341–350 of 1001 posts
Very sad day. Remember this all started with the leak of the "Collateral murder" video. That's when the Interpol notice went out, and he had to seek asylum at the embassy. It was already quite disgusting how powerful entities were able to seemingly fabricate sexual charges as needed. Later on he made very influential enemies by exposing corruption in the democratic political party. Instead of any follow up on that fr…
Assange is a flawed personality. That said, over the years there was a transformation. People defended him despite his issues when his whistleblower endeavors aligned. Once they no longer aligned, many many of his supporters turned around and called out his peccadilloes and transgressions. People still defend Snowden but if he ever releases information seen as politically damaging to one side, all that adulation is o…
On the flip side over the years Assange has very much moved from a proponent of openness and protection for leakers to being a political campaigner. His choice to deliberately release material during the US election campaign in a way that was designed to politically damage the candidate he opposed goes way beyond the mission statement of wikileaks and also brings into question whether wikileaks is operating independe…
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Semantics. The host country is prevented from entering, searching, seizing people or persons, or otherwise enforcing its laws in any way. The soil is technically still British, but so long as he had Ecuador's cooperation, he was entirely outside the reach of UK law. So by the dictionary definition of sovereignty -- "supreme power or authority" the sovereign inside the walls of the embassy is Ecuador, not the UK, sinc…
No, the UK is sovereign inside the Ecuadorian embassy. The authorities are prevented from entering by international treaties that they've signed. If international treaty obligations block sovereignty, then the UK isn't sovereign within the UK either (!), since there are certainly international treaties signed by the UK which prevent the UK authorities doing certain things within the UK. For example, the UK authoritie…
It will be interesting to see if the US tries to extradite him. It's actually not 100% clear that he's broken any US laws in any ways that they aren't also routinely broken by newspapers. There's a few avenues: 1) Publishing classified information. Easy to show that he did this but a very difficult path to go down when American newspapers do this all the time. 2) Conspiracy to commit espionage. Probably the most like…
I wish Australia would step up and actually defend one of their citizens.
Too little too late there, Australia.
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I found the Swedish rape case fishy. Are there any facts (going both ways) to speak of at all?
From what I understood, Sweden has a very extensive definition of "rape". Basically someone can go to the police and say "well, in hindsight I do feel a bit raped" and that is enough. Assange's accusers hosted him at their place, had consensual sex with him, and the day after they parted ways peacefully.
RIP. It's only a matter of time before he's extradited, and I would think the current US government would definitely push for the death penalty under the Espionage Act. I suppose it's little solace that he'll join a long list of illustrious names prosecuted under that infamous act. (Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Victor Berger, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden)
The UK does not permit extradition where there is a risk of the death penalty being applied. It would require an assurance against the death penalty as a condition of extradition.
I just want to know, from the people who seemed to have turned against Assange, how do you know it's not a concerted disinformation / propaganda campaign to remove all his credibility and reduce public support? By my reckoning It's really hard to know what to even believe about a guy who might credibly be targeted by that.
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"Seeking asylum" is not tbe same as "above the law" as the BBC would have you think. Lets see if he ends up in the states.
He hasn't been arrested for seeking asylum. He's been arrested for jumping bail. He was on bail facing extradition for rape and sexual molestation charges. He sought asylum the moment he knew he would have to face those charges. So you're correct. Seeking asylum isn't the same as being above the law. It's the same as avoiding being subject to the law. I can't say I see the distinction as being especially material.
Just to be precise the actual charge is that he was accused of having sex without a condom without telling his partner.
Very sad day. Remember this all started with the leak of the "Collateral murder" video. That's when the Interpol notice went out, and he had to seek asylum at the embassy. It was already quite disgusting how powerful entities were able to seemingly fabricate sexual charges as needed. Later on he made very influential enemies by exposing corruption in the democratic political party. Instead of any follow up on that fr…
Collateral Murder was published in April, 2010. The warrant came in November of that year, seven months later.
Yes, sure, it possibly takes that long to organise a conspiracy, especially if you have to recruit a Swedish feminist student into the CIA and also get at multiple prosecutors in one of the least corrupt countries in the world. But the connection still seems tenuous.
(sorry for this shameless promotion of my HN submission)