Wikileaks' Assange arrested on sexual assault charges
By Virginia SmithDecember 7th, 2010, 9:00 amComments (11)
Authorities may be having trouble pinning him down for, you know, blackmailing the entire world, but Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange has finally been arrested on those pesky sexual assault charges from last summer. As planned, Assange turned himself into British authorities this morning, and is expected to have a court hearing later today for charges from the Swedish authorities of "one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010." Shockingly, Assange has denied all allegations.
Tags Julian Assange Wikileaks
Commentarium (11 Comments)
If you are innocent of a crime there should be no reason to blackmail the authorities.
Oh yeah, Frank. Because this guy is totally going to get a fair trial and all, what with pissing off so many governments.
Assange will sleep in the bed he makes, and if he can't get a "fair trial" that is his own fault. Time for people to stop blaming big, bad governments. In several countries he has committed (what some consider) espionage, and is subject to the same laws and penalties any other person would be beholden to.
He's been playing a dangerous game for quite a while, and his "I have damning secrets on everyone" trump card may not be as strong as, let's say, Russia's "I have a secret assassination squad" trump card.
I find it troubling that Information corporations like Amazon.com, Inc., PayPal, Inc., EveryDNS and even Twitter have stepped up to drop or censor WikiLeaks. From one point of view, we are America, not Iran, and WikiLeaks is on the cusp of a new honesty in a media environment that has become too much of a tool of the powerful. Who knows what Assange is guilty of, but the whole situation stinks, IMHO.
By reading numerous stories on this, I've seen (but am not claiming anything as fact): Both encounters with the two women involved were consensual, the issue revolves around Assange's refusal to wear a condom, and the women's subsequent annoyance that he slept with both of them one night after the other, then subsequently split. Both women allegedly bragged online about bedding Assange and neither claimed abuse at the time. One is also suspected of being tied to the CIA. Go to Raw Story for more on these claims
Sexual abuse allegations have a long and illustrious history as a tool to shut up people who have become politically inconvenient. Recent example: https://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48357220100510. @SR: The current hysteria is totally unjustified. The fact of the matter is that neither Assange nor Wikileaks has committed any crime in the US for publishing this material and yet American companies are trying to isolate and starve Wikileaks and some of our GOP types have even called for his trial on treason and his execution. This just tells me that there is something in the material Wikileaks has published that we should be paying attention to, not whether he wrapped his johnson when he had sex with the two Swedish women.
Calling him politically inconvenient is a bit of an understatement.
Not that I want to support using the law incorrectly to put him away, but at least they found him.
@meh. The thought that the GOP is the only party that has something to lose by the hands of Assange is simplistic, at best. In the REAL WORLD of big politics, big business, and big money EVERYBODY has their hands dirty. Duh!
As stated on an earlier thread about this topic, I understand and somewhat embrace the principles that drive Assange, even if I don't agree with his actions all of the time. My point is that many countries' laws aren't clearly defined around cyber-espionage, and so he's swimming in a murky and obscure legal pool. That, and by threatening escalation he's declared that he wants to play with the big boys of business and politics, of which he is unequivocally out of his league.
@SR: I wasn't saying that only the GOP has something to lose from these revelations, just that they are characteristically the most shrill, calling for draconian punishments or extra-judicial killing of a guy who has committed no crime in the US. My point was that we really should focus on the actual material rather than the political circus that has erupted around the release. Even SecDef Robert Gates says that the descriptions are "overwrought" and ultimately other countries will continue to deal with the US because they have no other choice. (https://goo.gl/Hmqsa).
As for the cyber-espionage issue, the different countries' laws are essentially irrelevant because of the Internet. As long as publishing secret documents are legal somewhere , as long as you are not the one who stole them (in the US, for example), once the material gets on the interwebs, it's game over. Bear in mind that Assange and Wikileaks did NOT steal any of these documents, they only made them public. Even under more stringent laws than the US, this is not espionage.
And going back to sex for a minute, Assange's libido is pretty impressive for a guy who has been the target of international manhunts for the last several years. Not sure I would be as prolific while on the run from every spy agency in the western world.
It's gotta be a turn-on, Meh. He's a very bad boy.