In 2012 a journalist is persecuted in this way. I never would have expected this to happen.
UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
191–200 of 287 posts
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
That part, jumping bail by walking into an embassy, isn't all that unusual. China is worried enough about it that they sometimes shadow politically sensitive detainees who're out on bail to make sure they don't get close to any western embassies in Beijing.
Do the Chinese who might seek asylum also wait until the Court rules against them?
I assume that would be a common trigger! Until that point, they may hope to be acquitted and not have to flee the country. For example, Chen Guangcheng escaped house arrest and fled to the U.S. embassy. The Chinese were not happy about that, and applied pressure, but they didn't send police into the embassy.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#193This looks like a raw smear against Assange. Would be interesting to know the political pressures being brought to bear on the Swedish prosecutor's office.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#194I some how now expect loads of people turning up in anonymous masks outside the embassy with a group of people leaving also in aformentioned masks. There then ensues a combination of the Thomas Crown Affair and a Benny Hill sketch. Now that possible outcome aside I do wonder if there are more important clear-cut cases of people in the UK wanted for questioning regarding crimes in Switzerland. I'm tending to think tha…
Based on Twitter chatter, Anonymous is indeed gathering supporters in Britain outside the Ecuadorian embassy as we speak.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#195If the UK really is threatening that, then that is more evidence that the Swedish charges are politically motivated rather than being from an actual crime.
Or he is someone who flees from serious charges and the British authorities don’t want to look like idiots in front of the whole world because they can’t do something simple like extradite him. Why is there this willingness to believe everything this idiot says? He’s a pompous ass, pure and simple. No conspiracy required. Meanwhile the idea of an anonymous leaks platform dies because everyone focuses on his stupid an…
Lets take into account that invading an embassy is a rare occurrence (happened once that I know of), that it's largely regarded as somewhat hostile towards the nation that owns that embassy and the whole "bad precedent" thing.
Being afraid of "looking like idiots" doesn't seem like a very plausible explanation for invading an embassy.
I doubt the rest of the world would think British authorities were incompetent for wanting to avoid an international incident. Nor is forcing an embassy to release an asylum seeker something "simple".
I doubt that Assange being a "pompous ass" is what's killing the anonymous leaks platform idea. Rather I would say that the relentless pursuit of everyone involved in such leaks and their infrastructure as well as lack of support from traditional media are probably to blame for it.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do the Chinese who might seek asylum also wait until the Court rules against them?
I assume that would be a common trigger! Until that point, they may hope to be acquitted and not have to flee the country. For example, Chen Guangcheng escaped house arrest and fled to the U.S. embassy. The Chinese were not happy about that, and applied pressure, but they didn't send police into the embassy.
Chen was neither charged with a crime nor was he serving a sentence at the time he fled.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#197this is an outrage!
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might note that despite the way thesestatements are worded, neither women claimed to have been raped or sexually assaulted. Neither filed or asked to file charges. One of the women are now refusing to sign any past statements regarding the case. The other appears to have left Sweden. At tehe time prosecutor reviewed the statements and made it clear the full statements did not imply a crime had taken place. Both s…
Unfortunately, it's all too easy to intimidate victims of rape into not cooperating with attempts at prosecution. If the prosecutor has no case, though, Assange has nothing to fear going to Sweden. Even if the US could extradite him, they could do it from the UK just as easily as from Sweden. Also: > woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent By definition that's rape.
> If the prosecutor has no case, though, Assange has nothing to fear going to Sweden. Even if the US could extradite him, they could do it from the UK just as easily as from Sweden
I disagree. If the prosecutor has no case, Assange has - rightfully or not - every reason to wonder why they are pursuing him in this manner, and every reason to then worry about what the underlying motivation is. He might be more paranoid than justified in how he interprets it, but if I was in his shoes and a prosecutor acted the way the Swedish prosecutor has in this case, and I knew I hadn't done anything wrong (or thought I hadn't), I'd be worried something was up and be far more concerned about that than a potential Swedish jail sentence.
If the prosecutor actually has a case, Assange presumably knows he did what is claimed, and in that case he would have more reason to believe early on that his "worst case" scenario might be a very short stay in a low security, comfortable Swedish prison - the crimes he is wanted for questioning about have very short sentencing guidelines in Sweden.
In terms of extradition, if I was him I'd not be so concerned about legal, above board extradition. I would be concerned about the fact that Sweden has admitted to, and have been censured by the UN for, having violated their own laws as well as international treaties to participate in rendition arranged by the US of two Egyptians to Egypt where they were subsequently tortured. If they were willing to do that with some relatively low level targets, at the behest of the US, then there is every reason to worry they'd be willing to be "flexible" about giving Assange to the US.
The odds of them taking the political fallout from that in this case might be small, but then this is not just about what Assange might objectively have reason to fear - a lot of it boils down to what his actual, subjective fears are. I see little reason to doubt that Assange personally genuinely fear the US is after him and that he believes he is important enough that given its past history with rendition that Sweden might very well be easy to push into handing over him too.
He might very well make irrational choices because of that fear without there being any implication of guilt behind those choices.
Then again, he might also be guilty and just not want to face it.
Point is, this isn't nearly as clear cut as some would like to think it is.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#199How rapidly people forget their history. Britain has a specific law on the subject because of an incident that occurred in Britain within my memory, a shooting of a police officer from within the grounds of the Libyan embassy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher No, harboring Julian Assange is not just like shooting at police officers outside the embassy, but preventing the host country from contin…
There's a Bob Dylan song called "Julius and Ethel". What is he singing about?
Julius and Ethel are the young couple who were executed for espionage in 1953. This was at the height of McCarthyism. Most of us agree McCarthy was a little, ahem, extreme. It's an interesting story and younger readers should check it out. Was Ethel Rosenberg really a spy? What did she do? The Wikipedia page has some links to further reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Rosenberg
Reading over the BBC's timeline of the Assange case really leaves one in a state of bewilderment. The "rape" story was shared with between two women and then with a journalist? The allegations were dropped. Then reinstated? He's being extradicted for some allegations? Allegations, not charges. And those have nothing to do with leaking documents and espionage? WTF?
Are all the newspapers innocent in this? They spread the cables far and wide. It took more than just a disillusioned private and some nerds sniffing Tor exit nodes. The papers are still attracting readers and advertising dollars using this whole incident as a catapult.
The whole thing is really bizarre if you come at it objectively.
Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The notion that once a woman is naked and in someone's bed, they have the right to do whatever they want to her regardless of her consent I never said that. Quote me where I said that. You can't. > It outright justifies rape. I never said that. Quote me where I said that. Again, you can't. I'm very careful with my wording. You are probably falling into the trap of getting emotional about something that wasn't said,…
> I never said that. Quote me where I said that. You can't. I never claimed you did say that. But you introduced the notion as something "one could argue", and the only thing I'm attacking is that notion, not you personally. That's more than you can say for yourself, incidentally. That you took it personally says far more about you than it does me. When one puts forward a notion on the basis of "one could argue", som…
"But you introduced the notion as something"
You keep spooning these words into his mouth but no he didn't ever say them. You think they are equivalent to what he said but they are not. What he said was 'X is arguably not rape'. That doesn't mean 'X is ok'. That means exactly what it says.