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Julian Assange arrested in London

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#691

Post by monocasa »

ben_w wrote: post #656
tokai wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has a history of bending over backwards for the US. Such as the illegal arrests monocasa references, the raids on the pirate bay, and changing their laws on US recommendation.

From my perspective, the UK also has such a history. It’s a bit like avoiding jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but neglecting that the frying pan is full of oil until the oil catches fire and then being surprised that you’re on fire. And then saying “see, I told you about the fire”.

The UK previously didn't allow extraditions with the death penalty as an option, or extraordinary renditions, whereas Sweden allowed extraordinary renditions.

However the UK has recently changed it's stance on allowing death penalty extraditions. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/23/uk-will-not-...

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#693

Post by zzzeek »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #674
kmlx wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what "massive corruption" are you referring to?

The DNC clearly favoring Clinton in an undemocratic fashion, as shown by the emails involving Debbie Wasserman Schultz

"massive corruption" would be things like sharing campaign data with Russian agents and promising them access to the President. Some grumbly emails that they didn't like Bernie, who is not even a Democrat, is strictly embarrassing and incompetent, and nothing more.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#694

Post by SkyBelow »

foldr wrote: post #527
throwawaylolx wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, moments before the arrest, many people in this thread were accusing him of paranoia/manipulative intents: >He claimed that his reason to do so was to avoid extradition to the US, but Sweden wasn't allowed to extradite him without UK's permission first [0]. He could've gone to Sweden and face the charges, and avoided this whole thing. But he had to make himself look like a victim of a conspiracy instead, and his…

Hmm? This just goes to show that the USA didn't need to manufacture rape allegations in Sweden just in order to get Assange extradited, since their best chance of doing so was to extradite him from the UK.

"Need" and "helps improve the PR image of the action" are not synonymous.

I am not saying it was the case or that the argument has merits. I am saying that the argument I've heard concerning this incident is not being fairly represented by the claim that the USA needed to manufacture crimes allegations in Sweden.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#695

Post by _iyig »

megous wrote: post #572
olalonde wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People take real risks when telling on others. That it may be later revealed and their targets may try to take revenge is part of that. I'm not sure if you meant to defend him but that describes Julian Assange's own situation pretty well.

I only meant to point out that being an informant for occupying force is not some clear cut morally good situation from an outside POV on the informant, when the giving of information leads to: - killing people by bombings - locking people up without usual safety/legal process regards, and torturing them (either directly, or by having a pretty nasty jail) Innocent people are often killed, and locked up. This is not s…

I'm sure there are lots of fascinating details, unexpected side-effects, and counterintuitive observations to be found in a moral accounting of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. I've watched (and read) "Generation Kill," which examines similar situations in the Iraq War. I have friends and relatives who fought in Afghanistan. I've also read a number of books on the subject. I can appreciate the twisty-turny nature of morality in war, and how not all informants may have good intentions.

On the other hand, the Taliban seeks to keep girls out of school, treat women as chattle, throw homosexuals from rooftops, eliminate the Hazara people, behead apostates, and stone adulterers in football stadiums. Lots of people in Afghanistan hate them, and would inform on them to protect themselves and their loved ones, at a level of personal risk which neither you nor I can likely comprehend. So there's that.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#696

Post by giarc »

mcguire wrote: post #690

" Mr Assange, 47, [appeared] at Westminster Magistrates' Court. He pleaded "not guilty" to the 2012 charge of failing to surrender to the court. [...] Finding him guilty, District Judge Michael Snow said Mr Assange's behaviour was "the behaviour of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest". " How does the English justice system work? He was arrested, and almost immediately taken to court and convic…

I have no idea, but the charge was failure to surrender. It's pretty obvious, 7 years later, that he is guilty of that.

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#697

Post by mcguire »

dagmx wrote: post #683
shrewduser wrote: post #286

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.

WikiLeaks released the personal information of my colleagues and myself. So much for sticking it to the man, when we have to live the rest of our lives with the risk of identity fraud just because they're dicks.

When and why did they release your personal information?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#698

Post by Tomte »

chisleu wrote: post #673
rndgermandude wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was in Sweden at the time. The UK couldn't have extradited him from Sweden to the US. Not saying that the Swedish charges were all manufactured, just following your hypothesis.

I don't know the truth of what happened either, but only 2 days after he applied for a residency two girls he slept with went to the police to try to "contact him to get him to get tested for STDs" and this turned into "rape and molestation" charges claiming his condom fell off and he didn't stop having sex with them. I can not tell if a condom falls off either unless I look, and I generally don't have sex with the l…

How do you reconcile your "only to tell him to get tested for STDs" with today's announcement by one victim's layer that she wants the rape case re-opened?

Re: Julian Assange arrested in London

#699

Post by sievebrain »

matt4077 wrote: post #156
fxbl0i wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What crimes did he commit? Honest question. I heard that someone accused him of being a rapist but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. What else is there?

> [..] but then dropped the charges so I guess it was false. There are many reasons for dropping charges besides "she obviously lied". One of the reason might be that nobody wants to get all this attention and ensuing insults and death threats. In this specific case, there wasn't even much debate over facts, only law. She refused to have sex without a condom, then woke up to him having sex with her, without a condom.

That isn't "facts"! There was tons of evidence at the time that the women were lying, the charges were dropped because there was zero chance of any conviction given their behaviour. How quickly people forget!

Reasons the women were lying: the first had tweeted and texted about how happy she was to have slept with Assange. She later tried to destroy this evidence after deciding she'd been "raped", a decision that was triggered by meeting another woman he'd also slept with and getting mad she wasn't the one.

The reason Assange went to the embassy after the charges were resurrected is that it was obvious the case was a dud as it has already been dropped due to the hopeless case of the witnesses. So why did Sweden suddenly decide to try again? Assange was right to judge it as being politically motivated.

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