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Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

reuters.com

301–310 of 377 posts

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#301
post #292

Assange himself and the rape charges have been politicized to such an extent that I find it essentially meaningless to pontificate about what may or may not have happened in Sweden. His character has been debated endlessly, but when one thinks of what WikiLeaks has actually revealed, I find it totally likely that a systematic effort was made to curtail him: https://twitter.com/SomersetBean/status/1116916146458877952/…

If we ever saw a successful CIA operation this is it. I bet in twenty years we'll be reading how it was all organized.

It usually takes longer on average until closed CIA documents gets released to public (if ever). There are still some unreleased JFK files.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to be said that many other journalists who reported on war crimes (including collaborating with Wikileaks on Manning stories) are entirely safe and well and have not been accused of rape.

The US hasn't asked for their extradition for conspiracy either, and yet they have for Assange. Unless being accused of raping women in Sweden causes the US to do that, there must also be some other difference between Assange and those other journalists.

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Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#303

Flagging this because I can't handle the HN discussion on the nature of rape from first principles.

Same. What a disaster of a thread.

I think it would be great if we could avoid Assange threads here on HN. Nothing good will come out of it.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#305
post #299
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be clear on your definitions. Rape is sex with a person who does not consent. Period. What Assange is accused of is rape. Anyone who thinks otherwise should get a reality check and realize that there is no shade of grey here. Her body, her rules. Have sex without her consent, and that is rape. Having sex without birth control with someone who didn't consent to that specific activity is legally rape in both the…

>Having sex without birth control with someone who didn't consent to that specific activity is legally rape in both the UK and Sweden. I don't think it is that clear in Sweden at least. Especially not if you just say birth control, i.e. what if I woman says she is on the pill and we have sex and it turns out she lied? I don't think she would get a rape charge. I think it is also likely that someone in Sweden would ge…

I have no evidence that you're wrong.

I know that the UK court which agreed to extradite him concluded that, under UK law, removing the condom was rape. But I'm not as familiar with the actual Swedish charges.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone consents to have sex only on the condition of protection from disease and pregnancy, and you trick them into sex without a condom that is rape. There may be differences of degrees to the stereotypical violent behind-the-bushes rape. Those should and would be considered for purposes of sentencing. But it's still rape.

> If someone consents to have sex only on the condition of protection from disease and pregnancy I had sex with a girl who lied about being on birth control. Was I raped?

In some places, the law would call that "rape by deception".

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#307
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. What a disaster of a thread.

I think it would be great if we could avoid Assange threads here on HN. Nothing good will come out of it.

It would be better if we had a community here that could handle discussing topics like this in a sensitive and respectful way.

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#308
post #220
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This recent development in English law strikes me as inhuman. It turns the kissing of a sleeping lover into a violent sexual assault. Passion and spontaneity become criminalized.

The observable goal of these policies is maximal license for women's sexuality and maximal suppression of men's sexuality. This isn't a normative statement, it's a descriptive one, so please don't take offense and if my description is incorrect then provide examples of, say, a woman being convicted of rape because she lied about being on birth control.

This is over the line and breaks the HN guideline against taking threads further into generic flamewar. Please don't do that. This somewhat-specific flamewar is bad enough as it is.

Also, please stop using HN for ideological battle. We've given you a ton of warnings about that already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're trying to hand-wave this away by using language like "alleged sleep-sex-offenders" and "having sex with their sleeping sex partner without a condom". If this falls under the definition of rape in Sweden then the extradition request is for just that - a charge of rape. This is a very serious crime. Whether you agree with their definition or not doesn't really affect the legality or validity of…

Here's the longest most explicit story on the incident I could find. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange... It definitely paints a picture of him being a dirtbag but I don't know if this would even be illegal in the U.S. or what people would conventionally describe as rape.

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Re: Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extradition

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in England and Sweden, it is definitely the case that one cannot consent if one is not conscious, and therefore consent has not been given, therefore an offence has been committed. I believe this is true in the US as well. Consent has to be given prior to each occurrence, and therefore prior consent means nothing about future consent. See, for example, the High Court judgment (linked elsewhere in this thread…

>England Buy a sleep penetration license :)

Not here please.
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