Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#201

Post by HatchedLake721 » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #190

ralfn wrote: post #152

Come on people. We don't have a lot of information to judge on. But if we are having a debate about the meaning of rape, then we are all side stepping the incredible high chance this is politically motivated nonsense. Nobody had ever been extradited for this sort of thing. Sweden is special in that it enabled it based on a testimony, even after the testimony has been revoked and without the victims pressing charges o…

If it were about what America wants, why wouldn’t they just let America extradite him? They already have an extradition request in.

United Kingdom does not extradite people subject to death penalty.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#202

Post by vkou » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

ralfn wrote: post #152

Come on people. We don't have a lot of information to judge on. But if we are having a debate about the meaning of rape, then we are all side stepping the incredible high chance this is politically motivated nonsense. Nobody had ever been extradited for this sort of thing. Sweden is special in that it enabled it based on a testimony, even after the testimony has been revoked and without the victims pressing charges o…

> So please just don't use the word rape and Assange in the same sentence. It's a disservice to actual victims, whistle blowers and our cultural identity as such.

What would you call having sex without a condom with a sleeping person, whom you barely know, when they have not consented to it?

Sorta-rape? Kinda-rape? Minor hooliganism? Did we all forget what the point of consent is, or something?

Or are we using the medieval definition, where it is a one-time-good-for-life sort of thing?

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#203

Post by DanielleMolloy » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #198

PJDK wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think no one has been extradited for this sort of thing? According to the EU there were over 16000 warrants issued in 2015 (the latest number I could find)[0]. And way back in 2009 we were worrying about how easy arrest warrants could be attained and that Poland might be getting extradition happy - going after chicken thieves.[1] Assange is certainly deserving of his day in court - he's the one who did…

16000 warrants for people having sex with their sleeping sex partner without a condom? Did those 16000 also enjoy 16 million pounds of police surveillance and an international man hunt? This is great news. If we continue to invest so much effort in solving the slightest hint of sexual inappropriateness we'll completely eliminate sexual crimes. Perhaps even sex itself.

Also, Ecuador is right now preparing to send all his belongings to the US (not the UK, not Sweden - the US): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19899168

..what a curious case of a "rape prosecution".

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#204

Post by sneak » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

sedeki wrote: post #22

Can someone explain to me why the general public has ”turned” on Assange in the last few years? Is it because Wikileaks revealed those Hillary Clinton emails? And that’s the ”protagonist” party? Or is it the rape accusations initiated in Sweden?

Because the CIA is good at their job. He demonstrated himself to be an enemy of the US any exposing US government crimes, and the US didn’t want to bust into an embassy in London to assassinate him, so this is plan B.

They couldn’t make him dead, so they opted to make him irrelevant instead.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#205

Post by peeters » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #203

blub wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16000 warrants for people having sex with their sleeping sex partner without a condom? Did those 16000 also enjoy 16 million pounds of police surveillance and an international man hunt? This is great news. If we continue to invest so much effort in solving the slightest hint of sexual inappropriateness we'll completely eliminate sexual crimes. Perhaps even sex itself.

Also, Ecuador is right now preparing to send all his belongings to the US (not the UK, not Sweden - the US): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19899168 ..what a curious case of a "rape prosecution".

What makes you think that has anything to do with the "rape prosecution"? The U.S. is not hiding the fact that they're seeking Assange's extradition on conspiracy charges. Don't see what this has to do with the allegations from Sweden.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#206

Post by sneak » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

seanalltogether wrote: post #18

> “His attitude is that he is happy to cooperate with Sweden and that he wants to be interviewed and that he wants to clear his name,” Samuelson told Reuters. He spent how many years on both UK soil and then the Ecuadorean embassy to fight these Swedish allegations and now he's "happy to cooperate". He's imprisoned himself all these years for nothing.

The UN working group on arbitrary detention does not agree with your conclusion:

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#207

Post by kermitismyhero » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #142

sedeki wrote: post #22

Can someone explain to me why the general public has ”turned” on Assange in the last few years? Is it because Wikileaks revealed those Hillary Clinton emails? And that’s the ”protagonist” party? Or is it the rape accusations initiated in Sweden?

I haven't had much respect for Assange long before the Podesta/Clinton emails. WikiLeak's big coup was cablegate, the main revelations of which boil down to "diplomats are very frank about people when they're not speaking in public." At the same time, Assange seemed to want it to be compared to the Pentagon Papers leak, which revealed that the US military was covering up the course of the Vietnam War. Instead cablega…

>WikiLeak's big coup was cablegate

Don't gaslight. Wikileaks' big coup was Collateral Murder, which showed to the entire world how US soldiers enjoy committing war crimes at the behest of senior US military leadership whenever they think they can get away with it.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#208

Post by PJDK » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #198

PJDK wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think no one has been extradited for this sort of thing? According to the EU there were over 16000 warrants issued in 2015 (the latest number I could find)[0]. And way back in 2009 we were worrying about how easy arrest warrants could be attained and that Poland might be getting extradition happy - going after chicken thieves.[1] Assange is certainly deserving of his day in court - he's the one who did…

16000 warrants for people having sex with their sleeping sex partner without a condom? Did those 16000 also enjoy 16 million pounds of police surveillance and an international man hunt? This is great news. If we continue to invest so much effort in solving the slightest hint of sexual inappropriateness we'll completely eliminate sexual crimes. Perhaps even sex itself.

16000 people going through these fairly mundane bit of EU legal procedures. Some of them will have done worse things, but many of them will have done much less worse things (like the aforementioned chicken theft.

What international manhunt? Man runs into embassy escaping bail - police wait outside. What other outcome could there have been?

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#209

Post by repolfx » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #199

duchenne wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel sad, because this is not the right debate to have, and I initiated it. First, I repeat: What he allegedly did is a serious and horrible crime. Also, people need to see the elephant in the room. These two victims' case is weaponized by some governments to scare whistle-blowers. Assange directly or indirectly exposed many horrible crimes, including war rapes, group rapes, mass murders. People need to remember th…

I see no indication that this was “weaponized.” Assange was wanted for questioning in Sweden. He was in the UK and would have been arrested and extradited. This is all completely normal . It went off the rails when he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, which was his own choice. Supposedly he did this because he was afraid that he’d be hauled off to Guantanamo Bay or whatever, but that doesn’t seem to be the cas…

He had already been questioned by police in Sweden prior to that. He even stuck around for a month and then asked the Swedish police if he was free to leave, he was told he was.

The prosecutor dropped the charges because the alleged victims were quite obviously lying about having been raped using any conventional definition of the term, there was also no way to resolve any dispute about whether someone was asleep when sex happened, and they would never reach the level of "beyond reasonable doubt" by any jury as a consequence.

The charges were later mysteriously resurrected by a different prosecutor so he could be questioned again. Or maybe it's not such a mystery after all. Either Sweden is doing as the USA asked for some convoluted reasons, or the Swedish justice system is a complete joke when the R word gets involved.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#210

Post by peeters » Mon, May 13, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #167

duxup wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>would be used as an excuse to extradite him to the US That makes no sense. Sweeden does not extradite people for political crimes and espionage is considered a political crime in Sweeden. His chance of being extradited to the US for espionage from Sweeden was extremely low from the start ... and going to the UK out of fear of being extradited to the US makes no sense considering UK and US relations.

I’m sure that Assange saw it differently, because otherwise he wouldn’t have trapped himself in an embassy for years.

Well at this risk of being a mouthpiece for a propaganda machine, the other option is that he took refuge in an embassy for years so that he would appear to be a political martyr as he escaped justice for rape.