Earlier quoted context omitted.
"free country"... oxymoron of the century by now...
What would you define a "free country" as?
One that doesn't suspend all freedoms and human rights when the magical word "terrorism" is invoked.
Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
231–240 of 784 posts
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would you define a "free country" as?
Among other things, one would certainly have to exclude any country which engages in the mass collection and permanent storage of all of its citizens' communications.
What if the population was ok with that / didn't care?
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find the idea of the threat of prosecution in a free country as a form of "torture" a bit questionable. It's something, but i'm not sure I agree with calling that torture.
What makes you think making up charges and constantly threatening to destroy you are not extremely stressful. He has a family too that he's been unable to see properly for a long while. Is his only current crime skipping bail on charges he believed were fake? Clearly, facing deportation to the US is problematic for a number of reasons, mostly that it's impossible for even Snowden to get a fair trial there, let alone…
many people claim that they are only skipping bail because they believe the charges are fake, but do they really believe that?
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#234By the way, Chelsea Manning (the actual leaker) has been in jail for just over 6 months - again - for refusing to testify in the Assange extradition case. If you're so inclined, send something to her legal defense fund: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/chelsea-manning-needs-...
Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years, but her sentence was commuted by Obama in part because she was transgender. She deserves to be in prison. https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/chelsea-manning-sent... President Barack Obama on Tuesday overruled his secretary of defense to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents…
That casts a large shadow on the intelligence community if true.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#235Worth mentioning that Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, visited Assange and described his treatment as psychological torture: > “It was obvious that Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years,” the expert said. “Most importantly, in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for…
He confined himself to a room. He skipped bail and was on the lam.
Ridiculous for the UN to qualify this as the UK state torturing him - it denigrates the reputation of the UN.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think making up charges and constantly threatening to destroy you are not extremely stressful. He has a family too that he's been unable to see properly for a long while. Is his only current crime skipping bail on charges he believed were fake? Clearly, facing deportation to the US is problematic for a number of reasons, mostly that it's impossible for even Snowden to get a fair trial there, let alone…
"are not extremely stressful." That's not torture.
> The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, visited Assange and described his treatment as psychological torture.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#237Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to be both unfairly targeted by a superpower and commit sexual assault, one doesn't cancel out the other. I'm not saying he did, I don't know how any of us could know. You seem quite confident he didn't though, I'm curious what you base that on.
the charges were of 'rape' (not sexual assault), as it is defined in sweden. I m pretty sure these charges don't qualify as rape in most other countries: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-ass...
Having sex with an unconscious (due to sleep) woman counts as rape in the UK. Only the UK and Sweden's laws matter when extraditing between those countries.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#239He is an odious figure who has been improperly deified. I'm not sure why folks love his self-aggrandizing, reckless behavior. The guy helped Russia destabilize the globe, resulting in our current geopolitical situation, for his own selfish goals rather than any other. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate released information exposing bad behavior by governments (Snowden, etc). Just not this guys selfishness and cooperati…
>The guy helped Russia destabilize the globe, resulting in our current geopolitical situation
Who still thinks Russia is most responsible for destabilizing the globe? Did you miss some history classes or haven't your heard yet of the USA?
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
>he exposed himself to Did you miss what happened to him when he was arrested? He's now being tortured even more. He put himself there, for his safety, and to think he did it 'just because' is wildly ridiculous.
No, and I do in fact think his most recent incarceration at least borders on torture. But I also think claiming that someone is torturing you while you’ve locked yourself in a room trying to evade questioning in a criminal investigation is ridiculous.
To be fair, he wasn't just evading "questioning", the fact that he isn't being extradited to Sweden and they are dropping the case makes this more obvious in my opinion