Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't do that.
He doesn’t deserve a better response. People who don’t support Assange can get fucked.
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Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
281–290 of 784 posts
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
I understand you feel Swedish law is too harsh on this, but surely that is besides the point since Assange was in Sweden at the time of the alleged crime? It doesn't really matter if his actions qualifies as rape in any other country or not if they do in Sweden (which was for the courts to decide).
indeed. i m only sayint that it wasn't 'sexual assault' charges, but rape
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Whistleblowers do not deserve to be in prison. Exposing war crimes is good.
Whistleblowing is a focused revelation of wrongdoing.
Scraping the secret-classified documents of the State Department, handing them over to a foreign organization, and saying "You'll make the best use of this, I trust you" isn't whistleblowing. At best, it's irresponsible; at worst, it's irresponsibility that walks right up to the edge of malicious treason. I'm very glad Manning wasn't convicted of treason, because she got dangerously close to it (apparently, her crimes are treason-equivalent in Canada).
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, the old “he was free to leave anytime” argument. No. He wasn’t. Yes, technically, he was free to leave, but arguing that is ignoring the fact that leaving would mean jail. It’s victim blaming. Would you say a victim of Stockholm Syndrome is “free to leave at any time”? No, because that’s a ridiculous argument. Would you say Snowden is “free to leave [Russia] at any time”? No! So why is it an acceptable argument w…
But that line of thinking doesn’t make sense to me … Just for the sake of argument, say you are a bank robber who successfully barricaded yourself somewhere (really uncomfortable) where police cannot reach you. You are then free to leave at any time, but would be arrested as soon as you did. Would you really argue that police would have to drop the case to avoid torturing you? Your line of thinking seems to presuppos…
In your example, the bank robber was free to leave a prison of their own making for the confines of another prison, or perhaps be shot and die.
That was Assange's choice: a prison in the UK, or a prison in the USA. He didn't feel that the USA would either be safe or provide a fair trial, and so he stayed put.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
>He chose conditions that were arguably worse in most respects but one (access to communication/internet) than a Swedish prison. Are Nordic prisoners allowed to walk out the front door wheneever they choose? Last time I checked, prison required removing freedom. You have to 'escape' prison, not walk out the front door. Just saying, this bad rationalization only works on people biased towards Julian and looking to exc…
> Here's the killer point: if Nordic prisons are better, why didn't Julian stay there instead? Because he was worried about the US finding some flimsy justification to extradite him (an Australian citizen) and prosecute him locally. Fears which, apparently, were justified.
And I must say, it is bitter to have been called paranoid for years for saying US would extradite him. Or for talking about ECHELON for years and see it go from "you are crazy" to "everyone knows every country does that" after Snowden.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#286Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
Ok, but that still doesn't have anything to do with the United States
Sure.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#288Earlier 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…
Would that we all had the luxury of the ability to skip bail on charges we believed were fake, yeah?
We'd also likely not have had the charges leveled upon us in the first place.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the "entire intelligence community is deflated Anything that makes the intelligence community deflated is a good thing.
Unless it means that those attacks that the intelligence community prevented will take place.
Odds are pretty high the intelligence community has resulted in more attacks on America than it has prevented.