Moderated: Julian Assange: rapist or not?

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by Matthew Best

I suspect we know roughly as much as each other about the circumstances leading to this case.

Which really is, not a lot. We know the charges, we know the rumors and what his layers have to say. What we don't know is what happened that caused the prosecuters to have those charges placed. What we don't know is the women's side of the story.

We need to wait until the real facts come out, when they do then we'll know. Until then these are serious charges and should be taken seriously.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

No its not a serious matter.

The girl threw himself at him, gave him oral sex in a cinema and then took him back to her place. Whether or not he wore or condom the next morning is not a serious matter. It is an utterly trivial matter

What is a serious matter is that there is a class of people who think it is okay to deal in this kind of particularly nasty entrapment and another class of people who loudly declare how awful it all is while privately cackling and smirking away between themselves.

Julian Assange is most likely an idiot - but the hypocrisy and abuse of process on display is no laughing matter.

It's not a question of whether or not he wore or condom the next morning.

It's a question of whether or not he had sex with her while she was asleep knowing that as he wasn't wearing a condom she'd have objected. Despite your seemingly lack of understanding, that is a very serious matter, it's called rape in most western countries (if not all) and in Sweeden holds a punishment of up to 6 years in jail. Hardly a laughing matter.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

No its entrapment to throw yourself at a celebrity so you can then make a complaint of rape for personal gain.

However it is still rape even if you throw yourself at a celebrity, if they have start having sex with you when you're asleep.

[ThunderChunky]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

However it is still rape even if you throw yourself at a celebrity, if they have start having sex with you when you're asleep.

Is the claim that she was penetrated during her sleep?

[little grey rabbit]

Originally Posted by ThunderChunky

Is the claim that she was penetrated during her sleep?

Although if she was asleep then how would she know if he wore a condom or not?

The charges are so absurd and implausible, that one can't help wondering if it is all an attempt to deliberately confer matyr status on Assange to give him unimpeachable credibility.

A similar thing happened with David Irving - who as you may know sometimes indulges in weak holocaust denial and then loudly retracts. When asked why he went to Austria when there was an arrest warrent there, he replied a soldier just does what his orders are. He had to spend a year in jail - which can't have been pleasant, but it did certainly put his credentials with the denial movement beyond any doubt. Even though all he ever does is loudly claim "I used to disbelieve X, Y and Z but now my doubts and questions have been answered and I fully believe in gas chambers in Treblinka. I do, however, maintain that all gassings in Auschwitz took place not in Krema II or III but in the bunkers"

You would think if the Swedish chicks (and their string pullers) had really wanted to put Assange away they would have come up with something a little more damning.

[Simmins]

Why people are defending this guy whereas they wouldn't for another person in the same situation is actually pretty sad. Condom breaking one time is understandable but if a woman expressly states to wear a condom and you, in nearly every case i am aware of, know it broke then you stop and take care of the situation. But three times is certainly a pattern, he must have broke them himself.

And why wouldnt they want him to come in for an STD test? because most likely that is why they wanted him to wear one in the first place. They have to sit around for weeks waiting for something to show up? No way...if he does not come in willingly then some type of legal action is understandable.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by ThunderChunky

Is the claim that she was penetrated during her sleep?

How about you ask the Prosecutor, you know as much as I do, the charge stems from his allegedly having sex with her when she was asleep.

This story might put a few things in perpective.

People should just read and absorb this one.

[little grey rabbit]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

How about you ask the Prosecutor, you know as much as I do, the charge stems from his allegedly having sex with her when she was asleep.

This story might put a few things in perpective.

People should just read and absorb this one.

Muhahahahaha.

I read the 2nd one and thought the reference to Roman Polanski was the height of chutzpah. In one case we have a well-connected Jew who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year old and has successfully avoided all prison time and extradition charges.

In the other case we have someone who was pounced upon by two swedish adults - one of whom couldnt even wait to get back to the privacy of a bedroom before pulling his zipper down. Presumably, all so they could make a rape complaint and then reap the rewards through career preferement later.

No one gains from saying that its OK to use rape accusations as a form of payback, and it will only impact on genuine victims who feel they have hard enough time being believed already.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Muhahahahaha.

I read the 2nd one and thought the reference to Roman Polanski was the height of chutzpah. In one case we have a well-connected Jew who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year old and has successfully avoided all prison time and extradition charges.

In the other case we have someone who was pounced upon by two swedish adults - one of whom couldnt even wait to get back to the privacy of a bedroom before pulling his zipper down. Presumably, all so they could make a rape complaint and then reap the rewards through career preferement later.

No one gains from saying that its OK to use rape accusations as a form of payback, and it will only impact on genuine victims who feel they have hard enough time being believed already.

So obviously you were there, since you know exactly what happened, right?

[little grey rabbit]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

So obviously you were there, since you know exactly what happened, right?

Seriously, is that the best you can come up with? If I was your handler I would be docking your pay cheque

Have you ever shown so much interest in a rape case before?

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Seriously, is that the best you can come up with? If I was your handler I would be docking your pay cheque

Have you ever shown so much interest in a rape case before?

Several, were you at those too. Because here's your question. Unless you were in the room with them, how can you honestly say you know what happened? Where is your magical source of information that lets you know what no one else other then those three people know? How do you have this great fount of knowledge that allows you to see into people's bedrooms and know exactly what happened?

[little grey rabbit]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

Several, were you at those too. Because here's your question. Unless you were in the room with them, how can you honestly say you know what happened? Where is your magical source of information that lets you know what no one else other then those three people know? How do you have this great fount of knowledge that allows you to see into people's bedrooms and know exactly what happened?

Thats where the internet comes in handy. You can gauge by Illuminati reactions the likely cause behind events.

Here you are, an Australian (albeit with somewhat of an authoritarian security-military industry orientation) seemingly overwhelmingly concerned about if someone you have never met wore a condom or not with some girl who was more than happy to hop into the sack with him. This interest you display is clearly out of proportion to the significance of such an event which, even if every word of the indictment is true, is of mind-bogglingly triviality.

So clearly this is an issue that is of importance to the Illuminati and all their low-level operatives will be taking up positions both in the blogosphere and more importantly in the media to try and push this issue where ever possible.

Given the extreme improbability of such event ever making it past a policeman's desk, let alone seeming to excite people around the globe, then it has almost certainly been an event that was deliberately procured.

[Kevin_Lowe]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Muhahahahaha.

I read the 2nd one and thought the reference to Roman Polanski was the height of chutzpah. In one case we have a well-connected Jew who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year old and has successfully avoided all prison time and extradition charges.

Libby Brooks is clueless about the Polanski case. You yourself are repeating widespread misconceptions about the facts of the case.

Polanski is commonly referred to as having "drugged" Samantha Geimer, which is a construction that implies (without actually stating) that he tricked or forced her to take a substance that incapacitated her. They shared champagne and a quaalude between them. This is not something I'm okay with - you should not give minors alcohol, let alone one third of a quaalude - but at the same time it is misleading at best and dishonest at worst to say Polanski drugged Geimer.

Polanski told police they had consensual vaginal sex but he did not climax. This too is not something I'm okay with, but it's not (to use Whoopi's term) rape-rape. It's unlawful sex with a minor, a different and lesser offence.

Geimer told police Polanski vaginally raped her, then unceremoniously anally raped her until he climaxed. She was very specific and very graphic about this in her statement to police. It's an enormously serious allegation to make, and it's false in this case. When Geimer was examined there was absolutely no sign of trauma to the vaginal or anal regions and no sperm on her person or clothes.

There was phosphatase on her undergarments, a chemical trace that can linger for months after contact with semen and which can be found on the undergarments of most sexually active women. Geimer was already sexually active by her own admission at the time of the alleged offence, so this proves nothing either way.

Why Samantha Geimer lied in her statement to police is anyone's guess. A popular theory at the time is that her parents put her up to it so they could blackmail or sue Polanski, but we'll probably never know.

Polanski undoubtedly deserved the statutory punishments appropriate for an adult who shares alcohol and quaaludes and has consensual sex with a willing thirteen year old. However saying he got away with anal rape is incorrect.

Geimer herself later made significantly different claims to those she made in her initial statement to police:

Quote:

In a documentary for A&E Television Networks entitled Roman Polanski (2000), Samantha Gailey Geimer stated "…he had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that, and really I just tried to let him get it over with." She also claimed that the event had been blown "all out of proportion".

In a 2003 interview, Samantha Geimer said, "Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us." Furthermore, "I'm sure if he could go back, he wouldn't do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he's paid for it." In 2008, Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven, "I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever — besides me — and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it.

From here.

[little grey rabbit]

Ahh the bizarro world of JREF skeptics.

People are shocked, SHOCKED that there is a possibly Julian Assange didnt wear a condom, but can we really be sure that Roman Polanski's accuser was not lying when she said she was anally raped.

For the record she repeated her testimony on oath before a jury. You can read it here

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ro...part-2?page=13
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ro...part-2?page=14

[Kevin_Lowe]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Ahh the bizarro world of JREF skeptics.

People are shocked, SHOCKED that there is a possibly Julian Assange didnt wear a condom, but can we really be sure that Roman Polanski's accuser was not lying when she said she was anally raped.

For the record she repeated her testimony on oath before a jury. You can read it here

Anything's possible. I think the only thing we know for sure at this stage is that the charges are significantly politically motivated. It's possible the charges are true and that the only reason they are being made is political, and it's possible the charges are false and that the only reason they are being made is political. Whether or not Assange is factually guilt Interpol, Sweden and the UK have some serious questions to answer about the processes by which he has been charged.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Here you are, an Australian

Well there goes what paper thin credibility you did have.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

People are shocked, SHOCKED that there is a possibly Julian Assange didnt wear a condom

Not shocked at all, I couldn't care less what he did or did wear. I'm more concerned about whether he had sex with a sleeping woman or not.

What does shock me is the number of people that seem to believe that it's perfectly acceptable to have sex with a sleeping woman if she previously gave you a blow-job or had sex when awake. That shocks me.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by Simmins

Why people are defending this guy whereas they wouldn't for another person in the same situation is actually pretty sad. Condom breaking one time is understandable but if a woman expressly states to wear a condom and you, in nearly every case i am aware of, know it broke then you stop and take care of the situation. But three times is certainly a pattern, he must have broke them himself.

And why wouldnt they want him to come in for an STD test? because most likely that is why they wanted him to wear one in the first place. They have to sit around for weeks waiting for something to show up? No way...if he does not come in willingly then some type of legal action is understandable.

I *HAD* 2 condom breaks. And get a STD test for me and the women I slept with. The story is strange to me because in case of condom breaks, neither my partner nor me remarked immediately it had broke, we saw it only afterward. So maybe you guys have a different experience, by mine is that you don't remark the condom broke in the middle.

Anyway even if she has really be raped, in absence of evidence it turns out to be a she said/he said story. So unless there is more evidence than what's we heard, the story should go nowhere.

ETA: and getting 3 break one after the other don't sound too strange. It really depends on other factors we don't know. My sisters and me are , my parents admitted, the results of contraception not working.

[Simmins]

I noticed it right away, i also happened to be living with the person and STD's weren't an issue. Which has no bearing here because what happens in another case is beside the point. In circumstances where someone or rather two people are concerned enough to go to authorities then both sides are usually heard where at least they would question the other person.

Originally Posted by Aepervius

I *HAD* 2 condom breaks. And get a STD test for me and the women I slept with.

So then you agree that he should do what he did and turn himself in. His own lawyer isnt disputing it so its really a non issue. And i never said this, according to what i know about it anyway, is an automatic rape charge. If he does have an STD and knowingly continued then it can be more serious and that goes for anyone.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Ahh the bizarro world of JREF skeptics.

People are shocked, SHOCKED that there is a possibly Julian Assange didnt wear a condom, but can we really be sure that Roman Polanski's accuser was not lying when she said she was anally raped.

For the record she repeated her testimony on oath before a jury. You can read it here

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ro...part-2?page=13
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/ro...part-2?page=14

We are not a hive mind, you know ? JREFer have a wide range of opinion. Furthermore, people lie on oath grand jury or not. I am not pretending she did, I am just saying that because she said it under oath, does not make it "100% truth , impossible it was otherwise". Now if we are talking on probability, that certainly make it much more probable that he did the deed, rather than not doing it.

With the Polanski story anyway, most JREFer in "that" side of the debatte, were not unhappy with her story (maybe tehre was an exception or two I missed), they were unhappy the way the state department handled it, badly and was 100% guilty of the extradition not going on.

With Assange it is worst becazuse we have even LESS information going on.

But if you ask me, those debatte beats arguying with DOC for page 428 that no, there is no evidence presented, or aguying with 154 with his baiting, or any other of those threads which go for age nowhere.

At least the knox , assange and polanski thread distracted us, while having a finite live and a forseable time by which they end.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by Simmins

I noticed it right away, i also happened to be living with the person and STD's weren't an issue. Which has no bearing here because what happens in another case is beside the point. In circumstances where someone or rather two people are concerned enough to go to authorities then both sides are usually heard where at least they would question the other person.



So then you agree that he should do what he did and turn himself in. His own lawyer isnt disputing it so its really a non issue.

I agree he should test himself, but as far as I know my local law, he is not FORCED to do it. I dunno the swedish law on that point so....

But the rest ? No information to have, at best all we have are opinion formed and prejudiced by everybody's bias. Mine included.

[chillzero]

Originally Posted by little grey rabbit

Although if she was asleep then how would she know if he wore a condom or not?

Oh good grief.

Maybe she woke up?
Maybe she was left .... messy?

If you think that sex without a condom leaves no noticeable trace (or sensation) on a woman, well ... I don't know what to tell you.

[Leif Roar]

Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe

I think the only thing we know for sure at this stage is that the charges are significantly politically motivated.

Really? So what's the political motive that makes Sweden, of all countries, press charges against Assange? I mean, I could accept "political pressure" of the kind "Because of who he is, this case is going to be high profile, so make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's", but I find it hard to believe that any Swedish politican or bueraucrat would take the risk of imploring the police and prosecution to press charges against a person merely to curry favour with the USA.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by chillzero

Oh good grief.

Maybe she woke up?
Maybe she was left .... messy?

If you think that sex without a condom leaves no noticeable trace (or sensation) on a woman, well ... I don't know what to tell you.

You could make pretty picture so that he gets it .

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by Leif Roar

Really? So what's the political motive that makes Sweden, of all countries, press charges against Assange? I mean, I could accept "political pressure" of the kind "Because of who he is, this case is going to be high profile, so make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's", but I find it hard to believe that any Swedish politican or bueraucrat would take the risk of imploring the police and prosecution to press charges against a person merely to curry favour with the USA.

I guess, the same pressure which brought them to suddenly make a 180 on pirate bay, despite, from what I understood, them being 100% fine with the law, since they host nothing.

[Leif Roar]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

I guess, the same pressure which brought them to suddenly make a 180 on pirate bay, despite, from what I understood, them being 100% fine with the law, since they host nothing.

What, industry interests from the MPAA and political threats of trade sanctions through the WTO for failing to uphold the Berne convention? Somehow I fail to see how that would apply in this case.

[qayak]

One major part of the puzzle is why, after 40 days of investigation for which Assange waited in Sweden, were the charges dropped by the senior prosecutor and then re-issued 4 months later?

It will be interesting to see what changed. The only thing I can see changing is the testimony of the alleged victims. There really isn't any other evidence to change.

Only time will tell.

[George II]

According to swedish law, the decision to drop criminal charges or end an investigation can be appealed, and this is what the womens lawyer did in this case. As far as I understand you don't neccesarily need to present new evidence. If you do present new evidence, the prosecutor who made the original decion makes an initial re-evaluation of his/her desicion. If the decision is still the same the case can be sent "higher up" in the Swedish Prosecution Authority. But if no new evidence is presented, the case goes straight (as I understand) to the higher authority, which basically means that someone else takes a look at the same evidence as before and may or may not change the decision. It's rare for these appeals to result in any changes, but sometimes they do get changed. At this point we do not know exactly why it was changed, but it seems as it's just a case of another prosecutor making a different assessment of the previously available evidence. I haven't seen anything about any new evidence.

In any case it's not that the prosecutor just suddenly and for no apparent reason decided to re-open the investigation, the formal initiative was actually taken by the womens lawyer, and the prosecutor has to act on the appeal. That doesn't completley rule out political pressure of course, but at least in my mind it makes the prosecutors actions seem less suspicious.

[PhantomWolf]

Originally Posted by qayak

One major part of the puzzle is why, after 40 days of investigation for which Assange waited in Sweden, were the charges dropped by the senior prosecutor and then re-issued 4 months later?

It will be interesting to see what changed. The only thing I can see changing is the testimony of the alleged victims. There really isn't any other evidence to change.

Only time will tell.

If you read the first link I posted here you'd know that it was because the women's lawyer got involved and demanded they take another look at the evidence. Here's the important parts.

Quote:

The unusual circumstances surrounding the initial handling of the alleged assault have been used by Assange's online supporters to fan suspicions about the case. Why was an investigation launched by the Swedish prosecutors before being dropped and then revived? Why did the women, who had not previously known each other, go together to the police to report the assaults? Why was an extradition required when Assange had earlier been allowed to leave Sweden?

.....

But he gave a concise summary of the key allegations. "These two women were molested by Mr Julian Assange at two different times, independently of each other," he said.

.....

"When they spoke to each other they realised they had been through something very similar so they went to the police. That's not odd," he said.

"They decided to go to the police, to inform the police of what happened, to ask for advice; also they were interested in whether there was a risk that they could have got HIV. They were not sure whether they should make a police complaint, they wanted to have some advice. But when they told the police officer, she realised that what they were telling her was a crime and she reported that to the public prosecutor, who decided to arrest Assange."

Two days later a second prosecutor, who conducted a preliminary investigation, came to a different conclusion, judging that the evidence did not meet the criterion of a rape or sexual molestation charge. "She made another judgment, saying: 'No it's not. It's very close, but not quite,'" he claimed. "So she cancelled the arrest order and he was still suspected of molestation without sexual motives.

"When I read that decision, my own conclusion was and still is that it was a rape, so I asked for a reopening of the case, and then the investigation was reopened." There was nothing suspicious about this closing and reopening of the case, he said. "The law is not an exact science. You can always make different judgments. Different courts and different prosecutors make different decisions. I think that the prosecutor who cancelled the arrest warrant did not study the case well enough."

Assange was at that time free to leave the country, Borgström said. "He didn't have to ask anyone if he could." It was only later when it appeared that Assange was unwilling to return voluntarily for questioning that the extradition process was launched, he said.

"It turned out it was impossible to get him here for an interrogation, he wanted to be interrogated in the embassy, or wherever. Then the prosecutor decided to arrest him," he said.

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Matthew Best

it seems like it's just going to be one person's word against another.

That pretty much sums up about 90% of rape cases. Physical evidence of rape is exceedingly rare.

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

I guess, the same pressure which brought them to suddenly make a 180 on pirate bay, despite, from what I understood, them being 100% fine with the law, since they host nothing.

I think you'll find that what changed was not Sweden's attitude to The Pirate Bay, but the laws regarding copyright. In 2004 the EU passed a directive which ensured the way member states enforced copyright was the same, and part of that enforcement was for assisting or enabling the passing of copyright information (which is what the Pirate Bay owners were charged with).

The MPAA didn't put "pressure" on Sweden, they merely filed the complaint which led to the raid (any party with copyright interests is permitted to file claims that their copyright is being breached).

[Childlike Empress]

Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe

I think the only thing we know for sure at this stage is that the charges are significantly politically motivated.

Originally Posted by Leif Roar

Really? So what's the political motive that makes Sweden, of all countries, press charges against Assange? I mean, I could accept "political pressure" of the kind "Because of who he is, this case is going to be high profile, so make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's", but I find it hard to believe that any Swedish politican or bueraucrat would take the risk of imploring the police and prosecution to press charges against a person merely to curry favour with the USA.

Really. We know for sure that it's politically motivated. Why do that? Ask the Swedes.

Naomi Wolf rests the case today:

Originally Posted by Huffington Post

J'Accuse: Sweden, Britain, and Interpol Insult Rape Victims Worldwide

How do I know that Interpol, Britain and Sweden's treatment of Julian Assange is a form of theater? Because I know what happens in rape accusations against men that don't involve the embarrassing of powerful governments.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is in solitary confinement in Wandsworth prison in advance of questioning on state charges of sexual molestation. Lots of people have opinions about the charges. But I increasingly believe that only those of us who have spent years working with rape and sexual assault survivors worldwide, and know the standard legal response to sex crime accusations, fully understand what a travesty this situation is against those who have to live through how sex crime charges are ordinarily handled -- and what a deep, even nauseating insult this situation is to survivors of rape and sexual assault worldwide.

Here is what I mean: men are pretty much never treated the way Assange is being treated in the face of sex crime charges.

I started working as a counselor in a UK center for victims of sexual assault in my mid-twenties. I also worked as a counselor in a battered women's shelter in the US, where sexual violence was often part of the pattern of abuse. I have since spent two decades traveling the world reporting on and interviewing survivors of sexual assault, and their advocates, in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone and Morocco, Norway and Holland, Israel and Jordan and the Occupied Territories, Bosnia and Croatia, Britain, Ireland and the united States.

I tell you this as a recorder of firsthand accounts. Tens of thousand of teenage girls were kidnapped at gunpoint and held as sex slaves in Sierra Leone during that country's civil war. They were tied to trees and to stakes in the ground and raped by dozens of soldiers at a time. Many of them were as young as twelve or thirteen. Their rapists are free. [...]

In other words: Never in twenty-three years of reporting on and supporting victims of sexual assault around the world have I ever heard of a case of a man sought by two nations, and held in solitary confinement without bail in advance of being questioned -- for any alleged rape, even the most brutal or easily proven. In terms of a case involving the kinds of ambiguities and complexities of the alleged victims' complaints -- sex that began consensually that allegedly became non-consensual when dispute arose around a condom -- please find me, anywhere in the world, another man in prison today without bail on charges of anything comparable.

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Really. We know for sure that it's politically motivated. Why do that? Ask the Swedes.

Naomi Wolf rests the case today:

Miss Wolf misrepresents the case, and thus I presume the comparisons she makes are as faulty as the faulty presumptions.

[Leif Roar]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Really. We know for sure that it's politically motivated. Why do that? Ask the Swedes.

Naomi Wolf rests the case today:

So, basically, a lack of prosection for rapes in Sierra Leone shows that Sweden's prosecution of Assange is a sham? Somehow, her argument fails to impress me.

[Skeptic Ginger]

There seems to be a preponderance of the default position two women who felt they were assaulted went to the cops.

That is not what the initial case was. Two women who had consensual casual sex with Assange found out about each other and their initial reaction was to ask Assange to have an STD test. Apparently his reaction was not what they wanted. So they went to the cops to see if they could force Assange to have an STD test. The prosecutor told them there was no evidence of a crime.

SEVERAL MONTHS later and AFTER Assange became the focus of the Wikileaks international scandal, unrelated to the sex with these women, the head of the department which covers these kinds of crimes twisted the story into one of forced/coerced sex to which at least one of the women has objected to the characterization of.

I'd like to know why those in the thread who are going on and on about date rape and whether or not one can start intercourse without waking someone up are assuming the premise these are actually what the women's initial complaints were and are not the rewording of the complaints by a prosecutor with more political motive for bringing these charges than actual interest in the crime on its face?

Why was the story changed from, we want the guy to get an STD test, to, we were coerced/forced? Why were the formal charges only made after Assange became the focus of the latest Wikileaks leaks?

And have you all never been in a court room? Each side, defense and prosecution, present the case with a slanted view. That's their job!

[dirtywick]

Guess we'll find out soon. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle of Illuminati conspiracy assassination and anarcho-blackmailer serial rapist.

[George II]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Naomi Wolf rests the case

That was one stupid article.

So until we arrest all those rapist who comited worse or more obvious types of rape, Assange should be left alone? And investigating the allegations against him (which is all it really is for now) is a slap in the face of other rape victims?

It's ironic how she complains about how other rape victims have trouble getting their cases taken seriously and then goes on explaining why this case should not be taken serioulsy.

[ftl]

Originally Posted by Leif Roar

So, basically, a lack of prosection for rapes in Sierra Leone shows that Sweden's prosecution of Assange is a sham? Somehow, her argument fails to impress me.

The Sierra Leone was just one example; the article says

Quote:

I have since spent two decades traveling the world reporting on and interviewing survivors of sexual assault, and their advocates, in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone and Morocco, Norway and Holland, Israel and Jordan and the Occupied Territories, Bosnia and Croatia, Britain, Ireland and the united States.

That list includes both 3rd and 1st world countries. Did you read the article? It includes statements about US and Swedish cases.

Her claim is that, all around, rape is never treated this seriously. That's unfortunate, but true.

A lack of prosecution for rape cases in all sorts of places shows that Sweden's prosecution of Assange is a sham. It indicates that if Assange HADN'T pissed off the governments of the world, his case would have probably been treated as lightly as all the other accusations of rape are.


Written out step-by-step, the logic goes as follows:

1) Rape cases are almost always dealt with far more leniently than in Assange's case.
2) Follow-up question - what's different about the Assange case than all the other rape cases? Why is he being prosecuted where lots of other men wouldn't be?
3) It's not the circumstances of the rape - it's not an especially brutal case, it's not an especially easy-to-prove case, the victims aren't unusually famous. Assange isn't a member of a persecuted minority, so that's not it.
4) Conclusion: the only remaining reason why Assange is being treated far more harshly than most people who are accused of rape is because of HIS infamy with regards to WikiLeaks.

Of course, there's always the possibility that there's some other reasons we don't know. But there's no evidence for them. The government of the US (or any other government harmed by WikiLeaks) certainly has the motive to lock up Assange; they certainly have the means to put pressure on Sweden (there's some pretty big governments harmed by WikiLeaks, this isn't Monaco having objections) and, when these two women went to the police, they got the opportunity.

[ftl]

Originally Posted by George II

That was one stupid article.

So until we arrest all those rapist who comited worse or more obvious types of rape, Assange should be left alone?

No. However, his prosecution should be just one of many similar ones - a part of a broader movement to prosecute a crime that all too many people get away with.

But that's not the case. There's not a broad overhaul of the justice system for more justice.

There's just this one case, where Assange is being prosecuted where lots of other men wouldn't be.

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And investigating the allegations against him (which is all it really is for now) is a slap in the face of other rape victims?

It is a slap in the face of other rape victims because it looks like the rape is being used as a pretext to hold Assange whereas the "real" reason he's being locked up is his WikiLeaks activity. Basically, this case DOESN'T send the message that "you shouldn't commit rape because you'll get prosecuted". It sends the message that "if you piss off enough governments, they'll prosecute you for something that they would have never prosecuted you for otherwise".

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It's ironic how she complains about how women have trouble getting their cases taken seriously and then goes on explaining why this case should not be taken serioulsy.

That's true, it is in fact ironic

[BenBurch]

Until you know what happened, and these women speak for themselves in a court of law, it is bordering on cruel to try to make them out to be liars.