Or, you know, they could actually promise not to extradite him to the US. Let’s not forget that both things can be true: Assange can have committed sexual assault and the point of this prosecution can be to get him to the US to face completely bogus charges. When was the last time an international manhunt like this one was launched against a man for sexual assault? What an affront to the countless victims of sexual assault that can’t even get local police to care.
Save us from those who ally themselves with us. As Chelsea Manning sits in solitary confinement for expired toothpaste.
Side note, do we have to watch for the astroturfers in this wikileaks thread like we did a few months ago?
Also currently happening in Britain
It’s good to know where the government’s priorities are.
The situation is a bureaucratic farce: Swedish prosecutors say they are willing to interview Assange in London, but Ecuador will not permit them to do so within their embassy. But Assange cannot leave the Embassy without being arrested by British police.
How about sitting on either side of the fence enclosing the embassy?
It’s such a complicated, messy situation, isn’t it?
Regardless of whether the allegations have merit or not (and I don’t even like saying that, tbh) the authorities are clearly using the situation to attempt to force him to change location - it’s patently obvious. If all they cared about was extraditing him to discuss an allegation of rape (worlds first?) then they’d have made it work given the circumstances - they could have got him on a conference call ffs - why does he have to be sat in an interview room in Sweden? Assange has admittedly offered to accommodate the investigation up to the point of leaving the embassy. Any organisation that was only interested with seeking justice for the women involved could have made that work, surely? Ordinarily of course that would be absurd, but this is a very special circumstance.
But they didn’t. They haven’t charged him, they haven’t attempted to engage with him properly without an extradition. Edit: This may or may not be true, @Arduenn makes a point that blurs that a little.
I just really, really hope that the allegations aren’t true, not for Assanges sake, but for the women’s - as they will have been used as a pawn and not even got the justice they deserve.
But regardless, the bad guy in this situation, really, is the authorities. Who have only been interested in forcing Assange out of hiding, not getting anyone justice.
Huh, that’s an interesting (and new to me) piece of information. Why won’t Ecuador allow it?
There is some noise about the primary accuser having some sort of ties to CIA. This may lead to a question how unwilling this pawn is.
I really hope that’s the case - as then the only loser is the authorities*, which would give me a little buzz.
*And all the genuine victims of rape that will be ignored because they’re suspected CIA operatives. And I’m only half joking!
And how about the fact that the UK’s cabinet was bringing in children to sexually abuse in Thatcher’s government and everyone involved is going to walk away completely free. It’s pretty obvious what they actually care about, and it is not the victims of sexual assault.
The entire establishment in the UK makes me ill, to be honest. It’s all one big, corrupt boys club with far too much power and influence. Much like in the US, the whole political system is just broken, rotten to the core. It’s remarkable that as countries we function at all, to be honest - it must be some side-effect.
Ecuadors embassy is only on the ground floor of the building. The embassy side of the fence is below ground level and presumably part of the Colombian Embassy.
Edit:
I 've just done some research and it looks like the inside of the fence is also British. There may also be legal issues about interviewing him in public.
It should be pretty obvious this isn’t possible. The US hasn’t requested his extradition, so there’s no specific request for them to deny. They’d have to promise to deny any future extradition requests, no matter what it’s for, basically granting him a licence to commit crimes in the future without punishment. It can’t legally be done.
God know why anyone thinks the extradition to Sweden is a conspiracy to extradite him to the US in the first place, as if the UK doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US and they have to sneak him out to Sweden in order to get him.
I can come up with any number of ad hoc explanations why this might be the case.
Can you come up with a better-than-ad-hoc explanation for why this particular sexual assault case is causing an international incident when the vast majority of sexual assault cases are not even prosecuted in the first place?
Edit:
Also would like to call out that this is a man wanted by the US secret intelligence services. Pretty much anything they’re involved in is by definition a “conspiracy”. The usual notion that “conspiracy theories” have no basis in reality and are only discussed by deranged political radicals doesn’t hold when we’re talking about organizations whose entire remit is to engage in conspiracies.
It is totally possible, you seem to think there are no lawyers who carefully word things. Like there is no range of dates or other way of specifying things that could be used.
That’s unfair. The Crown Prosecution Service comes down like a ton of bricks on powerful people accused of sexual assault, provided they’re already dead.
*edit: /s
Do they? What if coming down hard on them would implicate accomplices who are still alive?
Then they may have to wait a little longer before opening the investigation…
Long enough to ensure that nobody really important is implicated, so this will probably go on for a long time.
Meanwhile, have a steady diet of dirty kiddy fiddlers from the entertainment business to keep your mind off the real VIPs …
Ironically, we found out this week that the Swedish government was willing to interview more than 40 other people about this case in the UK while telling Assange it wasn’t possible for them to do so with him.
