sweden, I don't mind.
The bizarre thing is that without the ongoing investigation it would probably be easier for Assange to get asylum in Sweden. Sweden expressly forbids ministers of government from having any direct involvement over administrative authorities. If he applied his case would in theory be handled under the exact same process as everyone else regardless the political situation. The Swedish prime minister would not be able to accept or reject anything, it would only be up to the responsible administrative authority to decide based only on current legislation.
The claim that Sweden would hand him over to the US. Were I to worry about anyone in the EU doing that, it would be the UK. The US and UK have a relationship literally called the "special relationship." They back each other on diplomatic and intelligence matters in a way rarely seen among other nations. So they would be the one I would peg to hand him over all quiet like, if anyone.
Neither your statement nor the one you replied to are the truth. For starters: Islamic Imams issue fatwas, not American or Western political conservatives. Political conservatives in America and the West would only want justice. Assange is fleeing rape changes and exploiting his political connections to do so. "Republican corporation"? That's silly. Do you pay any attention at all to the leanings on Slashdot? You're a nitwit if you think it actually leans Republican in any meaningful way. Are you by any chance the tool that keeps posting unrelated stupid crap about Republicans in lots of the stories lately? If so I might be tempted to assume you are either off your meds or new around here, or maybe just a troll. Please, knock it off and make on-topic posts.
Not even the women who he had sex with say it was rape. It wasn't and isn't rape.
I'm sure Julian Assange knew the request would not be granted and it's probably a simple maneuver to remember us which side France is on.
Since 2009 France is officially a full NATO member and a couple years later, it showed full allegiance and with the US it attacked Libya, a sovereign country. If we hold this to the same standards as the invasion of Iraq then that was a particularly abject and monstrous crime, which also makes France directly responsible for the rise of Islamic State.
In France, foreign policy affairs are typically directed by the president, who is totally unaccountable once elected (a republican monarch). There's never any debate about foreign policy, esp. in the media. The president styles himself as left-wing, though that is contested. But I haven't heard anything on the left about NATO and the wars, though it seems to me there's that obvious elephant in the room, that France is fully allied to the US, UK, Saudi etc. which implies embracing the neocons goals and methods.
More directly to the point I will say that Hollande and Fabius are comparable to Bush, Cheney, Tony Blair etc. and that the neocons cabbal is the gravest threat from the West since the nazis. Denouncing the US threat is fine (it's one of the few most dangerous countries on Earth) but it does not make intellectual sense to stop at the US or UK border and fail to consider that France is in. We need some great (democratic) purge that throws pro-war officials out of office. France need not embrace a dangerous ideology that worships death and destruction of States, presenting them with a convert-or-die deal (join the Empire or we'll destroy you) or pushing Arabs to kill one another to increase weapons sales.
I hope Julian is brought before the Swedish courts, if only so Slashdot can return to the SCIENCE, not tech, you silly boy. Criminal acts suck; those raped by a public celebrity have hardship enough. Those raped who were mothers and now must explain to their families that daddy is an opportunist coward and his fanboys are dangerous nutters.
First, I don't think France is rejecting anything. There's a legal framework and the country must act within it. Right or wrong, Assange is really having problems with an European country justice system (Sweden, IIRC). The answer was quick and clear -- that ultimately shows respect for a citizen. It's certainly better than what my own government would do.
Second, if Assange did anything wrong, from what I've read -- that's "adultery", which is viewed differently in many countries. For instance, in Islamic countries usually the laws are harsher about such thing. In more liberal Western societies, that can vary wildly. Nordic countries are an example of the opposite, as I understand. But they chose to name dating two woman as "rape" -- which I see valid under very particular assumptions -- e.g. the one that a woman has not enough time to do background checks on a partner, because it's acceptable that they do casual sex within little time. Let's call it "sex at first sight". That's pretty dumb from wherever you look. They could equally label it as "murder attempt", if one supposes death by infection could arise from such quick "contact". Now, the problem is "rape" is a much terrible crime than adultery in Western societies. And therefore Mr. Assange is in serious trouble.
We need such people, the cynics. We need them to say what usually goes unnoticed. It's easy to see what foreign nations do wrong; it's hard to see and discuss the errors of our own governments. Right now, someone is attributing errors of a country to its "administration"... that is lowly way to evade responsibility. In democratic countries, if your government acts bad, it's your fault -- because the democratic process is viewed as representative.
But a part of those folks don't deal well with responsibility. The simple idea is kill who is accusing them... nobody ever liked the cynics much for starters.
But now we kill them.
And who cares about Julian Assange? He's just trying to be rich and famous.
There's always been this weird dynamic on Slashdot where if someone has done something good or useful, or is perceived as "one of us," you get this absolute defense of every single action of that person, no matter how objectionable. A lot of it seems to be based on perceiving oneself in that person, and I suspect wanting to defend them from criticisms they themselves have received in real life.
Examples: Steve Jobs was a cruel narcissist, but he "had to be" to turn Apple into what it is. Linus Torvalds has on occasion treated people nastily, but that's something to be absolutely admired and never criticized. Hans Reiser was being persecuted because he was a geek. Terry Childs was the epitome of integrity for locking out his supervisors. Julian Assange isn't a self-obsessed narcissist, he's the noble target of an international conspiracy to besmirch his good name.
Here's my view:
Julian Assange did a lot of good through wikileaks, and should be praised for that.
He's also on a personal level an objectionable human being and that should not be excused or explained away.
If he is accused of committing a crime in Sweden, he should fight those charges in Sweden.
Whether he's innocent or not of those charges, he's probably not innocent of violating bail, and should be charged with that as well.
The first point I made above is completely consistent with all the ones that follow. people who were I think a lot of it is a sort of
Yeah I'm sure we'd all like a little place on the French Rivera. Good luck with that while you're stuck in the same room you've been in for the past few years. It's kind of like prison, oh wait it is prison.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The solution? Make video recordings of every encounter. For your own safety, of course.
There is not a cat in hells chance that Assange would be extradited to Sweden, only to be extradited to the US.
The European human rights code will not allow a person to be extradited to one country for the purpose of being extradited to another.
I am damn sure his lawyers know full well that if they appealed on that basis, he would get no where near the US.
Nothing to do with political machinations. He does not want to go to court over the rape charges.
Though this was never considered a requirement necessary to put in an EAW, so it never got put in.
But the fact of the matter, he's not wanted for arrest in Sweden. And an EAW really doen't constitute a request to appear in court in Sweden, only a request to extradite him to another EU country.