WikiLeaks' Assange in Ecuador embassy London: Seeks political asylum

Did you read the article I linked to, Corbin? Do you agree that the only rational explanation for the multiple departures from normal procedure, and the law itself, is political manipulation of this process?

And it's clear you do care about Assange. The things I don't care about I don't post about.

Also, I apologise for the disablist language.

Michelle wrote:

I do get that it's possible this was a set up.  I get it. 

I know there's an impulse to give the benefit of the doubt, but I don't buy it. Not a bit. In order for that to be the case those two women would have to be lying, and based on what I have read I seriously doubt that. Aside from the other things he is accused of. if he had simply complied with a fair request to get an STD test none of this would have happened.

That doesn't mean that I think Assange should wind up executed because of what he may have done. But really do we have to pretend that the real world is some vaudeville show where the Imperialists are Snidely Whiplash and everyone else is pure as the driven snow?

I'm not pointing the finger at you Michelle, because yes, we all want to be open to that benefit of the doubt. What I have a problem with is the inability of some to accept that sometimes people can do good work and still do horrible things, and to blame everything on "enemies" and not hold those who we think are alies accountable for their actions.

The flip side of this, of course, is that when people do things we disagree with that doesn't automatically make them pariahs either.

The idea that Assange is fleeing sex allegations, not extradition to the US, requires a big dose of msm narcotics , or a lack of attention to the myriad details of the case and the multi-state involvement.

Either that, or an ideological belief that whatever happens to someone who is merely acussed (not charged ) of sex crimes against women deserves whatever he gets, even if it is it nothing to do with putative offense and could easily result in lifelong imprisonment in torture-level conditions.

I have read pretty extensively on the actual allegations (no charges yet) against Assange, and I am not sure that even under the unusually pro-active sex crime laws of Sweden, Assange would be found guilty (should he ever be charged). Even in the worst case scenario for Assange, in Sweden the pattern of sentencing usually involves electronic monitoring which would hardly match his risky and life-limiting request for asylum.

I would like to see the domestic criminal Swedish law play out it's hand with Assange--and should the state eventually feel the case strong enough to lay charges, have his day in court.
Without being a mindreader or particularly naive, I'd suggest, that for simply pragmatic reasons (apart from ethical) Assange would too.
That is born out by his long time repeated requests for interviews by Swedish investigators (which they requested, but rebuffed) and his request guarantees from Sweden (which they have granted in other cases) that he would not be extradited to a third country (which they have also rebuffed, now conclusively) should he submit to their custody.

But those who endorse Assanges asylum are asked by others to ignore the OVERWHEMING evidence that these allegations of sex crime (whether true are not) are being used as pretext to facilitate US extradition. Instead they are being smeared as complicit in crimes against women--shameful.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Fotheringay-Phipps wrote:

No nation can ever have entirely clean hands, and Mr Assange is probably desperate, but Ecuador isn't exactly a fount of free information. The President, Rafael Correa, took the newspaper El Universo to court a few years back when they published critical comment, and managed to secure jail sentences and multi-million dollar fines against the editors. I remember at the time there was some concern that the newspaper might not survive. It appears to be thriving online at least, and the harsher penalties were remitted recently, but Correa remains an equivocal champion of free speech.

So Ecuador's Conrad Black got sent to jail. Too bad so sad....

Actually, almost immediately Correa pardoned those that the Supreme Court found guilty of libel, and also nullified the massive fine levied against them (not a pattern followed by many western politicians in their libel cases against journos).

However, the now widespread vilification of Ecuador, and by gleeful association, Assange is well dismantled by Glen Greenwald in his article today in the Guardian:

[quote]Apparently, activists should only seek asylum from countries with pristine human rights records, whichever countries those might be: a newly concocted standard that was conspicuously missing during the saga of blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng at the US embassy; I don't recall any western media outlets accusing Guangcheng of hypocrisy for seeking refuge from a country that indefinitely imprisons people with no charges, attacked Iraq, assassinates its own citizens with no due process on the secret orders of the president, bombs funerals and rescuers in Pakistan, uses extreme force and mass arrests to try to obliterate the peaceful Occupy protest movement, wages an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, prosecutes its Muslim citizens for posting YouTube videos critical of US foreign policy, embraces and arms the world's most oppressive regimes, and imprisoned Muslim journalists for years at Guantánamo and elsewhere with no charges of any kind..../quote]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/21/human-rights-critics...

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Seems a bit harsh to me. And frankly, I'd expect anyone who has ever refered to our govenrment as authoritarian or anti-democratic might be inclined to agree.

Criminal Code wrote:

Definition

• 298. (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.

• Marginal note:Mode of expression

  (2) A defamatory libel may be expressed directly or by insinuation or irony

  • (a) in words legibly marked on any substance; or

  • (b) by any object signifying a defamatory libel otherwise than by words.

• R.S., c. C-34, s. 262.

Marginal note:Publishing

299. A person publishes a libel when he

• (a) exhibits it in public;

• (b) causes it to be read or seen; or

• (c) shows or delivers it, or causes it to be shown or delivered, with intent that it should be read or seen by the person whom it defames or by any other person.

• R.S., c. C-34, s. 263.

Marginal note:Punishment of libel known to be false

300. Every one who publishes a defamatory libel that he knows is false is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

• R.S., c. C-34, s. 264.

Your objection is duly noted. With that strong a view on the subject I expect it is something you are working hard to get changed in Canada.

"And frankly, I'd expect anyone who has ever" is really a great way to engage in discourse.  In my face just a bit my friend?

Freedom of expression does not include the right to falsely accuse a politician of murder.  I don't believe that character assassination is a proper way to conduct any civic affairs.  You and the Koch brothers seem to share the same views on the media, I don't believe that might and money are the only things that should define democratic. 

I'll bet if you ran for office and your opponent put out pamphlets calling you a pedophile and falsely saying you had met with a 11 year old boy it would bother you just a bit and you might even think a retraction was in order.  Go ahead prove you have never met with an 11 year old boy to seduce him. Unless of course you believe that since you are innocent the truth will come out and voters will just ignore the claim and believe you. I'd rather not that be the level of discourse in my ideal political system.

Bec.De.Corbin wrote:

Yes' I've read it, it's been posted on rabble before. I’m not dismissing it but I also think that is part of “his” side of the story.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Nothing in the article relies on Assange's version of events or even mentions them. It is an examination of the facts of how these proceedings against him have been undertaken based on Naomi Wolf's own research and how they compare with her personal experiences over decades of reporting on sex crimes and working in rape crisis centers. His side of the story is not part of the article. She simply notes that throughout her considerable experience in these matters, she has never before seen these repeated abberations in the pursuance of a conviction, and in fact, several of the abberations actually make a conviction significantly less likely, being outright illegal. The only rational conclusion is the one she comes to: that none of this is being done to lay charges or to gain a conviction. It is a mere smokescreen to create a means by which Assange's political enemies can lay their hands on him.

Quote:

I also think he needs to answer up to the questions in Sweden, in Sweden. I believe they want him there because they want to be able to arrest and charge him if they don’t like his answers (he may already know this).

This also makes entirely no sense. He does not have to be in Sweden for them to ask him questions. He has offered several times to be interviewed and has been repeatedly turned down, and yet they persist in saying they want him for questioning. Questioning they refuse to undertake. That this doesn't strike you as suspicious makes me seriously doubt your capacity for critical thinking. He also doesn't need to be in Sweden for them to lay charges against him if they don't like his answers, and it is obvious that laying actual charges (charges that were already dismissed once, you might recall) would give much-needed credibility to their demands to take him into custody. If they believed that questioning him would lead to credible charges they would do it, as it would help their cause immensely, and yet they refuse. The rational conclusion is that they know that questioning won't lead to charges and have no intention of questioning him at all.  

Quote:

I really wish the USA would say they are not going to extradite Assange. Like I’ve posted here I really don’t think they have a strong case ageist him (some here seem to disagree with me for some strange reason) and like I’ve said I don’t want to see the circus on TV for the next three years.

And yet for some reason the fact that both the USA and Sweden will not promise not to extradite him doesn't give you any pause for thought whatsoever. Why wouldn't they promise this? Again, there's only one rational explanation. That's exactly what they intend to do.

The fact that you know all these things and yet can't put any of the pieces together is nothing short of bizarre.

@ Jacob Two Two

First, there are no actual charges, as the first article claims.

Secondly, why is it so hard to grasp that the initial accusations of assault likely have no connection whatsoever with any U.S. attempt to extradite Assange? As such, all these attempts to undermine, or call into question the complainants'' stories, are completely irrelevant.

Wolf's article is good (though no slight to her expertise, but I think it would have been better with some Swedish sources) but it still deals with irregularities at the investigative level, which I think we all accept as probable.

It doesn't attack the credibility of the complainants, or get into musings of what constitutes sexual assault, something which seems to be the only option for some people who can't see the world in anything other than black and white.

NDPP wrote:

From your posted article:

There is no doubt Assange never raped. The day after the alleged rape, the alleged victim boasted to her friends in a twitter that she had a wonderful time with the alleged rapist. It was all published...

That's quite the outrageous statement, NDPP.

Remind me again why it is necessary to prove Assange did nothing wrong (and to resort to undermining the character of a sexual assault complainant) in order to establish that the U.S. is out to get him.

Nice word, "boast". Not loaded at all.

Without picking apart this case, have you never heard of people not recognizing they were being abused, or that a crime may have been committed against them?

And as for who is the devil in all this, why is the author blaming the Guardian when the person who actually holds all the cards, and seems to be treating leaked information like it his own property and bargaining chip is Julian Assange. He could have released that material to the public with no strings attached, but instead he made that deal with the British and German media, and then got sore when he realized he wasn't going to have editorial control.

The author is complaining about some information not getting out? Who's fault is that? Geez, maybe it is all in that pile of cables Assange is threatening to release if he goes down.

But then, since I am just slavishly adhering to the MSM offensive there's no need to pay attention to anything I say, is there?

NDPP wrote:

Pilger: The Pursuit of Julian Assange is an Assault on Freedom and a Mockery of Journalism

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101639649

His tormentors make the point of Assange's persecution. Charged with no crime, he is not a fugitive from justice. Swedish case documents, including the text messages of the women involved, demonstrate to any fair-minded person the absurdity of the sex allegations - allegations almost entirely promptly dismissed by the senior prosecutor in Stockholm, Eva Finne, before the intervention of a politician, Claes Borgstr?At the pre-trial of Bradley Manning, a US army investigator confirmed that the FBI was secretly targeting the "founders, owners or managers of WikiLeaks" for espionage.

"....Four years ago, a barely noticed Pentagon document, leaked by Wikileaks, described how Wikileaks and Assange would be 'destroyed' with a smear campaign leading to 'criminal prosecution.'

The war on democracy continues.

Kara wrote:

FWIW, I do think Assange should definitely have to answer the charges but I do think the onus is on the Swedish government to give assurances that he will not be extradited to the US to face a bogus trial or an indefinite unlawful detention.

Julian Assange has not been charged with rape by police services in any country. 

<a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/interviews/Noam-Chomsky-Julian-Assange-deserves-applause/articleshow/15621507.cms">Noam Chomsky</a> wrote:

The apparent conflict can be easily resolved. Sweden claims only that they want to interrogate Assange. They have been invited to do that in England, or in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. They refuse. They could also issue a statement that they will not extradite Assange to the United States. They refuse.

Blame the Swedes, Brits and U.S. for refusing to issue assurances that justice will be done.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

If nothing else, this case has put the lie to the argument that sufficient progress has been made as to render feminism unnecessary, and has shown women which big, important men on the left should not be seen as allies.

He is a lawyer and former ombudsman for equality with Sweden's previous social democratic government(now in opposition) who is representing the two women accusing Assange. Canada's equivalents to Swedish Social Democrats are the NDP, also on the left.

The people botching this case are on the political right in Sweden, Britain and the USA. They don't care whether Assange is charged with rape or not - they want him extradited to the States where Assange would be arraigned on bogus charges of espionage aka whistleblowing on successive corrupt and criminal U.S. Governments and U.S. Military. Democracy in general is the right's most hated institution.

ETA: A penny for your thoughts to the babbler who can name Canada's federal ombudsman for equality.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Out of curiosity how many people seriously believe that if Assange goes off to Sweden the US authorities will immediately nab him the minute he walks off the plane and take him to the US? 

That would ruin the sense of theatre. But my guess is that all the paperwork is in place.

That is deplorable and that's why Assange's extradition to the US must be opposed.  

I do not believe that the allegations against Assange should be dismissed out of hand and am likewise appalled at the number of people who seem to think that the fact that Assange is legitimately the target of a conspiracy is sufficient evidence to declare him innocent of sexual assault. But this has to be seen as a very separate issue from the current actions of Sweden and the UK. The allegations are a pretext. If Assange is taken, there will be no questioning, there will be no trial. There will just be men grabbing him and throwing him into a small cell and subjecting him to low grade torture, while the two women and their accusations disappear from the media narrative, their purpose having been served.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/women-against-rape-julian-assange

"In over 30 years working with thousands of rape victims who are seeking asylum from rape and other forms of torture, we have met nothing but obstruction from British governments. Time after time, they have accused women of lying and deported them with no concern for their safety."

Unionist wrote:

That's an odd question, LP.

But I'll counter with another:

If Julian Assange presents himself at a Canadian embassy - or at a border point - and requests asylum citing fear of political persecution, should we grant it?

 

No, and you know why?

Because our PM has already signed an agreement allowing FBI, the U.S. Military and other law enforcement to cross our border without permission and take him. This is not a safe place.

As for nabbing him on the tarmac. If they were going to do that then why bother even flying to Sweden? Just make up some story about the pilot having to fly to the states for some Krispy Kreme donuts.

Unionist wrote:

My question was whether we would favour the granting of asylum - not whether or how we could guarantee his personal security. Should Canada grant him asylum if requested?

 

At this point, absolutely.

I might think differently if Sweden had actually done their homework and had a criminal charge to lay against him. There really is no reason why they can't come to the Ecuadorean embassy to interview him - something they have done before in other cases. And obviously he is not a flight risk.

And the fact that they will not guarantee to not send him on to the U.S. is another questionable roadblock.

The whole situation casts serious doubt on their interest  in resolving this sexual assault case.

Unionist wrote:

If Julian Assange presents himself at a Canadian embassy - or at a border point - and requests asylum citing fear of political persecution, should we grant it? 

Who is this 'we' that you're referring to that is in a position to decide anything?

Slumberjack wrote:

Unionist wrote:

If Julian Assange presents himself at a Canadian embassy - or at a border point - and requests asylum citing fear of political persecution, should we grant it? 

Who is this 'we' that you're referring to that is in a position to decide anything?

The Canadian people. As for being "in a position to decide anything", that's up to us, isn't it?

I'm not that interested in playing with words. I was really just wondering what we progressive babbler types think about Assange's right to refugee status under international law, if and when he were to apply for same in Canada.

I don't think SJ was being cute, Unionist. It is a point of confusion when saying "Canadian Embassy" and "we" in the same sentence. (You clarified this by saying that you meant Babblers, if they were in a position to do so). 

It is a similar confusion that was exploited by Gary Dewar when he equated "Canadians" with a more empowered Harper foreign policy agenda on the Security Council; lamenting that ihe wasn't used by Harper to lobby for that.

On polarized Babble, you would have two different answers based along ideological lines; you have two sides saying (or implying) the other side are faux progressives, or worse.

One side frames the issue as justice for women  versus rape apologists, and the other protection of whistleblowing journalists versus apologists for western totalitarianism.

There may indeed be both kinds of apologists on Babble but the issues need not be framed in such antagoinistic way for anyone who actually cares about justice (or logic), and who recognize that both the framers can have legitimate concerns.

The problem is that the two concerns (justice for women; protection of whistleblowers) SHOULD be entirely separate issues even when involving the same central figure (Assange) and which have their separate just process of resolution.

Unfortunately, they HAVE been linked by the prosecutorial states of the US/UK/Sweden and aided by the complicit media and their readers. They have been linked de facto proceduraly while at the same time, through smoke and mirrors, that link has been downplayed and denied by the states/media.

As the situation now exists there are 2 obvious resolutions:

1)Assange could submit himself for extadition to Sweden for incareration which would, according to all indicators, result in reshipment to a lifelong US hellhole based on an indictment that has nothing to do with the uncharged sex accusations.
No-one concerned with justice for women (or any justice) could endorse this.
It would be both insane and unjust for Assange to agree to this whether or not he was guilty of sex crimes, since this "punishment" would be unrelated to the sex accusations, except as a pretext for capture.

2)The states of the US/UK/Sweden could work out guarantees that he would not be extradited to a third nation. This would demonstrate that the main concern is indeed the course of justice for the women accusers. Don't hold your breath on that one.

Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald outlined the issues involved in his column 2 days ago what would be a logical resoulution to this, which will continued to be refused by the prosecutorial states:

Quote:

The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange

It is possible to protect the rights of the complainants in Sweden and Assange's rights against political persecution, but a vindictive thirst for vengeance is preventing that....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/julian-assange-media...

Kara wrote:

Allegations - I used the wrong word.  Big f'ing deal, doesn't change the fact that you and others are so blinded by your agenda you automatically assume the alleged victim in this case is either lying or being used as a dupe.  You are more than willing to give Assange the benefit of the doubt but not willing to give her any benefit of the doubt whatsoever.

I apologize if I have offended you. I'm not assuming that anyone is lying, and the two people accusing Assange obviously have a good lawyer with integrity representing them. 

On the other hand, Assange and his lawyers have invited Swedish authorities to interview Assange there at the Ecuadoran embassy in London. They have refused.

They could also issue a guarantee that Swedish authorities would abide by international law and not allow extradition to the United States where Assange's right to a fair trial is highly in doubt. 

It appears that none of Sweden, Britain or the United States of America are interested in adhering to international law. Assange has agreed to cooperate, so why can't the U.S and its European minions of doom offer to do the same? And given the current state of lawlessness in America and Europe with respect to all that has happened since 9/11, I, personally, would not trust anything western governments offered me if I was in Assange's situation. The two women accusing Assange have rights, and so does Julian Assange have certain rights. And the entire situation is tainted by colder war political maneuvering. It's not saying very much for the state of lawlessness in general here in the western world. This is just a small example of western world hypocrisy, and it's on display for all the world to observe. 

Fidel wrote:

On the other hand, Assange and his lawyers have invited Swedish authorities to interview Assange there at the Ecuadoran embassy in London. They have refused.

Ok and if after said interview those Swedish authorities decide they want to arrest and charge Assange can they lead him out of the embassy in handcuffs back to Sweden? 

Unionist wrote:

Honestly, contrarianna, I read my posts, and yours, and I can't quite understand your lengthy concern. ...

Sorry, Unionist. It is my fault that you that thought the entire post was a reply to your objection.
Except for the first short 2 paragraphs, the latter part was my take on the Babble situation and was typed just prior to seeing  your post at all.
I do maintain that Babble posters do not manifest solidarity on this subject, for the reasons outlined, and represent a "we" only by virtue of being Babble posters.