However - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/26/julian-assange... does not appear to be a token article in any way, shape or form. Though if one is to label anything not upon the front page as a token article, then I concede that point from that perspective, albeit I disagree with that assertion given the substance and depth of the article in this instance.
Though given those trends, kinda glad the front page is not composed around those trends as a whole and with that, we should be thankful as the news would be a far sadder place if that was the case.
[EDIT ADD] the BBC article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51633303 seems like it could and should traction and if enough people click the link - it would actually make the front page given how the BBC has the top 10 articles being viewed listed upon its front page. So there is some people power input upon this that you can exercise.
The decision not to the show it during prime news reading hours in the morning and mid day would have been a conscious decision though I believe. I think there's some apathy towards the case these days.
They are much further away from this story as we are. I can ask plenty of people whats up with assange and they will just not know anything much.
There might be no article from him today but i have read plenty of articles about him the last few weeks. Including the criticisim of how he gets treated.
So what is the real issue? I would say none. Would i say there is some deliberate action going on? Also no.
Not to mention the under-coverage during his years in effective imprisonment by the UK in the Ecuadorian embassy.
He's in custody because he's a flight risk. Are there people out there genuinely disputing this?
2. Even the claim that he is a flight risk is disputed. Assange has not ran away or hid anywhere - neither while in Sweden nor in the UK. He asked for political asylum, which is not the same as flight. Not to mention the fact that Assange is in a poor condition, physically and mentally, after years of detention and months of harsh solitary confinement, and if anything, should be transferred to a civilian medical facility for treatment and recuperation.
Not really. I'm saying that stories about poor jail conditions, excessive holding cell time, no speedy trial, violations of attorney-client privilege, etc, won't get much air time in the US. It's not newsworthy because it's common. We have the highest per capita incarceration rate of any country, deplorable jail conditions, and nobody cares.
It's not whether I'm conflating. The US public will conflate and think, "yeah, bad jail conditions, poor rights protections, lack of due process, excessive confinement, already knew about that. yawn." Editors are aware, so this won't be big featured news here.
power in the hands of a few: check corruption at the highest possible level: check a gradually more authoritarian "leader": check a people who support such a leader: check military might used against political opponents: check enormous amounts of poverty cleverly ignored: check
the list goes on. i suppose there is a time for every powerful nation to go into a deep decline that it will never recover from, and such decline usually starts when people ignore what's going on right in front of them. had russia done to assange what the us is doing now all of them EU, US and other hypocrites would be jumping like their arse was burned: but human rights. but torture. but freedom of the press. but this and that. well, enjoy your dystopia.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/US_Effec...
They still have rather large amounts of both weapons and economic leverage.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. - anon
Remember when Assange was a hero to these people when he exposed bush era war crimes?
Isn't it funny how propaganda works. When we think of propaganda, we think of what is being said. But many times propaganda is what is not said. What is covered is just as part of propaganda as what is ignored.
Another interesting aspect is when it comes to superificial issues, the mainstream press can be adversarial. But when it comes to certain issues, they all sing the same tune or are equally quiet.
Why the hysterical focus on the protests in hong kong and not the ones in bolivia? Why the hysterical focus on democracy in hong kong but not bolivia or venezuela? Why the neverending focus on the muslim ughyurs and hardly a peep about the suffering of the muslim yemenis or palestinians?
Why does foxnews/etc and the nytimes/msnbc/cnn appear to be so antagonistic while moving lockstep when it comes these stories? The nytimes/msnbc/cnn claim they care about democracy, but they hardly had anything negative to say about trump's invitation of his hand selected and unelected "president" of venezuela to the state of the union.
If they don't feel the need to defend press freedom, it is probably not worth reading their detached antics.
I mean, some of what you describe is unpalatable, unpleasant, and maybe (IANAL) contrary to expected standards of the treatment of prisoners... but tortured?
If that is indeed the case, I'd agree it sounds pretty awful.
> Question: At what point does imprisonment become torture?
> Nils Melzer: Julian Assange has been intentionally psychologically tortured by Sweden, Britain, Ecuador and the U.S. First through the highly arbitrary handling of proceedings against him. The way Sweden pursued the case, with active assistance from Britain, was aimed at putting him under pressure and trapping him in the embassy. Sweden was never interested in finding the truth and helping these women, but in pushing Assange into a corner. It has been an abuse of judicial processes aimed at pushing a person into a position where he is unable to defend himself. On top of that come the surveillance measures, the insults, the indignities and the attacks by politicians from these countries, up to and including death threats. This constant abuse of state power has triggered serious stress and anxiety in Assange and has resulted in measurable cognitive and neurological harm. I visited Assange in his cell in London in May 2019 together with two experienced, widely respected doctors who are specialized in the forensic and psychological examination of torture victims. The diagnosis arrived at by the two doctors was clear: Julian Assange displays the typical symptoms of psychological torture. If he doesn’t receive protection soon, a rapid deterioration of his health is likely, and death could be one outcome.
Source: https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
This is how the corrupt elites in power maintain their position, folks; by ordering the political, legal, military, police, judicial establishments to lie, cheat, and steal in order to conduct a sham trial. It's a farce, without legitimacy.
In general, I only hope and suggest every individual determines to make themselves more informed (knowledge is literally a prerequisite of power), in depth and breadth, rather than haphazardly absorbing information to a shallow depth that is ambiently shoveled on them by commercial forces.
I'm not a reporter, but I know a little about it:
- Just days before Assange was dragged out from the embassy, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief met with would-be extortionists in Madrid, Spain (unnamed Ecuadorian embassy staff; either intelligence operatives or for personal gain) who suggested a payment of 3 million euros in lieu of releasing months/years of surveillance video & audio and stolen documents covering Julian's daily existence. On top of that, WikiLeaks collaborated with the Madrid police to conduct a sting operation that recorded audio and video of the extortion scheme, and it was referred to the Madrid's prosecutor's office. (I've checked multiple sources and it doesn't seem any of the Ecuadorian embassy staff were arrested, they probably claimed diplomatic immunity?)
- Assange was holding a book, History of The National Security State by Gore Vidal, in his hand when he was being illegally dragged out by British police.
- It is internationally illegal to revoke asylum once granted, unless the statements leading to its granting are disputed by new evidence.
- Julian's parents support him on Twitter quite often, and were at the latest hearing. They had to threaten to walk-out in order to keep Kristinn (WL E-I-C) from being banned for no reason.
- Pamela Anderson has been a vocal supporter. One could surmise that they may have "a thing." I haven't seen her in a while supporting Assange, guess she's too busy marrying and divorcing Jon Peters. ;-)
- Dragging Assange out from the embassy accomplished four goals for Moreno:
1) Silenced a potential embarrassing story from misbehavior of civilian or intelligence service personnel allowing WikiLeaks to make Ecuador look bad.
2) Got rid of "a stone in [his] shoe." (That's a direct quote.)
3) Appeased US interests.
4) Secured the $10.2 billion IMF loan package.
Wikileaks Editor in chief holds press briefing 143K views - Apr 10 2019
Spanish police ‘recover Julian Assange surveillance footage’ [and stolen legal and medical documents]
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/10/julian-assange...
That certainly should have already happened. I don't understand any legitimate reason for the delay.
Yes, it is exactly torture.
The original quote spoke of "twice been stripped naked and searched, eleven times been handcuffed, and five times been locked up in different holding cells" - which is unpleasant treatment, but probably not hugely different from the treatment of many prisoners, fairly regularly, within our dehumanising criminal justice system. And I don't think it would constitute torture, per your definition.
That said, as another commenter added, he's apparently been in solitary confinement [for up to 23 hours a day[0] ] in a high category prison for a year. This sounds pretty awful, and much closer to a definition of "torture". That said, it's hard to know: maybe prisoners of his nature are routinely interned in Belmarsh? And maybe being in your cell for 23 hours a day is routine for prisoners in Belmarsh?
Would be interesting to know why it's taken a year for his case to be heard, though.
[0] https://inews.co.uk/news/julian-assange-solitary-confinement...
It is, particularly for non-violent prisoners
> maybe prisoners of his nature are routinely interned in Belmarsh.
Its often used in high-profile cases.
> And maybe being in your cell for 23 hours a day is routine
It isn't. 60% of the cells at Belmarsh are multi occupancy and inmates at have access to education, workshops and gyms.
You seem to be casting doubt on a lot of claims, without putting in any effort to challenge your own assertions.
You're going to need to show that "non violent prisoners" are not searched, nor handcuffed and uncuffed probably multiple times a day in the process of moving them from prison to court holding cells to court to court holding cells back to prison.
Will not argue that some celebrities / politicians do and should not get special treatment (lead out the back door, not through the media circus), absolutely.
But if you’re already in custody, you’re getting cuffed. Not least for safety/security/risk to yourself/other prisoners.
In all honesty though, there is a bunch of evidence in his US court case that basically frees him of all accusations in his british court case, but the judge refuses to accept it. Although the case is about delivering him to the US. So she denies the rightfulnes of the US court system, but wants to deliver a person to this very system???
And then there is a treaty of denying political extradictions. But then the judge said that she does not care for the treaty and only honors the UK Extraction Act, which does not mention any of it.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
That... is saddening. I donate cca 120$ to AI every 6 months believing they would right some wrongs out there where it matters, but I'll strongly consider dropping this.
Maybe they don't have balls to go directly against US government, but then we are talking about huge amount of wrongs that will never be challenged.
As a non-US person, like 95% of the world, I couldn't care less if his actions of revealing massive US war atrocities and breaches of international laws potentially endanger some US spies.
They first did the "rapist" framing. Making up a case that never existed and repeating it in the media all the time. Surprisingly, that didn't work as effectivity as expected.
So they switched the framing from "rapist" to "right wing". That seems to have achieved the intended outcome with many previous supporters.
If you can catch a person stealing, it's open-shut case. Easy peasy.
If not, try to discredit them (appealing to the morals of the people) -- maybe they cheat on their spouse, or use prostitutes?
If that still doesn't work just try slapping an "enemy of the people" / fascist / reactionary label and see if it sticks.
https://wikileaks.org/Background-and-Documents-on-Attempts-t...
The UN special investigator documented the whole thing pretty thoroughly.
But apparently some people still stick with the lie.
Propaganda is pretty effective.
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
This article details more than I could ever have wanted to know about the entire situation. It is an excellent 10,000 ft view.
It is transparent that Assange doesn't belong to either American political party but attempted to parlay the emails* into a hail-mary get-out-of-jail-(but-not-for-)free card by trying to appease Trump. On that, he gambled and lost, and now some idiots on the internet assume idiotic statements like "he's a Ruskie spy," "he loves Trump," or "he's Putin's best friend."
\* The emails were NOT from a Russian operative. Assange stresses this if anyone cares to listen. Furthermore, if someone watched Jimmy Dore, they'd know this is a continuation of anti-Russian conspiracy theories.
I don't know who is "they" but the shift in perception didn't need any prompting from anyone. It was Assange that started acting as Russia's stooge.
Yes yes, we've heard it all before. Over 3 years of this stuff, with no evidence of any stoogery.
Regardless of Assange's merits or failures as an activist or human being, the current conditions he's being subjected to absolutely do indicate a man being made an example of for politically motivated reasons and in violation of basic legal guarantees. That is something that's far more dangerous than anything he himself is likely to be convicted of.
But I totally agree that this treatment in this extradition case sounds terrible, and the judge seems strongly biased against him. Does not sound like a fair trial.
In any case, Assange is a controversial figure. He's done things I wholeheartedly support, and things I strongly oppose. I support his early fight against censorship and the release of the collateral murder video. I disagree with releasing all the material concerning sensitive operations unchecked and unedited. I am concerned by the rape stories, strongly oppose his self-centered grandstanding, and my working theory is that he went mad, possibly with power, due to the massive size of the Manning leaks. I supported the rape investigation, but oppose his extradition to the US, because I doubt he's ever going to get a fair trial there. And now it looks like even the extradition trial from the UK is not going to be fair.
He's a complex figure with good and bad sides. His are a bit more extreme than most. I find it hard to form a simple opinion about him, because nothing about this is simple. But it seems obvious to me that both blind support and total condemnation are wrong positions to take in this. I agree he's being made an example of for political reasons, and that's very wrong, but that doesn't automatically mean he's entirely innocent either.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, disagrees: https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian...
Specifically, this section:
"Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon after the United States had encouraged allies to find reasons to prosecute Assange, Swedish prosecution informed the tabloid press that he was suspected of having raped two women. Strangely, however, the women themselves never claimed to have been raped, nor did they intend to report a criminal offence. Go figure. Moreover, the forensic examination of a condom submitted as evidence, supposedly worn and torn during intercourse with Assange, revealed no DNA whatsoever — neither his, nor hers, nor anybody else’s. Go figure again. One woman even texted that she only wanted Assange to take an HIV test, but that the police were “keen on getting their hands on him”. Go figure, once more."
I think there's a cake and eat it too. That the rape campaign was an organized smear campaign. That the combined resources of Sweden and the US (and possibly the UK) too's best ability at a smear campaign at someone was "may not have used a condom when he implied he would during a sexual encounter". That's a pretty sad indictment of those intelligence communities (regardless of the merits either way).
Basically it comes down to the story not adding up, drummed up charges, testimony that was changed by the police. After the headline was made on August 20th (accusing him of rape) the person that 'accused' him (she hadn't (yet)) was questioned on the 21st and only after that did she accuse him of 'rape' (not actually rape, but stealthing).
According to her he had intentionally broken the condom during sex. However the broken condom that was submitted into evidence had no DNA of her, nor of Assange.
Neither woman accused him of anything before headlines were being made apparently.
I hadn't heard that the condom contained no DNA. That certainly sounds odd to me, but I'm no forensic expert. If that's sufficient proof that the whole story is a lie, then that's certainly worthy of investigation. False rape allegations are as serious as rape in my opinion.
The lady who went to the police to force assange to do an HIV test never accused him of rape, they had unprotected sex and she wanted to ensure that she was safe.[1]
The second lady only accompanied the first. But the article had already been made and she only made a statement the day after. As for the reason to not clasify it as rape, it's probably due to a contradiction in her statement. [2]
Per the article: [1] "S.W. never accused Julian Assange of rape. She declined to participate in further questioning and went home. Nevertheless, two hours later, a headline appeared on the front page of Expressen, a Swedish tabloid, saying that Julian Assange was suspected of having committed two rapes."
[2] "... But she said that during sex, Assange had intentionally broken the condom. If that is true, then it is, of course, a sexual offense – so-called «stealthing». But the woman also said that she only later noticed that the condom was broken. ..."
As you well know, it is usually impossible to prove a negative, especially when it supposedly occurred in a private setting between an accuser and an accused.
> The stories of the women involved seemed very credible, and unlikely to have been made up, considering they were supporters of him.
They did not seem very credible. That is, it is credible that they encountered Assange, but the accusations not so much. At any rate, they were not credible enough for the Swedish authorities to decide to indict Assange (which they could have done).
> In any case, Assange is a controversial figure. ... I am concerned by the rape stories. I agree he's being made an example of for political reasons ... but that doesn't ... mean he's entirely innocent
Assange's current imprisonment is not about any allegations of sexual misconduct. He is not accused of any of that. Also, be aware that Assange was _made_ controversial by the treatment of those allegations and by the UK's insistence to put Assange in custody. Yet we know that the UK was motivated not by the Swedish affair but by the US, and went as far as to pressure Sweden not to drop their extradition request. So, regardless of whether you are skeptical of Assange's personal/sexual conduct - that matter was cynically used to persecute him politically.
And thus IMO you too have been manipulated to effectively support Assange's ordeal, including the extradition possibility, because of your - understandable - concern for possible victims of sexual misconduct.
I think this is entirely unfair. There are numerous implications in the parent, and others, posts that they recognize that other things, claims, etc. are going on. The assumption that anyone who fails to discount the other issues has been "manipulated" is bad faith...
... no more than assuming that Craig Murray is an impartial observer of events occurring here too, and not entirely biased as well.
And I doubt anyone involved thought that Assange has felt physically safe for the past decade.
“police officer IK, who had formally questioned SW on 20 August 2010, modified and replaced the content of SW’s original statement in the police database, upon instruction of her superior officer MG and without consulting SW.”
https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublic... (The report itself)
A source for that statement.
You probably once supported his fight for free speech, until they made up the "Trump supporter" story.
With that, they actually managed to catch many people who previously supported him.
Of course, he was "left" and they told all his friends that he "now supports the enemy".
Was a really clever framing move.
> On Oct. 3, WikiLeaks, writing a day before it was set to announce the release of hacked Democratic emails, wrote to Trump Jr.: "Hiya. It'd be great if you guys could comment on /push this story."
* https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-sec...
* https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442...
* https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-campaign...
Which aspects of these stories were "made up"?
In a subsequent message to Trump Jr., WikiLeaks proposes what it acknowledges is "an unusual idea":
"Leak us one or more of your father's tax returns," the message suggests, "Most of the harm has already been done by the nyt [New York Times] and pre-empted by your father (tax writedowns)."
"If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality," the message continues. "That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing about Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won't be perceived as coming from a 'pro-Trump' 'pro-Russian' source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with."
Never the less, A.I. is probably influenced by politics as much as any other organization. Like the ACLU. Before the 2000s they were more about principles by and large and now it’s become principles+politics.
Assange is not a political prisoner. The US is going after him for allegedly being involved in the exfiltration of state secrets, not for opposing or criticizing the US. Also, being strip-searched, handcuffed, and confined to a cell is not torture.
None of that is to say that Assange is guilty or that American legal reasoning holds up.
Anyway, this has all been deliberated upon by international bodies - the UN working group on arbitrary detention has come to the conclusion that Assange was being _detained_ by the UK in the embassy, unfairly.
Now things have changed, with the UK apprehending him. He _is_ a 'political prisoner'. The definition is: "Someone imprisoned because they have opposed or criticized the government responsible for their imprisonment."
Indeed, the US is (mostly) responsible for Assange's imprisonment, and the imprisonment is because of his oppositionary and critical actions towards the US. The fact that Assange is held "by proxy" does not change his status.
(Note that being a political prisoner does not mean you did not do what you're charged with. You may have and you may have not. Also, it doesn't mean you're a good or bad person.)
Fine. But you can't expect the US government and its allies to accept that theory...
Having said that:
1. Part of a journalist's job is to obtain state secrets and publish them. Obtaining them is often some form or another of theft. But journalism is important enough even to property-ownership-sanctifying democracies that journalists get a free pass on "borderline theft".
2. If the US had though Assange had assisted in stealing state secrets, it would have: (a) Made that accusation earlier than 13 years after the fact and (b) Demanded his extradition fair at that time. US government statements in recent years, especially Pompeo's characterization of Wikileaks, suggests other motives for the current action.
3. If you'll read the linked-to story you'll see that it is quite unlikely that Assange is guilty of what's attributed to him, even regardless of the circumstances I mentioned.
What? The original exfiltration of data happened in 2010: "In early 2010, she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance."
So I have no idea where you're coming up with "13 years after the fact".
And are you also trying to claim that the US government has NOT, until now, claiming that Assange had assisted? In fact, the number is closer to 2 years, if that: "Julian Assange was allegedly investigated by the Eastern District of Virginia grand jury for computer-related crimes committed in the U.S. in 2012. His request for asylum was granted and he remained a resident in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012. In 2019, an indictment from 2017 was made public".
> But journalism is important enough even to property-ownership-sanctifying democracies that journalists get a free pass on "borderline theft".
Journalism ethics preclude "encouraging the committing of further crimes" (exfiltrating additional data, using third party credentials to "cover tracks", possibly implicating innocent parties), nor actively committing crimes (actively assisting in gaining additional access to classified systems), in any way shape or form.
What you refer to is an acknowledgement that a journalist is not guilty of a crime _merely_ because someone passed them stolen information.
Now, as for whether this happened 3 years ago or last year, this depends on what you're counting. The extradition request was filed last year. The secret indictment in itself nefarious; but it "doesn't count", in the sense that no public indictment for 9 years means 9 years of increasing obsolescence.
About the 2012 investigation - that just strengthens my point. An investigation in 2012 did not lead to an indictment. The Trump administration did not suggest, let alone establish, that the investigation was a cover-up or otherwise inappropriately conducted.
> Journalism ethics preclude "encouraging the committing of further crimes" ... in any way shape or form
That's not true. If leaking secret information is a crime, encouraging a source to leak information is perfectly ethical. Not to mention, in many world states, even reporting secret information is a crime. Or even publishing an unauthorized newspaper...
Regardless, the US doesn't have evidence to even prima-facie establish Assange having commited such crimes. I mean, they're shaking down Manning for it, but she's resisting.
Two years after the events (entirely reasonable in the investigation of such a thing), there was indictments being issued. These are a necessary precursor for extradition.
Wheels of justice (and let's abstract this for a moment, whether you feel this particular case warrants it or not) turn slowly, especially when they involve classified information and potential defendants in asylum in third party countries.
"At the same time, an independent investigation by the FBI was going on regarding Assange's release of the Manning documents, and according to court documents dated May 2014, he was still under active and ongoing investigation."
I think you're trying to state that he should have been indicted years ago. What would have been the response then? That the US raced to indictment without a complete investigation? I think the general preference is towards more thorough investigations.
> If leaking secret information is a crime, encouraging a source to leak information is perfectly ethical.
There is a difference between: "investigating criminal activities, and encouraging sources to come forth with evidence thereof" and "actively encouraging sources to commit _additional_, _unrelated_ crimes", if not "actively helping them do so" (attempting to crack passwords of third party accounts on their behalf).
It's legal and ethical for a journalist to report on crimes. It is not legal, for example, for a journalist to break into a building to steal information on crimes, however valid that information may be.
> Regardless, the US doesn't have evidence to even prima-facie establish Assange having commited such crimes.
I'd argue that that is entirely false. Chat and email logs between Manning and Assange _repeatedly_ show them talking about covering tracks, and about Assange actively trying, by his own words, to crack passwords for unrelated accounts in classified systems. That is the very definition of _prima facie_.
No. According to this source [1], the Obama administration did not indict Assange, as his known actions did not differ from those of other journalists.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indi...
> It's legal and ethical for a journalist to report on crimes. It is not legal, for example, for a journalist to break into a building to steal information on crimes, however valid that information may be.
Even taking that as an assumption, it is still perfectly ethical to encourage privileged source to leak information about crimes or other information whose publication is of significant public interest.
I also believe that Assange went above and beyond "encouraging" to participating in, and committing of his own accord, crimes intended to either cover tracks or that gained unauthorized access to further information (whose criminality nor public interest was not known).
Cracking or attempting to crack passwords of uninvolved third parties in order to get access to or coverup your unauthorized access to information is unethical at least, illegal at worst, no more than it would be for me to clone your ID card to gain access to your employer.
We'll never know how things might have gone differently had Assange turned himself in for questioning upon the first investigation in Sweden, because he absconded, claiming that it was a set-up. The bell cannot be un-rung, and the way that things have played out now cannot be a priori "proven" (if indeed they had, then his fears would have been justified, but that is _entirely speculative_).
1. We now know it was indeed a setup. 2. We now know he did indeed make himself available for questioning.
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
And I don't think it is at all as "known"/"proved" (Melzer himself recognizes it as conjecture and supposition, in among the odd handling of the case - which is somewhat to be expected - how many other cases like this involved someone claiming asylum in a third party country?) as planned at the end game of what happened in Sweden was "indictment in the US".
That's propaganda. A lie. Please read the article before you comment further.
> Assange learned about the rape allegations from the press. He established contact with the police so he could make a statement. Despite the scandal having reached the public, he was only allowed to do so nine days later, after the accusation that he had raped S. W. was no longer being pursued. But proceedings related to the sexual harassment of A. A. were ongoing. On Aug. 30, 2010, Assange appeared at the police station to make a statement. He was questioned by the same policeman who had since ordered that revision of the statement had been given by S. W. At the beginning of the conversation, Assange said he was ready to make a statement, but added that he didn’t want to read about his statement again in the press. That is his right, and he was given assurances it would be granted. But that same evening, everything was in the newspapers again. It could only have come from the authorities because nobody else was present during his questioning. The intention was very clearly that of besmirching his name.
> Where did the story come from that Assange was seeking to avoid Swedish justice officials? This version was manufactured, but it is not consistent with the facts. Had he been trying to hide, he would not have appeared at the police station of his own free will.
> Assange repeatedly indicated through his lawyer that he wished to respond to the accusations. The public prosecutor responsible kept delaying. On one occasion, it didn’t fit with the public prosecutor’s schedule, on another, the police official responsible was sick.
Two schedule conflicts, one due to illness? This is the kind of thing that is being used to "show" that there was maliciousness afoot? I wonder how many times Assange rescheduled the same meeting (in between planning his trip to Berlin for a conference)?
There _are_ irregularities and holes in this whole thing (from the government(s)) side that have absolutely shown problems with the handling of the affair, and that have done a poor job of showing effective or efficient handling of things and allowed this whole situation to fester and worsen.
But things like that cause little more than an eye-roll. I'd wager that a vast majority of people reporting to police stations for voluntary interviews have at one time or another (or in this case, twice) run into a scheduling conflict:
"The public prosecutor repeatedly kept delaying proceedings"
is _not_ an unbiased perspective (or rather language) of an investigator.
Also, he made himself available for questioning in a place where he would not be in danger of persecution by US and/or UK authorities - which is quite fair.
Is there some inherent human right against persecution? Which to be clear in this situation means "being accused of and investigated for additional crimes".
Is it "fair" for me to avoid questioning (or consequences of questioning) about crimes of which I'm accused, too?
"Human rights" are a social construct, there's nothing inherent about them. Regardless - Assange was under no obligation towards Sweden given the circumstances.
> Is it "fair" for me to avoid questioning (or consequences of questioning) about crimes of which I'm accused, too?
1. Assange was not charged with any crimes.
2. Assange did not avoid questioning - neither in Sweden nor in Ecuador (= Ecuadorian Embassy). He only avoided exposing himself to US-instigated persecution.
Still barely any mention of this case in the mainstream American or UK press. Until recently Amnesty International refused to even recognize Assange as a political prisoner, and the only thing they had said about him was that he was "not a political prisoner". They've since changed their tune, but it sure took them long enough.
A man is being tortured in plain sight in the UK and no one in the media cares to report on it.