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I seem to recall they already cut off his internet access entirely for a while. Surprised he didn’t sue over that.
ETA Yep:
And only restored it very recently
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https://justice4assange.com/#REF
The extradition warrant from Sweden was revoked on 19 May 2017, when the prosecutor also closed the entire underlying investigation. Having obtained Mr. Assange’s testimony, the prosecutor decided it would be disproportionate to proceed.
The investigation had already been found to be baseless by Stockholm’s senior prosecutor, Eva Finne, who found that the conduct alleged by the police “disclosed no crime at all”. SMS messages from the alleged complainant made public in 2015 showed that she “did not want to accuse Assange of anything”, that she felt “railroaded by police and others around her”, and “police made up the charges”.
The UK’s role in the Swedish affair was exposed in emails obtained under Freedom of Information Act which revealed that Sweden moved to drop the investigation in 2013, but the UK Crown Prosecution Service persuaded Sweden to keep it alive. Emails show the UK advised Sweden not to interview Mr. Assange in the UK in 2011 and 2012.
UK prosecutors admitted to deleting key emails concerning Assange and engaged in elaborate attempts to keep correspondence from the public record.
The Swedish prosecutor admitted to deleting an email from an FBI agent about Assange which she received in 2017, and claimed it could no longer be recovered
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I think there might be some merit to your assertion if he really was under imminent threat of being extradited to the USA, but I don’t think that’s the case. I certainly don’t think that it’s any more likely to happen now than it was when he first traveled to the UK before holing himself up, especially as he ended up being quite useful to the Trump presidential campaign.
Furthermore, it’s just not that easy to extradite someone from the UK, and it’s not clear to me why it would be any easier in the UK as compared to any other country that Assange traveled to before his legal troubles began. If anything, he should consider leaving the embassy while the UK is still part of the EU. If the UK crashes out of the EU, it’s going to be desperate for friends and seems more likely to bend over backwards to get a trade deal with the US.
To be honest I think the whole thing is a tragedy - even he had been convicted of sexual assault (which is by no means a sure thing) he would have probably spent much less time inside than he has at the embassy, and similarly if he had spent any time inside for skipping bail, he would have been a free man long ago.
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Put down your phone and go feed your cat.
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So who is? The police certainly aren’t stopping him - they’ll welcome him with open arms.
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Well, sure, the evidence that women regularly lie about rape because reasons! /s
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And I hear that a Swedish prison is nicer than an Ecuadorean embassy.
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THIS. It has been obvious he is happy to be a tool for the GOP and Russia. Wikileaks in concept is a good thing. Assange is just an asshole and not a hero.
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Yeah, but an issue was and continues to be that the UK and US want him, and the US is very authoritarian when it comes to punishing leakers.
I used to think of Assange as a bit heroic (in part because of positive Boing Boing coverage of early Wikileaks, which even went so far as to solicit donations for Wikileaks), though I admittedly paid so little attention to Assange that I thought he was Austrian, having never heard him speak, and because Wikileaks was based in Europe :-/
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Hence my choice to just ignore such a piss poor excuse for “proof.”
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Christ, what an asshole.
As with all of us, Assange can be both a hero and a villain at different times in his life. He certainly did some heroic things he should be lauded for, but there is a distinct possibility he did some villainous things that should be properly adjudicated.
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With Trump in power, this is his best opportunity to get back to Australia. He really should make the attempt while he can.
He can check out any time he likes…
they already cut off his internet access entirely for a while
He seems to have a balcony so surely he could get a friend to chuck him a SIM card.
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I’m so glad Julian has cleared up all the controversy over him being a freeze-peach hero vs being a bottom-feeding troll. There is no doubt now what he is.
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Ecuador is a nice country.
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I can’t imagine making such an impact on the world, for better or worse, that people wanted to kill me. To be offered a safe space would be a so-called godsend. I’d take it and smile, quit while ahead/behind.
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Ecuador is both host and jailer. When Spain put pressure on Ecuador to shut Assange up – he was supporting Catalan independence and tweeting police brutality videos – they cut off his internet and stopped visitors and effectively controlled every aspect of his existence. He has been in solitary confinement, without internet or visitors for 7 months. If Ecuador will bend to pressure from other countries, then they need pressure from the other side to assert human rights.
The UN ruled the UK was holding Assange illegally.
Also, Malcolm X was right about the press
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Dude. He wasn’t talking about privileged white men.
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They’re not preventing him from leaving if he’s unhappy with years of free rent and protection from prosecution.
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