This is a really ignorant blog post about the accusations against Assange. Read my comments, I'm a huge supporter of what wikileaks is doing, but more trivializing of this situation is not what we need.
There is a lot of misinformation about the case out there. There is most likely interference from various intelligence agencies working the press in order to continue that misinformation.
But there are also some potentially very serious charges being made. We don't nearly know enough about the facts of what happened to make any assumptions either way about any parties involved. Any serious attempt to research the case results in many widely conflicting stories.
So I would suggest we stick to the work that Wikileaks is doing, and not get caught up in the tabloid scandal the media has made this to be.
Well, for one, Assange is not only being charged with the obscure Swedish law of "sex by surprise", which is having sex without a condom, but also with rape.
Assange is not only being charged with the obscure Swedish law of "sex by surprise"
He isn't being charged with this because it doesn't exist:
First things first: According to the Swedish criminal code, there is no "broken condom law," nor is there a law against having consensual unprotected sex. (Unlike the U.S., anything not listed in the code could still be considered a crime, but only by "special legislation.") In the Swedish warrant for Assange's arrest, both of his accusers said that they had separate consensual sexual encounters with Assange that became nonconsensual after he refused to use a condom or replace a broken one.
...
Prior to the complaint, rumors were swirling that Assange was being charged not with rape but an obscure Swedish law against "sex by surprise," which is likewise nowhere to be found in Sweden's criminal code.
Perhaps why this misinformation is being spread so easily:
Swedish blogger Linea at Feminism and Tea attributes the confusion to a mix-up over a colloquialism for rape:
"Sex by surprise" or överraskningssex as it would be translated in Swedish is slang for rape. It is a term that is used when speaking about rape, but jokingly, or keeping it light, a word that brings with it positive connotations, which makes the word inappropriate in itself, but it is nevertheless synonymous with rape.
The part that confuses me (and that seems to be corroborated by the victims tweets and other interviews) is that instead of going to the police right away after this 'rape' (in quotes for now, until convicted) is that they did not seem at all concerned with it afterwards.
Typically a rape victim does not throw a party in honor of their attackers, nor do they tweet about them as 'the coolest people in the world'.
Another bothering item is that when you sleep with people that are known to 'get around' (as in does not have a fixed place to stay) you have to wonder if you're successful at hooking up with them on the first night if you're the only one they've done that with (if someone is 'easy' you're 'easy' too) and that increases the risks of STDs regardless. Condoms or not, this is risky behavior.
Last but not least, the risk of STD transmission runs both ways and it is possible to have yourself tested as well.
I hope that we can count on Sweden to pursue every case of injustice against Swedish nationals this vigorously from now on, it would be nice to see how this case stacks up in terms of evidence and circumstances compared with other cases. If this is typical of the Swedish prosecutors then more power to them for being thorough, if it is not then the chances that there are more things here than meet the eye will go up.
A research project last year funded by the European Commission found that Sweden leads Europe in reports of rape, with 46.5 per every 100,000 citizens, compared with 36 in No. 2 Iceland and 26 in England and Wales. At the same time, Sweden’s 10 percent conviction rate for rape is among Europe's lowest.
So it would seem like no, the prosecutors haven't always been so vigorous. Sweden certainly seems to have it's issues with punishing sexual assault, but I'm not sure if we should really let things like that influence our judgement of this case until all the facts are known.
Please, why don't you read your own links?
From that link that you posted:
Aug. 14: . . . The two go out for dinner, return to the apartment and have sex during which a condom breaks.
Aug. 15: . . . Miss A hosts a party for Assange at her home, afterward reportedly tweeting this to friends: "Sitting outside ... nearly freezing, with the world’s coolest people. It’s pretty amazing!"
Clearly the party happened after the first incident, and so did the tweet.
> that tweet went out before the alleged incidents
No, according to your own link (and the facts), it went out a day and some hours (it was at 2 AM on the 16th) after she alleged that "Assange used his body weight to hold her down during sex".
This is a really ignorant blog post about the accusations against Assange.
I don't think it's even ignorant; more a random meaningless train of thought filled with non sequiturs, an extended version of what you see people writing on Facebook or IRC when they're drunk. Seemed an obvious "flag" case to me, it's even filed under "General Nonsense."
Yes, it is ignorant - he makes claims about the country and legal system of Sweden based upon falsehoods and inaccuracies about the charges against Assange ("if your condom breaks, that's jail time").
We should also be careful when discussing the case not to fall into the trap of demonising the women involved, based on little or no available evidence, just because we like Assange and approve of what Wikileaks is doing.
Reasonable doubt is rational. But I'm seeing a lot of misogynistic attacks elsewhere on the Interwebs, and they're irrational and counterproductive, as well as being icky.
Indeed. I have several friends already who are too caught up in him and what he's doing to even consider he could be guilty- and I suspect one of them may even feel that guilty or not, he shouldn't be prosecuted.
At a minimum he's guilty of stupidity and being a douchebag at that.
Neither of those are illegal.
The only real questions I have at this point is if this is the 'norm' for this kind of offense in Sweden and if there is a hidden agenda to have him extradited to the US.
If this is the norm and Sweden would normally handle cases like this in exactly this way and if there is no hidden agenda (ironically, only wikileaks will probably ever tell us that) then there is no problem.
It's funny how 'cablegate' probably causes a lot of cables that are far more interesting than the ones actually released.
I'm amazed that a pretty basic plea to withhold judgement about an investigation until it's been completed and all of the facts are released is getting downvoted so heavily here. Why?
I think that people are conflating the concerted attack on WikiLeaks with the case against Assange, wikileaks is not helping in this respect by reminding everybody with regularity of the connection between the two.
All this of course only holds water if in the end it turns out that the 'other side' also keeps things nicely separated.
Apparently Swedish laws are unique. If you have a penis, you're half a rapist before you even get through customs. And if your condom breaks, that's jail time.
Geez, you would think a guy like Scott Adams would want to do a bit more research before writing a blog post like this.
Yes, I like his comedy but this really trivializes a serious subject. It is juvenile but not actually funny or clever. A pity, because Dilbert often has worthwhile insights into ethics, authority and similar subjects.
You should turn up your sarcasm-o-meter. He's being sarcastic here, just to highlight the stupidity of the situation. An international arrest warrant for something that they initially dropped?
Being a Swede, I have to say that Adams doesn't really have all his facts straight. First, this kind of thing is very rare. Hooking up with girls in Sweden would not get you into this kind of trouble any more than in other western countries.
Assange had a bit of bad luck when he met Anna Ardin, the girl who stirred up this whole thing. She's a very peculiar person in Swedish "politics" as she is working hard to merge religion and politics, something a vast majority of Swedes believe is a really bad idea. She is also a sort of radical feminist, and she's written an article called "7 Steps to Legal Revenge" where she describes how to really crush someone who has cheated on you or hurt you in any way. By the looks of it, she's following that very article to get some revenge at Assange for sleeping with a friend of hers.
So, Swedes are on Assange's side even though the idiot prosecutor might make things seem like we aren't. We're all shaking our heads at this whole farse and we're all embarrassed. There is, however, no way that Assange will be convicted for any of the charges he is facing. It's just a case of "we have to get him here to interrogate him because that's the procedure".
So, from Sweden, just want to say that we're sorry that a couple of idiots have managed to create all this fuss. But don't be hatin'.
For now it's not the Swedes calling the shots but one particular prosecutor, who very explicitly left the door open to extraditing him to the US (as in definitely not ruling it out).
Is it customary that the Swedish authorities would involve Interpol in a case like this ?
A couple of months ago a Swedish newspaper ran a story describing a case of assault, taking place on a ferry from Sweden to Finland[1]. Freely translated with a bit of help from google:
The film shows how the two men drops Christer with punches. Then one of them stomped him five times to the head with full force. The men then disappear into their cabin. After 30 seconds, one of them returns and kicks the unconscious Christer twice in the face. [...] But since the crime took place in Swedish waters, and none of the people involved are Finnish citizens, they were released and returned to Ireland. [...] In Sweden, the matter was taken over by prosecutor Thomas Holst. Despite the surveillance film, and the the two perpetrators being identified, he decided to drop the investigation.
- "The people can't be contacted", he says.
But they are known and available in Ireland?
- "If we were to try to bring home all the people who committed crimes not serious enough, we would get very busy."
He doesn't see asking them to be extradited as a realistic option.
- "We only do that kind of thing when it's serious crimes - like murder."
Ardin didn't actually write the article about revenge; it's from eHow. She just translated it into Swedish.
Reuters claims all Ardin and the other accuser really wanted was to get Assange to take an STD test.
I think Assange's concern was not that he'd be convicted, but that once he's in police custody, he could be extradited to the US or murdered more easily.
Which is funny in a morbid way, because I think he's actually a lot safer from a possible hit in a UK prison than outside of one. The last place where you could get away with something like that un-noticed is inside a prison.
And I doubt even the US would be stupid enough to try something like that even though there are enough politicians baying for blood.
I wished they were as assertive about bringing people to trial when it comes to the Guantanamo inmates.
It wouldn't have to be the US or even the UK. Assange has angered a lot of different governments, not to mention private citizens.
People die in London police custody at about the rate of one every month, if I remember correctly. It's not really such an unusual occurrence. Without knowing much about the UK, I doubt that the police officers who kill those captives usually get indicted for murder.
Adams, being Adams, wrote most of that tongue in cheek though.
I'm Swedish too, and I think there is a core of truth to what he's saying.
The joke about how you're half a rapist just for having a penis and a fully qualified one if the condom breaks — not true of course, it was just a joke, ha-ha.
But, actually, we do have a pretty liberal definition of rape these days, not that liberal, but still. Rape used to have to contain some element of violence or threat of violence, these days rape doesn't have to contain either. As Assange's accusors have conceded, it was consensual sex.
The feminist movement in Sweden is trying, has been for years, to expand the word "rape" to include less aggrievous stuff. This seems to be another attempt at expanding the definition of "rape" into meaning that the offender didn't "honor the agreement" of the "sexual relation". As if they had arrived at an agreement before they had sex.
I don't think they will win this case though. I expect Assange to be freed of all charges. Possibly a minor charge of non-sexual harassment, or something.
If that's the common expectation then why this all out effort to bring him to justice ? I've looked at the interpol site, it's not exactly crawling with Swedish requests to bring sex offenders to justice, the only other guy on there is a Swedish national that has some other ominous wording next to his 'sex offenses' relating to children.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 76.3 ms ] threadWhich is "and your cute friend is next" in Swedish, in case you were wondering. :)
As least according to: http://translate.google.com/#en|sv|and%20your%20cute%20frien....
Talk about surprise waking up finding your home country trending on HN!
There is a lot of misinformation about the case out there. There is most likely interference from various intelligence agencies working the press in order to continue that misinformation.
But there are also some potentially very serious charges being made. We don't nearly know enough about the facts of what happened to make any assumptions either way about any parties involved. Any serious attempt to research the case results in many widely conflicting stories.
So I would suggest we stick to the work that Wikileaks is doing, and not get caught up in the tabloid scandal the media has made this to be.
Care to share ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307137/Su...
He isn't being charged with this because it doesn't exist:
First things first: According to the Swedish criminal code, there is no "broken condom law," nor is there a law against having consensual unprotected sex. (Unlike the U.S., anything not listed in the code could still be considered a crime, but only by "special legislation.") In the Swedish warrant for Assange's arrest, both of his accusers said that they had separate consensual sexual encounters with Assange that became nonconsensual after he refused to use a condom or replace a broken one.
...
Prior to the complaint, rumors were swirling that Assange was being charged not with rape but an obscure Swedish law against "sex by surprise," which is likewise nowhere to be found in Sweden's criminal code.
Perhaps why this misinformation is being spread so easily:
Swedish blogger Linea at Feminism and Tea attributes the confusion to a mix-up over a colloquialism for rape: "Sex by surprise" or överraskningssex as it would be translated in Swedish is slang for rape. It is a term that is used when speaking about rape, but jokingly, or keeping it light, a word that brings with it positive connotations, which makes the word inappropriate in itself, but it is nevertheless synonymous with rape.
Source: "STDs, Broken Condoms, and ‘Sex by Surprise’: A Primer on the Charges Against Assange" http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/crayfish_parties_and_br...
Typically a rape victim does not throw a party in honor of their attackers, nor do they tweet about them as 'the coolest people in the world'.
Another bothering item is that when you sleep with people that are known to 'get around' (as in does not have a fixed place to stay) you have to wonder if you're successful at hooking up with them on the first night if you're the only one they've done that with (if someone is 'easy' you're 'easy' too) and that increases the risks of STDs regardless. Condoms or not, this is risky behavior.
Last but not least, the risk of STD transmission runs both ways and it is possible to have yourself tested as well.
I hope that we can count on Sweden to pursue every case of injustice against Swedish nationals this vigorously from now on, it would be nice to see how this case stacks up in terms of evidence and circumstances compared with other cases. If this is typical of the Swedish prosecutors then more power to them for being thorough, if it is not then the chances that there are more things here than meet the eye will go up.
A research project last year funded by the European Commission found that Sweden leads Europe in reports of rape, with 46.5 per every 100,000 citizens, compared with 36 in No. 2 Iceland and 26 in England and Wales. At the same time, Sweden’s 10 percent conviction rate for rape is among Europe's lowest.
So it would seem like no, the prosecutors haven't always been so vigorous. Sweden certainly seems to have it's issues with punishing sexual assault, but I'm not sure if we should really let things like that influence our judgement of this case until all the facts are known.
The party was organized, and that tweet went out before the alleged incidents: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40551118/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in...
Aug. 14: . . . The two go out for dinner, return to the apartment and have sex during which a condom breaks.
Aug. 15: . . . Miss A hosts a party for Assange at her home, afterward reportedly tweeting this to friends: "Sitting outside ... nearly freezing, with the world’s coolest people. It’s pretty amazing!"
Clearly the party happened after the first incident, and so did the tweet.
No, according to your own link (and the facts), it went out a day and some hours (it was at 2 AM on the 16th) after she alleged that "Assange used his body weight to hold her down during sex".
This is the most clear-headed piece I've seen about the charges: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B669H20101207
And on the smearing of the alleged victims: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julia...
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange...
(Assanges .au lawyer, obviously biased).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-rape-a...
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/09/rundle-r-pe-case-complai...
I don't think it's even ignorant; more a random meaningless train of thought filled with non sequiturs, an extended version of what you see people writing on Facebook or IRC when they're drunk. Seemed an obvious "flag" case to me, it's even filed under "General Nonsense."
Reasonable doubt is rational. But I'm seeing a lot of misogynistic attacks elsewhere on the Interwebs, and they're irrational and counterproductive, as well as being icky.
This article is good: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-juli...
Neither of those are illegal.
The only real questions I have at this point is if this is the 'norm' for this kind of offense in Sweden and if there is a hidden agenda to have him extradited to the US.
If this is the norm and Sweden would normally handle cases like this in exactly this way and if there is no hidden agenda (ironically, only wikileaks will probably ever tell us that) then there is no problem.
It's funny how 'cablegate' probably causes a lot of cables that are far more interesting than the ones actually released.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979095
Would be nice to find some other link confirming that story.
All this of course only holds water if in the end it turns out that the 'other side' also keeps things nicely separated.
Denmark still looking good:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/862711/danish-womans-one-ni...
Scott Adams has a way with words.
Geez, you would think a guy like Scott Adams would want to do a bit more research before writing a blog post like this.
Assange had a bit of bad luck when he met Anna Ardin, the girl who stirred up this whole thing. She's a very peculiar person in Swedish "politics" as she is working hard to merge religion and politics, something a vast majority of Swedes believe is a really bad idea. She is also a sort of radical feminist, and she's written an article called "7 Steps to Legal Revenge" where she describes how to really crush someone who has cheated on you or hurt you in any way. By the looks of it, she's following that very article to get some revenge at Assange for sleeping with a friend of hers.
So, Swedes are on Assange's side even though the idiot prosecutor might make things seem like we aren't. We're all shaking our heads at this whole farse and we're all embarrassed. There is, however, no way that Assange will be convicted for any of the charges he is facing. It's just a case of "we have to get him here to interrogate him because that's the procedure".
So, from Sweden, just want to say that we're sorry that a couple of idiots have managed to create all this fuss. But don't be hatin'.
I'd say us Americans should understand that perfectly
Is it customary that the Swedish authorities would involve Interpol in a case like this ?
You can check for yourself: http://www.interpol.int/Public/Wanted/Search/ResultListNew.a...
The film shows how the two men drops Christer with punches. Then one of them stomped him five times to the head with full force. The men then disappear into their cabin. After 30 seconds, one of them returns and kicks the unconscious Christer twice in the face. [...] But since the crime took place in Swedish waters, and none of the people involved are Finnish citizens, they were released and returned to Ireland. [...] In Sweden, the matter was taken over by prosecutor Thomas Holst. Despite the surveillance film, and the the two perpetrators being identified, he decided to drop the investigation. - "The people can't be contacted", he says.
But they are known and available in Ireland? - "If we were to try to bring home all the people who committed crimes not serious enough, we would get very busy."
He doesn't see asking them to be extradited as a realistic option. - "We only do that kind of thing when it's serious crimes - like murder."
[1] http://aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article8031457.ab
Reuters claims all Ardin and the other accuser really wanted was to get Assange to take an STD test.
I think Assange's concern was not that he'd be convicted, but that once he's in police custody, he could be extradited to the US or murdered more easily.
And I doubt even the US would be stupid enough to try something like that even though there are enough politicians baying for blood.
I wished they were as assertive about bringing people to trial when it comes to the Guantanamo inmates.
People die in London police custody at about the rate of one every month, if I remember correctly. It's not really such an unusual occurrence. Without knowing much about the UK, I doubt that the police officers who kill those captives usually get indicted for murder.
Are you sure about that? There was also no way the tpb guys would get jail, it's getting darker now.
I'm Swedish too, and I think there is a core of truth to what he's saying.
The joke about how you're half a rapist just for having a penis and a fully qualified one if the condom breaks — not true of course, it was just a joke, ha-ha.
But, actually, we do have a pretty liberal definition of rape these days, not that liberal, but still. Rape used to have to contain some element of violence or threat of violence, these days rape doesn't have to contain either. As Assange's accusors have conceded, it was consensual sex.
The feminist movement in Sweden is trying, has been for years, to expand the word "rape" to include less aggrievous stuff. This seems to be another attempt at expanding the definition of "rape" into meaning that the offender didn't "honor the agreement" of the "sexual relation". As if they had arrived at an agreement before they had sex.
I don't think they will win this case though. I expect Assange to be freed of all charges. Possibly a minor charge of non-sexual harassment, or something.
If that's the common expectation then why this all out effort to bring him to justice ? I've looked at the interpol site, it's not exactly crawling with Swedish requests to bring sex offenders to justice, the only other guy on there is a Swedish national that has some other ominous wording next to his 'sex offenses' relating to children.
And I do agree with you that this case is anything but usual, numerous things about it strikes me as odd and weirdly coincidental.