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UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

bbc.co.uk

221–230 of 287 posts

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#221
post #153

How 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…

Since 9/11 the USA has shown that it does not follow the civil rules of law for non-citizens. Obama's DOJ has convened a secret grand jury investigating Assange under the Espionage Act[1]. Joe Biden has called him a terrorist [2]. Others have called for his assassination [3]. Sweden was involved in the CIA's illegal rendition program and sent people to be tortured in Egypt[4]. Assange has every reason to fear for his…

I'm amused by the notion that Assange has to somehow be extradited to Sweden if the CIA is going to rendition him. The CIA renditions people by kidnapping them off the street. They can do that in London just as well as anywhere else in the world. If the CIA wanted to rendition Assange, Assange would have been renditioned by now. The whole Sweden business would only get in the way of a rendition, not facilitate it.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#222
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he's not being shielded from any charges. The extradition request is for questioning ; he simply hasn't been charged yet . It's his story that, upon extradition to Sweden, the Swedes will turn around and hand him over to the US to be Gitmo'ed with extreme prejudice, but that's all it is thus far: his story. That said, it's certainly plausible; he's mightily pissed off the US government, which does seem to have a…

> Personally, I'd vastly prefer he not be subject to "extraordinary rendition" If he was subject to extraordinary rendition, they'd have him by now. That's the whole point of extraordinary rendition.

> If he was subject to extraordinary rendition, they'd have him by now. That's the whole point of extraordinary rendition.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how well-protected and cautious he is, and how much cooperation the renditors can get from the local government.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? I'm not saying that anyone is correct because they are being smeared. I assert no connection between your smears and the alleged smear campaign against Assange, and I certainly am not saying that your smears in any way vindicate the accusations of those who you are smearing. I'm just saying it is amusing. Well, not really amusing; that is the wrong word. There is nothing amusing about accusing somebody of "al…

There's nothing amusing about the remark that "one could argue that 'sex without a condom' with a naked woman already in bed with you by her own will is not rape". The notion being put forth is a justification of rape, and "one could argue" is a way of rhetorically evading responsibility for putting the notion forward.

I am going to have to agree with Steko here. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389438)

That is not a justification of rape. You could argue that that it conveys some sort of implied approval (and I am likely to disagree there, unless you can come up with a better supporting argument than namecalling) but it is not a justification.

Now, before you decide to accuse me of justifying rape as well, allow me to state this explicitly: I do not approve of the actions as portrayed in that narrative.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#224
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for being another voice of reason in this discussion

The thing is, I don't even like the guy. Wikileaks is fantastic, but we can credit him for his involvement with that without whitewashing the person. Even if I were to only accept the parts his own lawyers have conceded, the statements do paint the picture of someone who is quite a bit of an asshole. Maybe he is a bit of a misogynist, though I think it's more likely he is "just" a bit narcissistic and didn't really t…

Doesn't it seem like Assange has introduced most of the weirdness himself? Lots of people run into legal trouble overseas. Most of them don't hide in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#225
post #204
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire idea of charging Assange with espionage against the United States is ridiculous - he owes no duty to that nation. What's next, Russia demanding the extradition of CIA analysts so that they can be charged with revealing Russia's state secrets while working at a desk in Virginia?

That is if the world treated US as a reasonable actor bound by laws and respecting human rights etc. (all the propaganda that it like to spew about itself). Its actions have shown in the last 10+ years that is not the case. It has detained, tortured and killed people extra-judicially. Even its own citizens. Making any appeals to the the quality of it judicial process is a bit silly at the moment. So in other words it…

Let's not jump to conclusions here. The US hasn't done anything to Assange.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#226
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In context, the notion put forward is this: it's arguably not rape to have unprotected sex with someone who refuses consent to have unprotected sex with you, as long as you've already got them naked and in bed with you. I'm not sure you can classify that notion as a harmless technicality. And if you leave out the part about the woman refusing consent, then it's a non-sequitur anyway.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#227
post #204
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire idea of charging Assange with espionage against the United States is ridiculous - he owes no duty to that nation. What's next, Russia demanding the extradition of CIA analysts so that they can be charged with revealing Russia's state secrets while working at a desk in Virginia?

That is if the world treated US as a reasonable actor bound by laws and respecting human rights etc. (all the propaganda that it like to spew about itself). Its actions have shown in the last 10+ years that is not the case. It has detained, tortured and killed people extra-judicially. Even its own citizens. Making any appeals to the the quality of it judicial process is a bit silly at the moment. So in other words it…

   There is little doubt it was the Russians
There is a lot of doubt.

The most obvious suspect is oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a London refugee from Russia, accused of embezzlement at home, who is waging a fierce propaganda war with the current Russian government.

http://www.rt.com/news/berezovsky-litvinenko-murder-allegati...

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#228

I strongly advise anyone who isn't familiar with English law (so, you know, most people here) to actually read what lawyers have to say about the matter. There is a very good legal analysis here: http://www.headoflegal.com/2012/08/15/julian-assange-can-the... Whenever I see a story here about Julian Assange I just sigh. I don't understand how on the one hand people can be absolutely appalled when stories about sexism…

For starters, the women did not make these accusations. A prosecutor have.

This distinction is worth making. At no point did these women go to the police and claim that Assange had raped them - not even the Swedish prosecution has made the claim they did. They did go to the police and ask questions that someone at the police then decided to interpret as indicating that a crime might have taken place, and start an investigation.

They then were interviewed, in situations that subsequent reports indicate may have been blatant violations of police procedure - no recording was apparently made, one of the police officers involved was allegedly a friend of one of the witnesses.

The results were statements that have not been formally released, nor been verified or scrutinized by anyone independent.

What is allegedly the police reports were on the other hand illegally leaked to a Swedish newspaper, and Assanges name was confirmed by authorities in conjunction with the case in blatant violation of Swedish police procedures. But we don't even know if the leaked police reports are accurate or final copies.

Subsequent to the investigation, the first prosecutor to get involved in the case looked at the police reports and decided they indicated that no crime had taken part.

What is allegedly descriptions supported by the contents of these statements was then used in the arrest warrants formulated by a second prosecutor that stepped in in a highly unusual move and reopened the investigation.

The reasons for why she stepped in to reopen just this case, despite how unusual it is to do so when another prosecutor has closed the case, has not at any point been explained.

In retrospect, it is now also being alleged that one of the women is refusing to sign statements about the case at all.

In other words, so far we don't even know what the women actually said to the police.

What we know is the content of a highly unusual and highly illegal leak to a Swedish newspaper, and how one prosecutor has chosen to interpret their words in an arrest warrant written with the express purpose of ensuring that a UK court would extradite Assange to the UK.

We do know one prosecutor found the police investigation had not found any evidence that any crime had taken place at all, and another found it did. We do know there are a lot of open questions about how the statements were collected, and about lack of documentation. We do have reason to question whether at least one of the women is willing to put her name behind the police interpretation of what she said. We don't know whether they made any actual allegations that amount to any crimes.

Maybe it is all accurate, and perhaps he is guilty. But it isn't even remotely clear whether or not there even should be a case to answer.

> They may not be true, but the truthfulness of the allegations is outside the scope of an extradition.

That is true, and it is not surprising that UK courts ordered the extradition.

But the real issue here is also not whether there is a genuine reason for a UK court to approve an extradition, but whether or not there is something going on that gives reason to be concerned that these accusations are not the full story.

Especially in a case where the Swedish prosecution have had a year or so to interview him in London, yet have chosen not to while claiming they can't. At the same time, somehow Swedish police has been able to go off to Poland to interview two suspected Polish murderers about a double homicide.

So either Swedish police has just risked messing up a double homicide case, or the Swedish prosecutor in the Assange case is at best misinformed about something she ought to know about, at worst being intentionally deceptive.

Even if we don't buy the US extradition idea, this is still a strange situation. The argument that they somehow need him on Swedish soil is nonsense - Swedish police provably regularly conduct interviews outside of Sweden, and you can provably be charged and tried in absentia in Sweden, despite many claims to the contrary.

So why does the Swedish prosecutor resist taking up evidence in a rape case for a year while making claims about why she is not that can not be supported by fact?

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#229
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, I don't even like the guy. Wikileaks is fantastic, but we can credit him for his involvement with that without whitewashing the person. Even if I were to only accept the parts his own lawyers have conceded, the statements do paint the picture of someone who is quite a bit of an asshole. Maybe he is a bit of a misogynist, though I think it's more likely he is "just" a bit narcissistic and didn't really t…

Doesn't it seem like Assange has introduced most of the weirdness himself? Lots of people run into legal trouble overseas. Most of them don't hide in the Ecuadorian embassy.

The vast majority of this weirdness preceded his decision to hide in the Ecuadorian embassy. In fact, the vast majority of it took place even before the arrest warrant was issued, and by the time of the initial extradition decision the prosecutor had continued to make it worse by refusing even more offers of interviewing Assange while making excuses for why she can't that are directly contradicted by Swedish authorities behaviour in other recent cases.

Re: UK threaten to enter Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Julian Assange

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And neither is Assange, on both counts.
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