It's not torture if you can leave at any time. He wasn't being held in the embassy, he was hiding there.
It's not torture if you can shot in the head at any time.
Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
161–170 of 784 posts
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#162It's not torture if you can leave at any time. He wasn't being held in the embassy, he was hiding there.
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…
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Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#163Worth 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…
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 an Australian citizen.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do think it's likely that, assault or not, Assange behaved in an unaceptable way toward these women. He has often been quoted mentioning that he has children all over the world with various women. Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character. If true, his attitude reminds me of Jeff Epstein's plan to "seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnanting a bunch of women on a ranch he owned. These people se…
>"Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character." You provide zero evidence for that naked assertion. > it's not all propaganda. If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the le…
> If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the legal process. Substance is everything. What seems like a strong lack of it here, stinks.
What I'm doing is what you're doing and what everyone should do: synthesize information into an opinion. I don't claim knowledge, but I have a model of the world, of how people act, and I'm feeding various information into that model and using it to generate an opinion. You have a different model and you've generated a different opinion. That's fine. But to conclude that people can't form certain opinions absent evidence is naive. Human beings are not courts of law.
I made no comment about whether Assange should be convicted in a court of law. I only said that I think he did something wrong and that, if I'm right, I see his behavior as representative of a pattern wherein certain people view themselves as above normative morality.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the alternative is potential death or at least more torture for the rest of your life it's not really a choice.
Sweden doesn't have a death penalty. If it did, UK law would not allow extradition to Sweden.
I'm not talking about Sweden. The charges in Sweden never mattered besides being a way for him to be extradited to the U.S.
The U.S. does have the death penalty, and it would be on the table if the U.S. didn't tell the U.K. he won't get it. It's still possible that the U.S. lied of course.
Either way, he'll likely be put in prison in the U.S. for the rest of his life.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#166Worth 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…
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.
He’s being held in a maximum-security prison in solitary confinement. That is torture.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, but then any criminal on the lamb is being tortured? If someone jumps bail, we should just leave them alone, so we don't traumatize then? All criminals are being tortured (these same things happen in prison). I don't agree with how all this was handled, but I think we're being a bit rediculous here.
>> All criminals are being tortured (these same things happen in prison) If you are talking about US Prisions then there is a Good Case to be made that is true. The Treatment of Prisioners in the US is abhorrent
He could have made this point to the British legal system in an effort to avoid deportation. But instead he fled that process and doomed himself by biasing the entire British legal system against him.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the alternative is potential death or at least more torture for the rest of your life it's not really a choice.
Sweden doesn't have a death penalty. If it did, UK law would not allow extradition to Sweden.
It doesn't work quite like that. People can be extradited to countries that have death penalty, as long as the country gives guarantees that death penalty (or other cruel punishment) will not be applied. Thus it is possible for a person to be extradited to U.S. for a murder committed in the U.S., but the death penalty is then not possible.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#169He 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…
I agree with what you say and still support him. This has nothing to do with his personality and everything to do with the fact that a free press is more important than any one of the particular things you stated.
Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation
#170So he still gets almost another full year in a UK jail. After that, where can he go? Let's just say he's somehow successful at avoiding US extradition (unlikely), he's not going to be able to stay in the UK (unless he has dual citizenship or can somehow claim dual citizenship through a relative). He'd have to request asylum from another European nation that he can safety get to without flying. Australia did little to…
why doesn't australia protect its citizens?
Apparently, "The Commonwealth will not extradite or deport a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they might face the death penalty"