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Ecuador Grants Citizenship To WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (cbsnews.com)
hcs_$reboot writes: Ecuador has granted citizenship to Julian Assange, who has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for over five years. Quito, Ecuador, has said naturalization should provide Assange with another layer of protection. However, naturalization appeared to do little to help the Australian-born WikiLeaks founder's case, with the British foreign ministry stressing that the only way to resolve the issue was for "Assange to leave the embassy to face justice." Earlier on Thursday, Britain said that it had refused a request by Ecuador to grant Assange diplomatic status, which would have granted him special legal immunity and the right to safe passage under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Glad to see it. This would have set an uncomfortable precedent of granting a wanted criminal the freedom to roam around the country he is wanted in. Diplomatic immunity status shouldn't be able to be granted after a crime has been committed.
Wanted criminal? Sweden wanted him for questioning. They no longer do. The only reason for Britain to wait for Assange leaving the embassy now is to send him to the U.S. which they denied wanting to do.
In other words, the question is not one of Assange needing to face justice, but one of Assange needing to face injustice.
Breach of bail conditions is a crime.
I think it comes under contempt of court.
Are you suggesting that contempt of court be allowed?
Just because YOU don't think that he should stand trial for the original accusation, doesn't mean that the UK court weren't obliged to make that happen (by international agreement) or that in skipping bail he hasn't committed a crime against a UK court on UK soil.
And, I don't know if you understand this bit:
arrest != charge != conviction.
You can be convicted for resisting arrest, however. Arrest is literally "let's stop him so we can investigate if a crime has occurred". A charge is "We have reasonable belief he did something illegal, which a court will now judge and we may have to detain him until such time as the court can do so". A conviction is "the court has determined beyond reasonable doubt that they have broken the law".
He was wanted for arrest, to answer potential rape charges. As part of this, he was arrested in the UK. A court ordered him to stay within bail conditions (which is a concession, so he's not under arrest for months on end). By breaching those court conditions, he is now automatically CHARGED with contempt of court which will - without some seriously extraordinary circumstance proven to a court - result in a conviction. The contempt charge is now based on the prima-facie evidence of failing to abide by the conditions of the UK court. It doesn't matter WHY. Or what the history is. Or what else is going on. He is now required to stand trial for that if nothing else.
As such, the UK police has a duty to arrest him, to face trial for the charge of contempt of court, which - whether or not he is convicted - will also make him available to stand trial and answer charges from the original arrest.
Not one bit of the that entire last paragraph is optional. Only the potential outcome of it (the courts could in theory side with him and let him go, or they could jsut convict him for the bail offence and let him go, or they could convict him for the bail offence and hand him over as per a valid international arrest warrant).
Because it was fine when he was doing it to the Republicans. Once he showed the Democrats to be no better and as a result prevented the coronation of Queen Hillary he became public enemy number one.
This would have set an uncomfortable precedent of granting a wanted criminal the freedom to roam around the country he is wanted in.
Assange is only wanted for avoiding prosecution for an alleged crime for which the charges have been withdrawn.
Diplomatic immunity status shouldn't be able to be granted after a crime has been committed.
Former, withdrawn charges shouldn't be grounds for arrest. The British Empire is quite upset that Assange didn't respect their authority, and would like to make an example of him even though there are currently no other charges filed against him.
The supposed victims of his alleged crimes did not believe that he should be charged. The charges filed have been dropped, and the prosecutors who filed them passed up numerous opportunities to question him before doing so. But keep calling him a criminal. That's exactly what three governments want, and you wouldn't want to let them down, would you?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That doesn't matter, it's a political case, and US is a dangerous country with a vendetta.
Uh, they grounded President Evo Morales' plane in Austria because they thought maybe he'd have Snowden in his baggage. International law means nothing to the U.S. and its lapdogs.
"Consensual" "tricked"
See, he lied to get the sex HE wanted, but she had not agreed to. She gave him consent - with limitations, like using a condom. He BROKE that agreement to go outside of what she had consented to.
What do you call someone that has sex with a woman outside of her consenting terms?
A rapist.
USA waged terror war with mass murder in 1945 when attacking Hiroshima with a nuclear bomb, but somehow one can't expect anyone to be punished for it, ever. Not to mention all the shitty things the US government keeps doing.
This notion of pretending that law and order is to be this cherished thing as if it were to try show some utmost respect to ideas of morality and dignity is freaking obscene.
How is he a traitor? At no point did he ever have any allegiance to the US, nor any obligation to not publish the secrets Bradley Manning gave him? Funny how you leftists used to love him, until he published the proof of how corrupt your Designated Queen really is.
Just over a year ago and Assange was still a hero of the Left. The Moment Hillary conceded he became enemy #1 to the left.
But the political aspects aside, even if I agreed with you that Hillary should be President, Assange is still not a traitor/ Under no definition of the word does he qualify as such. He is not a US citizen and has no loyalty to it nor any obligation to keep anything he finds out about it secret.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Hi lawyer has said multiple times that he'd be willing to face these charges if both countries would guarantee that Assange would not be extradited to the US (something they claim they have no intention of doing) and both countries have flat refused to make this guarantee, leading to the belief that that is exactly what they plan to do. And the moment he hits US soil, he'll be Gitmod, whether it's in Guantanamo or a US prison. Everyone involved knows it and so much money and many man hours spent on this shows that there is no other likely reasoning for this. Remember, officially this is over a non-consensual act during consensual sex that the girls went to the police to track him down, soley to get an STD test. The police, upon finding the importance of the individual accused, pressured the girls into pressing charges, which they have since withdrawn, and sent out an interpol alert reserved for the world's most dangerous and most wanted. Sound like your standard everyday secondary rape case, yes? (/sarcasm)
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Just to be clear, this is 100% speculation, and is probably mostly incorrect.
That's curious, because that's how an informed person would describe the legal attacks against Assange since Wikileaks dared publish evidence that the US Government routinely, knowingly, and blatantly violates the US Constitution, their Oaths of Office, the civil rights of it's own citizens while literally stopping and robbing them at gunpoint of any substantial money or property they may happen to have legally acquired and own in their possession as they travel our roads like the "highwaymen" of old..
It's almost like the Mafia didn't die, they just moved house. It's not strictly a (D) or (R) problem, it's both.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.