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As a complete rebuttal, https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/assange-smear-2-hes-a-rapist-df9effd8b49d https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/assange-smear-2-hes-a-rapi

As a complete rebuttal, https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/assange-smear-2-hes-a-rapist-df9effd8b49d https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/assange-smear-2-hes-a-rapi... Or more broadly any in this great series of posts by Caitlan Johnstone: https://medium.com/search?q=Assange+Smear+caitlan https://medium.com/search?q=Assange+Smear+caitlan

mjg59 2y ago
She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't). Whether she felt this should be described as rape or not, the facts as expressed would qualify as rape not only under Swedish law, but also under English law - see section 116 and onward of https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assange-judgment.pdf https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assan.... The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed, meaning that there was an opportunity for everyone involved to avoid being further involved. The cited link rebuts none of this.
- henryaj 2y ago
  > [SW's] police report states that, after Assange woke her up trying to initiate intercourse, the two had a conversation in which she asked Assange whether he was wearing a condom and he replied he was not. She then said he “would better not have HIV” and he replied that he did not, after which, she “let him continue” (lät honom fortsätta) to have unprotected intercourse. There are no indications of coercive or incapacitating circumstances suggesting lack of consent. Accordingly, Chief Prosecutor for Stockholm Eva Finne stated: “I do not think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape” and closed the case on 25 August 2010 concluding that the “conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all”. From https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-july-2019-7222083dafc8 https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-ju...
  - mjg59 2y ago
    After the women's representative petitioned for the case to be reexamined, a prosecutor with more experience of sexual assault concluded that the alleged facts amounted to rape - see https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklagare.se/en/nyheter--press/media/the-assange-matter/chronology/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklag...
    - henryaj 2y ago
      Thanks. I guess that's the '27 August 2010' update in that document - is there more to read on it somewhere? The doc I linked suggested it was the police who modified SW's statement, which triggered the re-evaluation of the case. "AA took SW to a police station, so SW could enquire whether she could force Assange to take an HIV-test. There, they were questioned together by an investigating officer who knew AA personally and ran on the same political party ticket as AA in the general elections three weeks later. When superior investigators insisted on registering SW’s enquiry as a report of “rape” and to immediately issue an arrest warrant against Assange, SW reportedly refused to sign her statement and became so emotionally distraught that the questioning had to be suspended. While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06). Once Chief Prosecutor Finné had intervened and closed the case, it reportedly was again the police (not SW) who “revised” her statement lodged in the police system to better fit the crime of “rape” before it was resubmitted by a third Social Democrat politician to a different prosecutor who was prepared to re-open the case."
      - mjg59 2y ago
        The "Social Democrat politician" was Claes Borgström (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m) - calling him a politician without noting that he was a qualified lawyer with a track record in representing women in sexual assault and trafficking cases is incredibly misleading.
- kragen 2y ago
  this is a misrepresentation of the narrative presented in that post
  - mjg59 2y ago
    Would you care to describe the misrepresentation?
    - kragen 2y ago
      you said > The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed the post says > · After an arrest warrant was issued a senior prosecutor named Eva Finne pulled rank and canceled it, dropping the matter completely on August 25th saying the evidence “disclosed no crime at all.” > · Out of the blue it was restarted again on the 29th, this time by another prosecutor named Marianne Ny. your first claim in the quoted sentence is that the post ignores that the case was dropped. it does not ignore it; it explicitly describes the case being dropped, explaining how and why. indeed, a large fraction of the post is devoted to discussing these facts from different angles your second claim is that the case was only reinstated on the request of 'the legal representative of the women involved'. the post does not rebut this so much as it flatly denies it; that's not surprising, since it's a claim i haven't heard before, so possibly she hadn't heard of it either your thread gives no source for this claim, but i see it's backed up by https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklagare.se/en/nyheter--press/media/the-assange-matter/chronology/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklag... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m so it's a fair point that it's a claim johnstone should have heard of and should have addressed additionally, in the context of replying to a link to this post, your perfectly objectively correct lead-in text > She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't). implies that caitlin johnstone, the author of the post that you were presumably commenting on, believed or at least suggested that the alleged situation would not amount to a crime, if it had happened. the point of view you are implicitly imputing to her is one that she vehemently disclaims at length in the linked post. for example, she writes: > I see a lot of well-meaning Assange defenders using some very weak and unhelpful arguments against this smear, suggesting for example that having unprotected sex without the woman’s permission shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or that if AA had been assaulted she would necessarily have conducted herself differently afterward. Any line of argumentation like that is going to look very cringey to people like myself who believe rape culture is a ubiquitous societal illness that needs to be rolled back far beyond the conventional understanding of rape as a stranger in a dark alley forcibly penetrating some man’s wife or daughter at knifepoint. Don’t try to justify what Assange is accused of having done, just point out that there’s no actual evidence that he is guilty and that very powerful people have clearly been pulling some strings behind the scenes of this narrative. (edited to correct some errors)
nmeofthestate 2y ago
Re: the credibility of Caitlin Johnstone: https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/179/ https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/179/

mjg59 2y ago

She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't). Whether she felt this should be described as rape or not, the facts as expressed would qualify as rape not only under Swedish law, but also under English law - see section 116 and onward of https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assange-judgment.pdf https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assan.... The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed, meaning that there was an opportunity for everyone involved to avoid being further involved. The cited link rebuts none of this.

henryaj 2y ago
> [SW's] police report states that, after Assange woke her up trying to initiate intercourse, the two had a conversation in which she asked Assange whether he was wearing a condom and he replied he was not. She then said he “would better not have HIV” and he replied that he did not, after which, she “let him continue” (lät honom fortsätta) to have unprotected intercourse. There are no indications of coercive or incapacitating circumstances suggesting lack of consent. Accordingly, Chief Prosecutor for Stockholm Eva Finne stated: “I do not think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape” and closed the case on 25 August 2010 concluding that the “conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all”. From https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-july-2019-7222083dafc8 https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-ju...
- mjg59 2y ago
  After the women's representative petitioned for the case to be reexamined, a prosecutor with more experience of sexual assault concluded that the alleged facts amounted to rape - see https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklagare.se/en/nyheter--press/media/the-assange-matter/chronology/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklag...
  - henryaj 2y ago
    Thanks. I guess that's the '27 August 2010' update in that document - is there more to read on it somewhere? The doc I linked suggested it was the police who modified SW's statement, which triggered the re-evaluation of the case. "AA took SW to a police station, so SW could enquire whether she could force Assange to take an HIV-test. There, they were questioned together by an investigating officer who knew AA personally and ran on the same political party ticket as AA in the general elections three weeks later. When superior investigators insisted on registering SW’s enquiry as a report of “rape” and to immediately issue an arrest warrant against Assange, SW reportedly refused to sign her statement and became so emotionally distraught that the questioning had to be suspended. While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06). Once Chief Prosecutor Finné had intervened and closed the case, it reportedly was again the police (not SW) who “revised” her statement lodged in the police system to better fit the crime of “rape” before it was resubmitted by a third Social Democrat politician to a different prosecutor who was prepared to re-open the case."
    - mjg59 2y ago
      The "Social Democrat politician" was Claes Borgström (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m) - calling him a politician without noting that he was a qualified lawyer with a track record in representing women in sexual assault and trafficking cases is incredibly misleading.
kragen 2y ago
this is a misrepresentation of the narrative presented in that post
- mjg59 2y ago
  Would you care to describe the misrepresentation?
  - kragen 2y ago
    you said > The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed the post says > · After an arrest warrant was issued a senior prosecutor named Eva Finne pulled rank and canceled it, dropping the matter completely on August 25th saying the evidence “disclosed no crime at all.” > · Out of the blue it was restarted again on the 29th, this time by another prosecutor named Marianne Ny. your first claim in the quoted sentence is that the post ignores that the case was dropped. it does not ignore it; it explicitly describes the case being dropped, explaining how and why. indeed, a large fraction of the post is devoted to discussing these facts from different angles your second claim is that the case was only reinstated on the request of 'the legal representative of the women involved'. the post does not rebut this so much as it flatly denies it; that's not surprising, since it's a claim i haven't heard before, so possibly she hadn't heard of it either your thread gives no source for this claim, but i see it's backed up by https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklagare.se/en/nyheter--press/media/the-assange-matter/chronology/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190502114026/https://www.aklag... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m so it's a fair point that it's a claim johnstone should have heard of and should have addressed additionally, in the context of replying to a link to this post, your perfectly objectively correct lead-in text > She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't). implies that caitlin johnstone, the author of the post that you were presumably commenting on, believed or at least suggested that the alleged situation would not amount to a crime, if it had happened. the point of view you are implicitly imputing to her is one that she vehemently disclaims at length in the linked post. for example, she writes: > I see a lot of well-meaning Assange defenders using some very weak and unhelpful arguments against this smear, suggesting for example that having unprotected sex without the woman’s permission shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or that if AA had been assaulted she would necessarily have conducted herself differently afterward. Any line of argumentation like that is going to look very cringey to people like myself who believe rape culture is a ubiquitous societal illness that needs to be rolled back far beyond the conventional understanding of rape as a stranger in a dark alley forcibly penetrating some man’s wife or daughter at knifepoint. Don’t try to justify what Assange is accused of having done, just point out that there’s no actual evidence that he is guilty and that very powerful people have clearly been pulling some strings behind the scenes of this narrative. (edited to correct some errors)

nmeofthestate 2y ago

Re: the credibility of Caitlin Johnstone: https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/179/ https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/179/