16 ms·

Swedish court upholds Assange arrest warrant

46 points by ramblenode 10y ago

Numberwang 10y ago
Good. I'm glad to see public pressure and armchair lawyers being properly ignored.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  I think if you talk to most American's they'd like to see Assange arrested and tried. I bet half would like to see him convicted. There is no pressure to have him pardoned. An e-petition is not pressure at all.
  - Numberwang 10y ago
    I'm talking as a Swede about Swedes. The world is upside down here.
- pawadu 10y ago
  what about armchair prosecutors?
abysmallyideal 10y ago
Well, Snowden was obviously intelligent on hindsight by completely avoiding Scandinavia.
- distances 10y ago
  How so?
  - feelix 10y ago
    Obviously the assertion here is that Scandinavia will roll over for the US.
wallace_f 10y ago
This is not the first time Sweden has violated human dignity for the sake of helping out the US. One example: https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-ban-cia-rendition https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-...
- rightnow 10y ago
  What about the dignity of the two girls? They're not worth anything?
  - sgift 10y ago
    If the prosecution values their dignity so much it is free to do the interview per video or by going to London and finish this thing. The options are there, they just have to use them.
    - notahacker 10y ago
      How do they "finish the thing" by being unable to complete the arrest because he's sitting on foreign territory? Particularly when the Ecuadorean embassy keeps throwing curve balls by blocking requests and insisting on asking the questions themselves.
      - k1m 10y ago
        By going to him, which they have been happy to do in many other cases, and have finally agreed to do in this case after the UN criticised the way they have treated him.
        notahacker 10y ago
        Do you honestly believe both that there will be no further objections by Ecuadorian embassy staff and that Assange will agree to walk out of the embassy after the questions are asked and Sweden is allowed to charge him on October 17th? If not, how can you possibly claim that Sweden have been offered an opportunity to "finish it"?
Kenji 10y ago
If you read all the allegations that his 'victims' brought up, you see that while Assange isn't exactly a gentleman, nothing really bad took place. If Assange wasn't politically active in the way he is, he would get a slap on the wrist and move on with his life. It's pretty terrifying how you have to worry that your own country extradites you to America and this ruins your life even overseas. EDIT: Before you reply angrily, please read the exact details of the cases. It's more subtle than you think. Just saying "but it's rape!" doesn't cut it here.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Having unprotected sex with someone who is asleep and previously rejected unprotected sex is "nothing really bad"? Or did I miss some newer testimony?
  - rightnow 10y ago
    With two as far as i can remember.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- threeseed 10y ago
  This is really not appropriate. There are allegations of forced rape and sexual assault and we shouldn't be trivialising them. If Assange was just an ordinary guy and these allegations were true it absolutely wouldn't be just a slap on the wrist. Based on Sweden's chequered history with renditions I don't blame Assange for being reluctant to face the charges. But that doesn't mean he did or didn't do anything wrong.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- knocte 10y ago
  "Your own country"? Assange is Australian, not Swedish.
willvarfar 10y ago
Someone accused of rape should not be given refuge to wait it out. Its easy for armchair conspiracists to imagine this whole thing an elaborate ruse to extradite Assange to the US, but Assange was being questioned in Sweden before he fled from there and on bail in the UK prior to 'fleeing' to the Ecuadorian embassy. It seems a very roundabout way for the Americans to get at him. Occams Razor Assange is fleeing justice and abusing the trusting conspiracists trust in promoting the whole American extradition narrative. PS: so the downvotes roll in :( Really, are these girls secretly American agents? And the Americans, rather than use two girl agents that had intimate access to Assange, chose to burn them by asking them to escalate to the Police when Assange wouldn't be treated for STDs?
- chmars 10y ago
  Not guilty until proven? And the stay at the embassy is for political reasons – and like a prison sentence (in a civilized country where prison sentences are about the loss of freedom and not the loss of living as a human being).
  - jahnu 10y ago
    Definitely not guilty until proven but at the same time we have a duty to respect the legal process unless there is something truly amiss. So far I remain unconvinced by the arguments that he's fleeing persecution.
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    > Not guilty until proven? There was no assumption of guilt in the parents post. There's an open accusation and it's absolutely normal that people get arrested for rape accusations. Rape is a serious crime and needs to be prosecuted. The stay at the embassy is self-inflicted. Nobody but Assange chose to violate the conditions of his bail. Assange still is master of his own destiny and could end this at any point. He also enjoys a lot of freedoms that actual prisoners often do not enjoy, among them using the internet. Equating his self-chosen recluse with a prison sentence is unfair to all actual prisoners.
    - 10y ago
berntb 10y ago
You need a bit more information to see the really funny part. There is presently a scandal in Sweden regarding how bad the Swedish police and the courts work. The justice system write off cases easily. In many parts of the country, after office hours there are hours of travel for the closest police (if they happen to be free). Recently it was found that the police doesn't just have the lowest solving percentage in history, they hide that information. And so on. But in this Assange case, the justice system work hard; it seems they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell... (That said -- imho, no part in that circus has any credibility whatsoever.)
- kalleboo 10y ago
  > But in this case of Assange, the justice system work hard; it seems they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell... If they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell, they've just fly to the embassy and interview him there
  - berntb 10y ago
    Sorry, I thought my point was obvious -- it is hilariously obvious that the tenacity is not about the crime Assange stands accused of. (I'm not certain if Assange should be sent to a prison in the US or not. Releasing information, which certainly e.g. China and Russia already have, is not bad. On the other hand, releasing secret information must be prosecuted for a state's good.)
    - willvarfar 10y ago
      Living in Sweden, so kinda care that the police would work a bit harder. But its a massive leap to take general statistics and extrapolate that to one of the most heinous crimes of all - rape. Hopefully the overstretched police are overlooking the drunks and focusing on the rape and murder cases?
      - berntb 10y ago
        You would hope so. In today's news, the police just forgot about when a 72 year old got a gun to his head when visiting a graveyard. Rather, crime in Sweden is deemed important if a case reach the media. That is a more likely explanation to the situation (without external influences). So e.g. the case of the old man getting a gun to his head I noted above will probably be solved now, if it still is possible after so long a time. (And e.g. removing the condom during consensual sex, like Assange, is defined as "rape" in Sweden, but is hardly the upper half of that definition.)
dummkopf99 10y ago
So you believe the rape accusations are valid? If you think that it is not politically motivated or that Sweden will not hand him over to the US as soon as they get him, you must be incredibly naive.
- willvarfar 10y ago
  (I live in Sweden) The rape accusations seem valid, but I'm not qualified to judge and neither are you. A court should decide. I find the whole idea that two girls tried to get him to take an STD test and it escalates to him fleeing to be an incredibly non-credible way for the US to extradite him. Why didn't the US pursue him for those months he was wandering around London?
- PJDK 10y ago
  What does hand over mean. Assange isn't wanted in America, and as far as I'm aware hasn't broken any US laws either. I'm sure you can find some quotes from blowhard politicians saying something mean about him, but that's not how the justice system works. So what does hand over mean? And why would neutral Sweden be more likely to hand him over than closest ally, special relationship, NATO and 5 Eyes member Britain?
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    Saying Assange isn't wanted in the US (and wouldn't be arrested if he came) is the equivalent of waving your hands on someone's face and saying "lalallala I'm not touching you". There's not a literal arrest warrant but you're being tremendously naive or deliberately obtuse if you think he wouldn't be arrested at customs.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- sctb 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513082 and marked it off-topic.
boxkite 10y ago
Assange is a nutjob who grew up in Australia during the cold war as a teenage hacker thinking the world was going to end. His paranoia and sense of dread lead him to picking the biggest fight in the world possible. Potentially people have died because of what he did, but also the public has an amazing resource for understanding the larger powers at will in the world around them. If I have to get armchair about the rapes, everything I've seen it seems like he got high with a couple chicks and had some sex. Deviant I guess because there were multiple. I don't think there is media reports of this, but I'm sure there was some trip or some x involved. He very could be a date rapist. Very possible. I don't think this claim has ever been made, but he could potentially have drugged and raped two women that were not awake to give consent. It's also possible that he violently forced women to have sex with him. I want those women to have a reckoning with Assange in a Swedish court. By proxy if need be, to protect them from their assailant. However, there is a big problem with moving him to Sweden because they are an American ally and we aren't exactly treating Chelsea Manning in a way that I think is appropriate for the gravity of what is happening. Assange is a person looking for a war to the death because that's what he was brought up expecting. That may or may not be the game that we are playing, but it is the way he sees the world. He has provided a service that potentially could save lives and enable us to have a better shot at a more informed future. Chelsea, Edward, and Assange are martyrs and I'm fairly sure they've accepted it. If they move to the wrong court they might be shot on a boat and dumped in the ocean and we'll not get to have that dialog. It's fucking tragic if those women were victimized. If this crazy game of chess with these eccentric techie chists isn't allowed to play out verbosely, we will all suffer for it.
- Hitard 10y ago
  Your response is full of defamatory conjecture and bizarre imagination. All we know is that two women have alleged that Assange failed to use a condom and/or intentionally tore a condom, and that the Swedish authorities have refused to pursue the investigation further by interviewing Assange in London. It's not very complicated.
  - boxkite 10y ago
    My response speculates a hyperbolic worst case scenario for him that he is a violent rapist and I agree that his victims need to have their day in court. I am also trying to illustrate that the thing he is a part of and may be using as a fortification against prosecution from that assault, is an important issue as well. Potentially effecting many more people. I don't have an answer for this, nor a dog in the fight. It's just a very fucking hard situation to make blanket statements about.
assangesnowden 10y ago
You also have to understand the current political climate in Sweden. Assange's case is the ONLY rape that is disclosed/covered publicly. The 3000% increase in rapes due to immigration forced the government to ban the reporting on rapes to prevent racism. That also includes internet censorship, including foreign news sites.
- ntlve 10y ago
  Do you have a source for that number?
  - Tomte 10y ago
    His racism, obviously. Standard immigrant-hatred. Very much en vogue throughout Europe right now.
- mtgx 10y ago
  That's crazy. And if it isn't political, they're surely making it hard to believe that this is the case.
  - Ressuder 10y ago
    It isn't crazy. He's crazy. If I search for the equivalent of "rape" on an aggregator of news, I see one case of a rape 12th of September. A man was arrested for suspected rape on the 9th. Man being charged for brutal rape on the 7th. Four men arrested for suspected rape the same day. All of these are covered in all the major news sites. The poster your responded to belongs to our equivalent of Trump supporters, meaning that, yes, there is a tiny bit of truth in what he's saying (there are some minor problems with violance and rape amongst the refugees) but the extent is extremely exaggerated and fueled by nationalism, paranoia and xenophobia as well as a complete lack of care about the truth. https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-statistik/valdtakt-och-sexualbrott.html https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-statistik/valdtakt-och-sexu... Here you can see some stats that shows the real statistics, and as you can see the levels are stable. Please note also that this isn't only for rape, but all kinds of crimes with a sexual component (i.e. everything from groping, spreading nude pictures, sexual harassment etc).
ramblenode 10y ago
Additional information from two days ago: Ecuador says it will allow Swedish investigators to question Assange at the embassy on October 17 [0]. If Sweden is serious about this case, they should accept Ecuador's invitation. Not doing so will further fuel questions about whether this case is a ruse. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idUSKCN11K1BU http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idU...
- alkonaut 10y ago
  if you look just a little further down on the same page there is a link to another article "Swedish court upholds Assange warrant, clears way for questioning in October" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idUSKCN11M0SH http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idU... So as far as I can see, he will be questioned in place, in October.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
SixSigma 10y ago
Maybe he should have contacted the American ambassador to Sweden, or maybe the US ambassador in the UK : >Included in the leak was a list of high-profile donors from 2008 and the ambassadorship they received in exchange for their large donation to the DNC and Barack Obama’s Organizing For Action (OFA). Essentially, Obama was auctioning off foreign ambassador positions and other office positions while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. The largest donor listed at contributions totaling over $3.5 million, Matthew Barzun, served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011, served as President Obama’s National Finance Chair during his 2012 reelection campaign, and now serves as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Oh, I don't think that will help.
mtgx 10y ago
The timeline of what happened (according to BBC): http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341 What jumps out of to me is that the initial prosecutor said she didn't believe Assange committed rape, so she dropped the case. But then Sweden's general prosecutor took the case - why would she do that? Is that typical in Sweden? Another thing it's not made clear by BBC, although it may have been explained in other articles or by Assange himself, is how did the two women meet and already accused him of rape within the span of 3 days?
alkonaut 10y ago
It's funny how a few years ago Assange was portrayed as a hero fronting this exciting Wikileaks thing which leaked evidence of war crimes and stood up for the whistleblowers and the little man. Now he seems involved in some strange right-wing cabal involving everything from the Kremlin to Donald Trump? Was he that guy all along, or did he kind of turn into that side of things while stuck in the embassy?
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  It's thanks to the same media that villainizes and ruins the lives of people being tried (without conviction) of alleged crimes.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  Maybe your statement is evidence that it is too easy for those in power to tarnish the reputations of those which seek to curb their power
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    That might explain why he's portrayed as such. I doubt anyone twisted his arm to force him to do his own show on RT (The state sponsored Russian Breitbart) however.
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      What is wrong with that?
      - alkonaut 10y ago
        With being on RT? Even allowing yourself to be interviewed on RT is discrediting. As I said, they are a Breitbart-esque state controlled propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Steven Segal did this before, when he needed some spotlight: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/30/rt-russia-todays-six-most-memorable-moments https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/30/rt-russia-toda...

46 points by ramblenode 10y ago

Numberwang 10y ago

Good. I'm glad to see public pressure and armchair lawyers being properly ignored.

bitJericho 10y ago
I think if you talk to most American's they'd like to see Assange arrested and tried. I bet half would like to see him convicted. There is no pressure to have him pardoned. An e-petition is not pressure at all.
- Numberwang 10y ago
  I'm talking as a Swede about Swedes. The world is upside down here.
pawadu 10y ago
what about armchair prosecutors?

abysmallyideal 10y ago

Well, Snowden was obviously intelligent on hindsight by completely avoiding Scandinavia.

distances 10y ago
How so?
- feelix 10y ago
  Obviously the assertion here is that Scandinavia will roll over for the US.

wallace_f 10y ago

This is not the first time Sweden has violated human dignity for the sake of helping out the US. One example: https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-ban-cia-rendition https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-...

rightnow 10y ago
What about the dignity of the two girls? They're not worth anything?
- sgift 10y ago
  If the prosecution values their dignity so much it is free to do the interview per video or by going to London and finish this thing. The options are there, they just have to use them.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    How do they "finish the thing" by being unable to complete the arrest because he's sitting on foreign territory? Particularly when the Ecuadorean embassy keeps throwing curve balls by blocking requests and insisting on asking the questions themselves.
    - k1m 10y ago
      By going to him, which they have been happy to do in many other cases, and have finally agreed to do in this case after the UN criticised the way they have treated him.
      - notahacker 10y ago
        Do you honestly believe both that there will be no further objections by Ecuadorian embassy staff and that Assange will agree to walk out of the embassy after the questions are asked and Sweden is allowed to charge him on October 17th? If not, how can you possibly claim that Sweden have been offered an opportunity to "finish it"?

Kenji 10y ago

If you read all the allegations that his 'victims' brought up, you see that while Assange isn't exactly a gentleman, nothing really bad took place. If Assange wasn't politically active in the way he is, he would get a slap on the wrist and move on with his life. It's pretty terrifying how you have to worry that your own country extradites you to America and this ruins your life even overseas. EDIT: Before you reply angrily, please read the exact details of the cases. It's more subtle than you think. Just saying "but it's rape!" doesn't cut it here.

kalleboo 10y ago
Having unprotected sex with someone who is asleep and previously rejected unprotected sex is "nothing really bad"? Or did I miss some newer testimony?
- rightnow 10y ago
  With two as far as i can remember.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
threeseed 10y ago
This is really not appropriate. There are allegations of forced rape and sexual assault and we shouldn't be trivialising them. If Assange was just an ordinary guy and these allegations were true it absolutely wouldn't be just a slap on the wrist. Based on Sweden's chequered history with renditions I don't blame Assange for being reluctant to face the charges. But that doesn't mean he did or didn't do anything wrong.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
knocte 10y ago
"Your own country"? Assange is Australian, not Swedish.

willvarfar 10y ago

Someone accused of rape should not be given refuge to wait it out. Its easy for armchair conspiracists to imagine this whole thing an elaborate ruse to extradite Assange to the US, but Assange was being questioned in Sweden before he fled from there and on bail in the UK prior to 'fleeing' to the Ecuadorian embassy. It seems a very roundabout way for the Americans to get at him. Occams Razor Assange is fleeing justice and abusing the trusting conspiracists trust in promoting the whole American extradition narrative. PS: so the downvotes roll in :( Really, are these girls secretly American agents? And the Americans, rather than use two girl agents that had intimate access to Assange, chose to burn them by asking them to escalate to the Police when Assange wouldn't be treated for STDs?

chmars 10y ago
Not guilty until proven? And the stay at the embassy is for political reasons – and like a prison sentence (in a civilized country where prison sentences are about the loss of freedom and not the loss of living as a human being).
- jahnu 10y ago
  Definitely not guilty until proven but at the same time we have a duty to respect the legal process unless there is something truly amiss. So far I remain unconvinced by the arguments that he's fleeing persecution.
- Xylakant 10y ago
  > Not guilty until proven? There was no assumption of guilt in the parents post. There's an open accusation and it's absolutely normal that people get arrested for rape accusations. Rape is a serious crime and needs to be prosecuted. The stay at the embassy is self-inflicted. Nobody but Assange chose to violate the conditions of his bail. Assange still is master of his own destiny and could end this at any point. He also enjoys a lot of freedoms that actual prisoners often do not enjoy, among them using the internet. Equating his self-chosen recluse with a prison sentence is unfair to all actual prisoners.
  - 10y ago

berntb 10y ago

You need a bit more information to see the really funny part. There is presently a scandal in Sweden regarding how bad the Swedish police and the courts work. The justice system write off cases easily. In many parts of the country, after office hours there are hours of travel for the closest police (if they happen to be free). Recently it was found that the police doesn't just have the lowest solving percentage in history, they hide that information. And so on. But in this Assange case, the justice system work hard; it seems they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell... (That said -- imho, no part in that circus has any credibility whatsoever.)

kalleboo 10y ago
> But in this case of Assange, the justice system work hard; it seems they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell... If they'd follow Assange to the gates of Hell, they've just fly to the embassy and interview him there
- berntb 10y ago
  Sorry, I thought my point was obvious -- it is hilariously obvious that the tenacity is not about the crime Assange stands accused of. (I'm not certain if Assange should be sent to a prison in the US or not. Releasing information, which certainly e.g. China and Russia already have, is not bad. On the other hand, releasing secret information must be prosecuted for a state's good.)
  - willvarfar 10y ago
    Living in Sweden, so kinda care that the police would work a bit harder. But its a massive leap to take general statistics and extrapolate that to one of the most heinous crimes of all - rape. Hopefully the overstretched police are overlooking the drunks and focusing on the rape and murder cases?
    - berntb 10y ago
      You would hope so. In today's news, the police just forgot about when a 72 year old got a gun to his head when visiting a graveyard. Rather, crime in Sweden is deemed important if a case reach the media. That is a more likely explanation to the situation (without external influences). So e.g. the case of the old man getting a gun to his head I noted above will probably be solved now, if it still is possible after so long a time. (And e.g. removing the condom during consensual sex, like Assange, is defined as "rape" in Sweden, but is hardly the upper half of that definition.)

dummkopf99 10y ago

So you believe the rape accusations are valid? If you think that it is not politically motivated or that Sweden will not hand him over to the US as soon as they get him, you must be incredibly naive.

willvarfar 10y ago
(I live in Sweden) The rape accusations seem valid, but I'm not qualified to judge and neither are you. A court should decide. I find the whole idea that two girls tried to get him to take an STD test and it escalates to him fleeing to be an incredibly non-credible way for the US to extradite him. Why didn't the US pursue him for those months he was wandering around London?
PJDK 10y ago
What does hand over mean. Assange isn't wanted in America, and as far as I'm aware hasn't broken any US laws either. I'm sure you can find some quotes from blowhard politicians saying something mean about him, but that's not how the justice system works. So what does hand over mean? And why would neutral Sweden be more likely to hand him over than closest ally, special relationship, NATO and 5 Eyes member Britain?
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  Saying Assange isn't wanted in the US (and wouldn't be arrested if he came) is the equivalent of waving your hands on someone's face and saying "lalallala I'm not touching you". There's not a literal arrest warrant but you're being tremendously naive or deliberately obtuse if you think he wouldn't be arrested at customs.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
sctb 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513082 and marked it off-topic.

boxkite 10y ago

Assange is a nutjob who grew up in Australia during the cold war as a teenage hacker thinking the world was going to end. His paranoia and sense of dread lead him to picking the biggest fight in the world possible. Potentially people have died because of what he did, but also the public has an amazing resource for understanding the larger powers at will in the world around them. If I have to get armchair about the rapes, everything I've seen it seems like he got high with a couple chicks and had some sex. Deviant I guess because there were multiple. I don't think there is media reports of this, but I'm sure there was some trip or some x involved. He very could be a date rapist. Very possible. I don't think this claim has ever been made, but he could potentially have drugged and raped two women that were not awake to give consent. It's also possible that he violently forced women to have sex with him. I want those women to have a reckoning with Assange in a Swedish court. By proxy if need be, to protect them from their assailant. However, there is a big problem with moving him to Sweden because they are an American ally and we aren't exactly treating Chelsea Manning in a way that I think is appropriate for the gravity of what is happening. Assange is a person looking for a war to the death because that's what he was brought up expecting. That may or may not be the game that we are playing, but it is the way he sees the world. He has provided a service that potentially could save lives and enable us to have a better shot at a more informed future. Chelsea, Edward, and Assange are martyrs and I'm fairly sure they've accepted it. If they move to the wrong court they might be shot on a boat and dumped in the ocean and we'll not get to have that dialog. It's fucking tragic if those women were victimized. If this crazy game of chess with these eccentric techie chists isn't allowed to play out verbosely, we will all suffer for it.

Hitard 10y ago
Your response is full of defamatory conjecture and bizarre imagination. All we know is that two women have alleged that Assange failed to use a condom and/or intentionally tore a condom, and that the Swedish authorities have refused to pursue the investigation further by interviewing Assange in London. It's not very complicated.
- boxkite 10y ago
  My response speculates a hyperbolic worst case scenario for him that he is a violent rapist and I agree that his victims need to have their day in court. I am also trying to illustrate that the thing he is a part of and may be using as a fortification against prosecution from that assault, is an important issue as well. Potentially effecting many more people. I don't have an answer for this, nor a dog in the fight. It's just a very fucking hard situation to make blanket statements about.

assangesnowden 10y ago

You also have to understand the current political climate in Sweden. Assange's case is the ONLY rape that is disclosed/covered publicly. The 3000% increase in rapes due to immigration forced the government to ban the reporting on rapes to prevent racism. That also includes internet censorship, including foreign news sites.

ntlve 10y ago
Do you have a source for that number?
- Tomte 10y ago
  His racism, obviously. Standard immigrant-hatred. Very much en vogue throughout Europe right now.
mtgx 10y ago
That's crazy. And if it isn't political, they're surely making it hard to believe that this is the case.
- Ressuder 10y ago
  It isn't crazy. He's crazy. If I search for the equivalent of "rape" on an aggregator of news, I see one case of a rape 12th of September. A man was arrested for suspected rape on the 9th. Man being charged for brutal rape on the 7th. Four men arrested for suspected rape the same day. All of these are covered in all the major news sites. The poster your responded to belongs to our equivalent of Trump supporters, meaning that, yes, there is a tiny bit of truth in what he's saying (there are some minor problems with violance and rape amongst the refugees) but the extent is extremely exaggerated and fueled by nationalism, paranoia and xenophobia as well as a complete lack of care about the truth. https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-statistik/valdtakt-och-sexualbrott.html https://www.bra.se/bra/brott-och-statistik/valdtakt-och-sexu... Here you can see some stats that shows the real statistics, and as you can see the levels are stable. Please note also that this isn't only for rape, but all kinds of crimes with a sexual component (i.e. everything from groping, spreading nude pictures, sexual harassment etc).

ramblenode 10y ago

Additional information from two days ago: Ecuador says it will allow Swedish investigators to question Assange at the embassy on October 17 [0]. If Sweden is serious about this case, they should accept Ecuador's invitation. Not doing so will further fuel questions about whether this case is a ruse. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idUSKCN11K1BU http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idU...

alkonaut 10y ago
if you look just a little further down on the same page there is a link to another article "Swedish court upholds Assange warrant, clears way for questioning in October" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idUSKCN11M0SH http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-sweden-assange-idU... So as far as I can see, he will be questioned in place, in October.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

SixSigma 10y ago

Maybe he should have contacted the American ambassador to Sweden, or maybe the US ambassador in the UK : >Included in the leak was a list of high-profile donors from 2008 and the ambassadorship they received in exchange for their large donation to the DNC and Barack Obama’s Organizing For Action (OFA). Essentially, Obama was auctioning off foreign ambassador positions and other office positions while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. The largest donor listed at contributions totaling over $3.5 million, Matthew Barzun, served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011, served as President Obama’s National Finance Chair during his 2012 reelection campaign, and now serves as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Oh, I don't think that will help.

mtgx 10y ago

The timeline of what happened (according to BBC): http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341 What jumps out of to me is that the initial prosecutor said she didn't believe Assange committed rape, so she dropped the case. But then Sweden's general prosecutor took the case - why would she do that? Is that typical in Sweden? Another thing it's not made clear by BBC, although it may have been explained in other articles or by Assange himself, is how did the two women meet and already accused him of rape within the span of 3 days?

alkonaut 10y ago

It's funny how a few years ago Assange was portrayed as a hero fronting this exciting Wikileaks thing which leaked evidence of war crimes and stood up for the whistleblowers and the little man. Now he seems involved in some strange right-wing cabal involving everything from the Kremlin to Donald Trump? Was he that guy all along, or did he kind of turn into that side of things while stuck in the embassy?

whamlastxmas 10y ago
It's thanks to the same media that villainizes and ruins the lives of people being tried (without conviction) of alleged crimes.
wallace_f 10y ago
Maybe your statement is evidence that it is too easy for those in power to tarnish the reputations of those which seek to curb their power
- alkonaut 10y ago
  That might explain why he's portrayed as such. I doubt anyone twisted his arm to force him to do his own show on RT (The state sponsored Russian Breitbart) however.
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    What is wrong with that?
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      With being on RT? Even allowing yourself to be interviewed on RT is discrediting. As I said, they are a Breitbart-esque state controlled propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Steven Segal did this before, when he needed some spotlight: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/30/rt-russia-todays-six-most-memorable-moments https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/30/rt-russia-toda...