Slashdot Mirror
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.
They already asked for him to be recognised as an ambassador, and the UK rejected their request.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Where does this notion come from that a nation can "force" another nation to grant a particular individual diplomatic status? Diplomatic status is requested by the sending state, and then the nation in question either approves or denies their request.
The exact same thing applies to asylum. You can say whatever you want about a person "having asylum". Nobody else has to listen to your declaration. Some states have treaties mutually recognizing each other's asylum cases, but the vast majority do not.
And it's a damn good thing that international law works like this.
The chloride owes the sodium money.
I believe Britain wants him for jumping bail.
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).
What they need to do, I think, is sneak him out with some sort of large diplomatic package, which would grant him safe passage to Ecuador.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
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.'"
He still breached bail which in itself is a crime.
Yes, and the charges he breached bail on have been withdrawn by prosecutors who passed up multiple opportunities to question him, on the basis that they could not question him. How it is just to punish someone for skipping bail when the charges have been withdrawn? If the charges were legitimate, why did the prosecutors pass up multiple opportunities to question him?
"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.
The women in Sweden have repeatedly said that no rape was commited, and that they were shocked when people higher up in the police turned it into a manhunt and rape case.
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 ask only for everyone to dress exactly the same way, cut the air the same way and look as much as possible as him... then everyone goes to the Ecuador embassy and leave all at same time. Do this several times, but only once of then Assange MAY really leave the embassy
The police could not track so many people and after several attempts, they will give up or agree in a valid solution... or he MAY leave in one of the attempts
Better yet, ask everyone to use a burka, that will be easier to hide as everyone is the same, be either men, women, white, ginger, black, asian, etc ... it may also requires women police (i do not really know how someone with burka is identified by a police)
Higuita