Re:Assange arrested in London (BBC)
by philwelch on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @02:35PM
(#1980271)
The fact that the witnesses colluded
...is not in the least bit suspicious, if you know anything about the psychology of rape survivors. Believe it or not, most people who have been through that situation don't really want to relive it over and over again throughout a prolonged trial. (Conversely, it's pretty easy to psychologically pressure a rape survivor into not pressing charges, or into dropping charges.) One of the only things that will actually motivate a survivor to press charges is if they discover their rapist attacked someone else, because then it's a pattern of behavior and one feels responsible to come forward so he won't rape anyone else.
If you want to go with the conspiracy theory that the CIA bribed two Swedish women to file false charges against Julian Assange just to stop Wikileaks, that's up to you. Frankly, I think that's in the same realm of plausibility as the idea that Julian Assange just happens to be a rapist. And, more to the point, this kind of uncertainty is exactly why we have trials to begin with.
Re:Assange arrested in London (BBC)
by jacquesm on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @02:44PM
(#1980302)
> If you want to go with the conspiracy theory that the CIA bribed two Swedish women to file false charges against Julian Assange just to stop Wikileaks, that's up to you.
...is not in the least bit suspicious, if you know anything about the psychology of rape survivors. Believe it or not, most people who have been through that situation don't really want to relive it over and over again throughout a prolonged trial. (Conversely, it's pretty easy to psychologically pressure a rape survivor into not pressing charges, or into dropping charges.) One of the only things that will actually motivate a survivor to press charges is if they discover their rapist attacked someone else, because then it's a pattern of behavior and one feels responsible to come forward so he won't rape anyone else.
If you want to go with the conspiracy theory that the CIA bribed two Swedish women to file false charges against Julian Assange just to stop Wikileaks, that's up to you. Frankly, I think that's in the same realm of plausibility as the idea that Julian Assange just happens to be a rapist. And, more to the point, this kind of uncertainty is exactly why we have trials to begin with.