I can't really understand how someone could read the article and not be moved and chilled. Can someone who persecutes Assange please really just, here, anonymously if you must, please make a case for doing this. You think it's ok to do this... why? What is the end goal? No one can report governmental crimes? That's the world you want, for you and your family?
I don't support the behavior alleged in this article, but I do genuinely believe Wikileaks was acting very unethically. It's one thing to release classified documents describing corruption or illegal/immoral behavior by the government, it's another to blindly release any classified documents you can get your hands on without any concern for others. In one dump of classified documents on the War in Afghanistan, it included the identities of many civilians assisting the US military. Those named have since been targeted by the Taliban. And this is a consistent pattern. Their leaks routinely include social security numbers, credit card numbers, private medical information, the list goes on. That information is not in the public interest and has caused great harm to innocent people. And I'm hardly alone in saying this. Edward Snowden, the Sunlight Foundation, and Amnesty International have criticized this practice.
EDIT: Quoting from Assange's indictment:
"After agreeing to receive classified documents from Manning and aiding, abetting, and causing Manning to provide classified documents, the superseding indictment charges that Assange then published on WikiLeaks classified documents that contained the unredacted names of human sources who provided information to United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to U.S. State Department diplomats around the world. These human sources included local Afghans and Iraqis, journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents from repressive regimes. According to the superseding indictment, Assange’s actions risked serious harm to United States national security to the benefit of our adversaries and put the unredacted named human sources at a grave and imminent risk of serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention."
Sooo... the guys he was leaking evidence of war crimes against claim that he endangered people he leaked information about.
While that may actually be true, I’m curious why you would trust that statement from the US Government (the “indictment”) while ignoring the other (that’s “classified”).
If you trust that there’s doubt as to why things were classified and that they may have been hiding things, why would you also trust that they claim people have been endangered? Again, not saying it’s not true, just that blindly taking the word of US prosecutors seems short sighted.
Nobody is trusting anything. It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that. If you publish the names of civillian collaborators with the US, they're going to get targeted. You don't need classified intel to know that.
I made this point in a more lengthy fashion in a parallel comment [0], but it seems really odd to me you would ignore the circumstance that the lion's share of the work towards endangering those civilians was done by the US, by recruiting them to be collaborators in a hostile country. Why does the US government have more moral license to endanger Afghan civilians than Assange/Wikileaks?
The US government decision to invade Afghanistan involved a number of other factors. Whether or not you agree with that calculation is subjective. The difference between that and what Assange did is that Wikileaks could have taken the time to redact these names, as they were immaterial to the point they were trying to make.
If this was a tradeoff between "not expose abuses by the US government" and "name these civillians", I think your point would be reasonable. But there was no tradeoff. Wikileaks was just lazy about it.
Wikileaks asked the DoD to help redact the documents. DoD refused and later put out a statement claiming that Assange lied about asking for help. This statement was shown to be false.
Due to the limited time window for release, the choice was either to release as-is or to never release at all.
Calling Wikileaks lazy is myopic. They didn't have the resources to redact the documents in the time window they had to work with, and they asked for help. The US govt knew exactly what would happen if they refused to help. It was a calculated move to maximise collateral damage and help drive the narrative that you now subscribe to. They didn't give a single fuck about the collateral damage, their response was focused on discrediting and prosecuting the source of the leak to send a message to anyone else considering exposing their wrongdoings.
The US govt acted like a bunch of insidious cartoon villains, and gaslighting its citizens about how this situation played out.
"It should be obvious that these leaks endangered these people. All you have to do is look at them to see that."
Which, specifically? I have heard that claim before. Would you mind linking to the specific leaks that endangered civilians? WikiLeaks is online and searchable, but I have not seen them.
At this stage it is not actually important if anyone could be hurt or dies. The topic is the global state of human rights and persecution of criminals in important positions. Hundreds of millions gave their lives for our freedoms many of which didn't sign up for it. We want future generations to enjoy those freedoms. Trading them for some claims of endangerment is not a good deal.
Are you claiming that naming Afghan civilians working with the US military wouldn't endanger them, or that Wikileaks didn't name said civilians? I'd point you to my other reply where I cite a number of human rights organizations saying this is endangering civilians, and also cite that the Taliban has publicly stated they are targeting the individuals named in the leaks.
Invading Afghanistan endangered Afghan civilians, and recruiting Afghan civilians to work for the US while Afghanistan was not and was not going to be wrestled from the control of the Taliban endangered them. Why do you not consider this a moral case for Assange to damage the US (by leaking information), but consider Assange's leaks endangering Afghan civilians (by modulating the risk inherent in the US actions described above!) to be a moral case for the US to damage Assange (by subjecting him to legal harassment out of line with established norms of civilised society)?
The situation to me seems to be only a few steps removed from something along of the lines of $government outright taking some civilian hostages and threatening to execute one of them every time someone reports on any of $government's wrongdoings. In a scenario like that, would you also say that the act of reporting is immoral because it endangers civilians - and hence cheer on $government's long hand punishing the reporter?
Assange is an anarchist. Asking him to please leave some of the system up while he’s tearing other parts of it down is fundamentally misunderstanding the man. Surprisingly, despite the risks he took with other people’s lives, he’s done more good than harm. I hope you were more outraged by the war crimes committed by both the US and the Taliban than you are at Assange’s informative negligence.
If we're judging individuals and their actions, it's hard to say that any one person in the system has acted nearly as malicious as Assange. So yes, it is reasonable to hold him accountable for his decision to endanger citizens of a country that is neck deep in shit.
...many civilians assisting the US military. Those named have since been targeted by the Taliban.
Can you point us to any evidence of this, other than e.g. a general or politician making vague claims with no specifics?
I'm not saying that no one in the various nations that USA has invaded haven't been hurt by those invasions, but can any of that be directly attributed to leaks?
...WikiLeaks had tried to comply with a private White House request to redact the names of informants before publication, but the US authorities had refused to assist.
Thanks, Obama. Whatever, let's forget about that. The main point is, this material was released a decade ago. If anyone in USA military or intel had learned of a collaborator harmed as a result of the leaks, they would have crowed about it ad nauseam. Instead, crickets. Therefore, this didn't happen. Linking decade-old fear-mongering about "risks" supports the point rather than contradicting it.
Evidence of anything would be scarce or nonexistent. It's Afghanistan. Would you want your name out there cooperating with the US when the Taliban is still around? Would you be comfortable with that?
There's no way I would ever cooperate with a USA military invasion, no matter how bad the local conditions might be. For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse. I wouldn't imagine that "it's different this time!"
As addressed in sibling thread, it has been a decade. The USA military-industrial complex is highly motivated to manufacture more reasons to silence Assange. If this had happened once in that decade, we would have heard about it.
OK, you got me. An area that was never occupied by USA ground troops (that was NATO, UN, and OSCE), saw a couple weeks of USA flyovers before the Serbs withdrew, and which later was ruled by heroin and organ traffickers as a result, totally proves that the Afghans would have been wise to welcome the invasion with open arms. Not really!
> For at least 60 years, USA military has made every situation they've ever touched worse.
This is objectively wrong. Operation unified response in Haiti in 2010, Operation Continuing Promise in the Caribbean and Latin America in 2011. Then Enduring Promise back in Latin America in 2018. Operation Tomodachi after the Japan earthquake in 2011.
Then of course there is the Cold War which lead to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the chance for political self determination of over a dozen countries.
Your convenient 60 year boundary just excludes the Korean War which led to the prosperous and democratic country of South Korea.
Sure we all like inexpensive and functional durable goods like Hyundai automobiles, but then again that war did kill a fifth of all Koreans. So, maybe not completely a good thing?
On the other hand, a perfectly anonymized dump is impossible to distinguish from fiction, because there's nothing verifiable to connect it to. In a sense, every person/organization that says they're endangered by the leak confirms its validity and exposes them as a source for further investigation/leaks. And everyone agrees a bit of "collateral damage" is ethically defensible in service of the greater good.
If you're going to disclose government secrets of wrong doing, you're going to want to ensure your OpSec is tight, that the information can't be traced to you.
At this stage, you'd have be a little bit mentally unhinged to want to go up against a state-level actor directly.
I would say the opposite is true, sanity and integrity can't prosper much without one another. Everybody dies, at some point, and to give up oneself to live in infinitely short amount longer (compared to eternity) is shitty a consolation price for those who don't really have themselves to begin with, who were compromised in childhood or youth, and live the rest of their lives slapping rationalizations on that.
> Of course it is "more useful" to commit an injustice than to be victim of it; for the sake of the thinking dialogue with myself, this point of utility must be abandoned.
-- Hannah Arendt, "Wahrheit und Politik"
> Natürlich ist es "nützlicher", Unrecht zu tun als Unrecht zu leiden; um des denkenden Dialogs mit mir selbst willen muss gerade dieser Nützlichkeitsstandpunkt aufgegeben werden.
I guess? Especially if the state-level actors are torturing people publicly and indiscriminately; and breaking laws and their own guidelines to do so. But doesn't that obligate us to support the mentally unhinged who manage to expose their crimes.
But, again, it doesn't really explain what the motives are, here. Do the people who comprise these state-level actors really want a world where the crimes of their colleagues and bosses go completely unexposed. I can't see how that would lead to good things for themselves and their families.
I've definitely seen at least some people more entertained by intrigue, drama, getting away with all sorts of crime, even sometimes getting caugh, and generally being tempted by "evil", than leading a virtuous life.
Motives are surely many and varied. For some it's as simple as saving face and a job, others are way more driven to turned a blind eye, help, or mastermind the bad.
Where does it begin? Well, some schools of developmental psychology claim that even the time spent in the womb predisposes us to certain adult-life outcomes.
From what I read I’m not chilled because I don’t trust the special rapporteur on basic facts. For example, he says, “ He will not receive a trial consistent with the rule of law. That’s another reason why his extradition shouldn’t be allowed. Assange will receive a trial-by-jury in Alexandria, Virginia – the notorious «Espionage Court» where the U.S. tries all national security cases. The choice of location is not by coincidence, because the jury members must be chosen in proportion to the local population, and 85 percent of Alexandria residents work in the national security community – at the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department and the State Department.”
Do some people who live in Alexandria, Virginia work for the national security community? Clearly, but 85% is tin foil hat territory.
I’d like to understand more about the Assange situation, because this guy is not trustworthy.
This is a great point. I'm not sure why that slipped by me. That really is misstatement of fact, whether mistaken or intentional, and does cast some shade on every other assertion he makes.
The common anti-assange sentiment is that he did it on an illegal way (he didn't) and deserves jail time for that. Or that he's a Trump/Russian/Martian asset and isn't a journalist, just an operative to influence US elections and therefore shouldn't be provided the freedom of speech journalists get.
Yes... I kind of think of it as maybe an extreme tribal reaction. "Bad man hurt us!" without more thought than that? A lot of these people don't seem to actually care whether what he did was legal or not, nor whether his treatment is legal or even proportionate. They just don't like him so... fair game for any kind of torture.
But, is it that turtle all the way down? I mean, the cops who broke the law to "get their hands on him" - why? The diplomatic backroom dealing - why? The politicians who should know better - what do they gain?
(I’m not a prosecutor) From the US perspective Assange is being charged with crimes that he willfully assisted and encouraged Manning by providing her with guidance on how to cover her tracks, etc. — basically charges related to abetting of a criminal act. Publishing that information is then not an act of journalist but that of a criminal who illegally aided in the gathering that information and then recklessly and illegal published the names of classified personnel.
So basically the charges seem to be pretty much predicated on the idea that Assange was a participant in the illegal obtaining of this information.
From the indictment statement [1]:
> The superseding indictment alleges that beginning in late 2009, Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of “Most Wanted Leaks” that sought, among other things, classified documents. Manning responded to Assange’s solicitations by using access granted to her as an intelligence analyst to search for United States classified documents, and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables.
> The superseding indictment alleges that Manning and Assange engaged in real-time discussions regarding Manning’s transmission of classified records to Assange. The discussions also reflect that Assange actively encouraged Manning to provide more information and agreed to crack a password hash stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a United States government network used for classified documents and communications. Assange is also charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to crack that password hash.
Additionally, the claim that he would not get a for trial in the US is utterly farcical. The claim that you would wind up with a rigged jury is provided without any evidence whatsoever.
I disagree with what you're saying for a few reasons:
1. The claim that Assange is being tortured is being made by a single individual as their personal opinion, and
2. The claims of torture are from actions taken by the governments of the UK and Sweden
The actions of foreign countries have no bearing on if he would get a fair trial in the US; the two ideas are not correlated at all.
1. The article covers many details. What evidence informs your personal opinion that the observations and judgement of the UN Special Rappoeteur on Torture should be discounted?
2. You seem to be indicating that actions by the UK, Sweden, and Ecuador are happening completely independent of any coordination with or influence from the US government. I don’t believe that you believe that.
Claiming you’re being tortured because you’re going to have to face trial for crimes is like claiming to be tortured by people who post opinions that disagree. Absurd on its face.
> Julian Assange has been intentionally psychologically tortured by Sweden, Britain, Ecuador and the U.S.
The only thing the US has done is try to get him extradited to prosecute him. I suppose the argument can be made that he's not afraid of trial, but rather of being incarcerated for his crimes.
Also the second paragraph:
> And third, he is to be extradited to a country that holds people like him in prison conditions that Amnesty International has described as torture.
> [...] could be tortured to death in the United States.
Let's assume that the general impugning of Assange's character over the past years is true. Let us further assume that the statement made by one of the comments below, that the completely unredacted nature of Wikileaks' releases is irresponsible and unnecessarily puts others in danger.
Even with all that, the events described in this article make me deeply uncomfortable. I don't have to like Assange to think that this kind of thing sets a dangerous precedent. When criminal prosecution is a thing for "the little people" and a tool twisted to dispose of those inconvenient to those in power, that is the kind of injustice which fuels riots and revolutions. I really don't want it to have to come to violence to stop corruption; that will just as likely end badly for all involved.
A short summary for the people that won't read and just want to comment, UN is not demanding freedom for Assange, they want the human rights to be respected and all the illegalities committed so far by authorities are exposed.
I see some people debating if Assange is guilty of X or Y but the main point is that he did not had and will not have a fair trial.
> He will not receive a trial consistent with the rule of law. That’s another reason why his extradition shouldn’t be allowed. Assange will receive a trial-by-jury in Alexandria, Virginia – the notorious «Espionage Court» where the U.S. tries all national security cases. The choice of location is not by coincidence, because the jury members must be chosen in proportion to the local population, and 85 percent of Alexandria residents work in the national security community – at the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department and the State Department. When people are tried for harming national security in front of a jury like that, the verdict is clear from the very beginning. The cases are always tried in front of the same judge behind closed doors and on the strength of classified evidence. Nobody has ever been acquitted there in a case like that. The result being that most defendants reach a settlement, in which they admit to partial guilt so as to receive a milder sentence.
That sounds interesting. Can you provide some links to more in-depth information about the use of Alexandria, Virginia and the skewed jury composition? I tried to Google a bit but so far was unable to find much more than just news snippets mentioning a few high profile intelligence related trials that reference said court. Am I just unlucky?
Nothing was fair or legal so far, abuses everywhere but you expect that the special US court (see article who is part of that)will be fair in a secret trial. Btw the article mentiones that after the UN person asked clarification on some illegalities on the rape related procedures the investigation was dropped and no response was provided. Also is mentioned that UK is using solitary confinement without any reason, nobody that escaped bail is treated like this but Assange seems not to have human rights in UK.
Well, I'm not sure exactly what you would count as a trial, but Assange has in fact had his voice head (by way of his lawyers) in very many courts. Is it one of these court procedures you claim was unfair?
Read the article, he was ot allowed to defend himself remotely like similar people, his humans rights were abused...there are all the details in the article, I understand it is long buit make soem time this weekend at least and read it, it is not about guilty or not but about human rights and authorities abuse.
What you are talking about is the question of the interrogation.
But it is a matter of public record that Assange has stood in several court cases where he's questioned various aspects of the legality of the EAW, and I'm simply asking if those also are to be counted as unfair trials?
Read the article, it's explained there. Once you become a prisoner, legal loopholes can allow the state to keep you there forever.
Us regular citizens are of no particular interest to the state, hence we can expect a fair trial. If you had, say, the key to a 88 GB insurance file, you would find it much harder to fight the legal system.
Read again, is not a car driver for UN , this is his job and duty to investigate.
>Why do you think his trial could not be fair?
The article says that and I believe it, do a search for "fair trial" you should find it, let me know if you need a summary because you are too busy to read but honestly read the entire article not skim it.
>That is not what we are debating on. Rather I am talking about the claims that the Swedish prosecution and investigation are malicious.
I am not sure what comment you are refering but maybe this time the Sweeds will respond to the 50 issues that were raised instead of citizens trying to denfend the authorities illegal activities.
There was no trail for the fabricated rape accusations, read the article, the authorities had the chance to get his statement before he left to UK and there are also procedures for when people are trialed remote that were not flowed, the UN person asked for clarifications for 50 issues found with the investigation and instead of a response the entire thing was dropped a few days over, maybe you skiped this part
>This guy is a hero, he has committed no crime other than honest reporting.
Just because you like his reporting doesn't mean he's innocent of any crimes he's been accused of, especially not when those crimes are unrelated to his reporting.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture interviewed for the article makes a pretty convincing picture that Assange was unlikely guilty of any of the crimes he's been accused of. He also makes it quite clear that he didn't think of himself to be above the law, having tried to submit himself to the justice system on several occasions.
> The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture interviewed for the article makes a pretty convincing picture that Assange was unlikely guilty of any of the crimes he's been accused of.
Then if he's not guilty, let it be shown so at trial, and not at the say of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
That's not how it works. Do we need to establish a trial before we can show your innocence in this case too?
If he is guilty, then let it be shown so at trial. In absence of such a trial, he is not guilty. But such a trial will not happen, and was probably never intended to happen. Yet it shows how effective the media campaign against him has been:
The Swedish state spent almost a decade intentionally presenting Julian Assange to the public as a sex offender. Then, they suddenly abandoned the case against him on the strength of the same argument that the first Stockholm prosecutor used in 2010, when she initially suspended the investigation after just five days
There's this incredibly inconvenient thing in Anglo-American jurisprudence called "burden of proof". In criminal cases, until you show that the defendant is guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt", you have to act like they're not guilty: also known as the presumption of innocence. "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit non qui negat" (Latin for "the burden of proof is for the one who makes the claim, not the one who denies it").
See the links below, making special note of the fact that the "reasonable doubt" standard applies in both countries relevant to this case, the UK and the US (with the caveat that judges in the UK don't use the phrase anymore post-2008):
Yeah, I've been through the Federal criminal system. What I've noticed is that Federal prosecutors almost never file a charge they don't believe they can get a conviction for.
Now, that being said, I do allow that sometimes the prosecutor is given bad or fabricated evidence, like what is turning up with General Michael Flynn's case.
there's a standard procedure for prosecution of sexual crimes in Sweden. The police did not follow it, nor any of the other relevant procedures that are used for all other cases in Sweden. There are numerous emails implicitly showing international pressure to hold the case open for years without allowing Assange to testify or resolve the case legally.
How you think that is somehow similar to Kobe Bryant is beyond me.
Did you read the article before commenting?
Or do you like making vacuous statements with the intention of informing everyone here what a knee-jerk uninformed response looks like?
Wow. Was the basketball player also suffering persecution by CIA or FBI because he offered some kind of menace to geopolitical interests of a great power and these accusations also happened in very strange timings and circunstances?
In fact I think that hero worship and "protection"[0] that fans try to give to their favorite celebrity or politician contributes to "heros" feeling above social norms and other persons, and thus, eg., sexual assault or fraud or theft happen.
[0] I am referring to the attacks on accusers in such cases.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture reports on actual subversion of democracy and principles, and random people keep FUDding about. It's not about fanboys, basketball players, nor even sexual assault.
Dumping documents doesn't make you a journalist. The only people who claim to be journalists who would support him as one are those who have a reputational and financial interest in being associated whim.
Four democratic countries joined forces – the U.S., Ecuador, Sweden and the UK – to leverage their power to portray one man as a monster so that he could later be burned at the stake without any outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death sentence for freedom of the press.
You know, every time I read something on Assange, I see all of these hot takes based on incorrect information and part of me is starting to think that one should have to take some kind of quiz on the actual facts of the case and receive a passing grade before commenting.
The other part of me is kind of impressed on the hatchet job done on his reputation that has led to such conveniently incorrect "knowledge" of the situation.
One clear example is the idea that Assange tried to evade the Swedish justice system in the rape case. This is taken for granted by many people. But it turns out to be totally false—unless Melzer is lying about the documentation that he’s seen.
"...if investigative journalism is classified as espionage and can be incriminated around the world, then censorship and tyranny will follow. A murderous system is being created before our very eyes. War crimes and torture are not being prosecuted. YouTube videos are circulating in which American soldiers brag about driving Iraqi women to suicide with systematic rape. Nobody is investigating it. At the same time, a person who exposes such things is being threatened with 175 years in prison. For an entire decade, he has been inundated with accusations that cannot be proven and are breaking him. And nobody is being held accountable. Nobody is taking responsibility. It marks an erosion of the social contract. We give countries power and delegate it to governments – but in return, they must be held accountable for how they exercise that power. If we don’t demand that they be held accountable, we will lose our rights sooner or later. Humans are not democratic by their nature. Power corrupts if it is not monitored. Corruption is the result if we do not insist that power be monitored."
> YouTube videos are circulating in which American soldiers brag about driving Iraqi women to suicide with systematic rape.
Is there a citation for this? All I could find was allegations of sexual assault in the US military (which is also completely horrendous), but no videos on YouTube.
It's not just that it's not investigated, one of the people convicted of shooting civilians at random in Iraq was pardoned. That can only serve to make the point that it's deliberate. And popular with the voters.
Shameful. A damning verdict on the state of due process! If you work in the exposed institutions, please help restore legitimacy by aiding discovery in any way you can.
Thank you Nils Melzer for investigating the persecution of Julian Assange, a messenger being murdered. We owe our freedom to people who dare speak truth in the face of torture.
It's weird that the UN special rapporteur considers the process in a large, high-visibility, international legal case to be torture. His explanation of the torture Assange has suffered basically sems to sum up to massive anxiety brought about by the uncertainty of the process. That makes sense (the process is ill-defined and where the law draws lines here is up for debate), but by that definition isn't every prisoner awaiting their day in court on serious charges being "tortured?"
>On top of that come the surveillance measures, the insults, the indignities and the attacks by politicians from these countries, up to and including death threats. This constant abuse of state power has triggered serious stress and anxiety in Assange and has resulted in measurable cognitive and neurological harm.
>Why is a man who is neither dangerous nor violent held in solitary confinement for several months when UN standards legally prohibit solitary confinement for periods extending beyond 15 days?
It is much more than 'uncertainty of the process'. Every prisoner awaiting their day in court is not held in solitary confinement for months.
The death threats from politicians are individual American Congesspeople, who have no more power to act on that threat than the average American citizen. It's a threat that's worth taking about as seriously as any random online post.
This Melzer guy is doing journalism no favor by spinning narratives of malicious prosecution by Sweden by taking things out of context and without any evidence.
It is really absurd how quickly rational comments on this thread that do not support the "Assange and everybody who supports him is an infallible saint and all the world's judicial systems, governments and press are in league to get them" narrative get downvoted to the bottom.
nsajko, I do see you're getting downvoted pretty bad. I'm sorry to see it.
I think that it may be because your posts don't address the specific points made in the article, and in fact repeat insinuations that the Rapporteur specifically addresses and debunks.
For instance, you say ... Assange is not above the law, or common decency, just because of founding Wikileaks...
Literally no one said that, and no one reasonable believes that. That's not what this is about. The article makes the case that Assange is not guilty of anything under Swedish law. If you were to say, rather, "Despite what the Rapporteur says, Assange is likely guilty because..." and then lay out an excellent case why he is indeed, you would get up-voted, not downvoted.
But instead, your posts come off like you just have an ax to grind against Assange and people who support him. It comes off like you're dismissing the entire concern as invalid "because Assange is not above the law".
The people here are smart, engineer-types. They're going to look at evidence and make up their own minds.
It is really hard at this point to come away from reading anything about Assange or Snowden at this point and not feel you are being manipulated in some way or another. None of the agencies which are involved are beyond suspect, nor are Assange or Snowden without major faults/ issues.
About the only really clear winner in this whole disaster is Russia. Regardless of how this all plays out and what people believe, the US looks like shit here (to a large extent rightfully) and they walked away with piled of top secret and confidential US information.
This is perhaps the greatest espionage victory since WWII and it was largely self-inflicted.
>Assange who is being persecuted. Second, he himself has been ill-treated to the point that he is now exhibiting symptoms of psychological torture.
And then
>In summary: Julian Assange uncovered torture, has been tortured himself
This is one of the reasons I don't trust this rapporteur, because he seems to make those claims interchangeably when they very clearly aren't the same thing. Can you show signs of psychological torture without someone actually torturing you? Yes. So either make the real claim - that someone has been torturing him and explain why. Or make the PR claim - that he has shown symptoms of psychological torture. But don't swing back and forth between two very different things.
The guy literally repeats thoroughly debunked tropes from Assange's defence.
>Why would a person be subject to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges ever having been filed?
Because the person they were investigating left the country and then put up one of the most extensive appeals against extradition in history and then fled to an embassy. If Assange had complied with the extradition those charges would have been filed when he returned to Sweden within months of the investigation being opened.
You know, you can't have it both ways, you can't claim it's terrible it's been going on so long for a process that was deliberately dragged out.
Did you read the article? Because it looks like you didn't.
> Because the person they were investigating left the country and then put up one of the most extensive appeals against extradition in history and then fled to an embassy.
No, he didn't. He asked not to be extradited to a foreign country where there is a risk his human rights will not be respected - which is standard international practice. He gave several dates where we would be available for questioning. He turned himself up to the police for questioning. All of those were denied to him.
Firstly, you're literally talking about the contention of his legal appeal that I mentioned. Secondly, most extradition appeals don't go to the High court, let alone the supreme court - which is why I mentioned that he literally had one of the most extensive appeals in history.
I also find it hilariously comical to see the absurd level of legal recourse Assange was afforded whilst people claimed that he is having his human rights violated. Somehow we're now in a world where someone shouldn't be extradited to Sweden from the UK because they're going to have their human rights violated. I'd love to hear the exact details of how exactly his rights would be violated, but frankly I think it's going to be more Gish galloping.
>Now the supervisor of the policewoman who had conducted the questioning wrote her an email telling her to rewrite the statement from S. W.
>On the basis of the revised statement from S.W., an appeal was filed against the public prosecutor’s attempt to suspend the investigation, and on Sept. 2, 2010, the rape proceedings were resumed. A legal representative by the name of Claes Borgström was appointed to the two women at public cost. The man was a law firm partner to the previous justice minister, Thomas Bodström, under whose supervision Swedish security personnel had seized two men who the U.S. found suspicious in the middle of Stockholm. The men were seized without any kind of legal proceedings and then handed over to the CIA, who proceeded to torture them.
This may be how his right could be violated in Sweden.
Not clear what your issue with the rapporteur is? He makes which claims interchangeably? Assange uncovered torture and is tortured? Those are mutually exclusive?
What do you say to the other claims regarding the misbehavior of the Swedish police and prosecutor? You seem to be saying that despite these irregularities, Assange had nothing to worry about if he were innocent, and just should have submitted to extradition? That's a remarkable assertion.
I literally quoted the two claims he makes interchangeably. He makes two very different claims and then seems to imply they're the same thing and then provides no evidence for the actual serious claim. They're not mutually exclusive, one is a much more serious claim than the other and yet he's not provided any evidence for it.
As for the other claims by the Swedish police, I can go through every single point that he makes, but I think we'd all agree that's probably over the top for a HN comment. One of the highlights is his assertion that it constitutes misbehaviour for the police to act on a report of a crime simply and should have deferred to the witness's interpretation of the law. The woman reported that Assange had sex with her under false pretences, now I'm not an expert on Swedish law, but I'm fairly certain its not down to the woman reporting that to decide whether that constitutes a crime or not. That's what the rapporteur is claiming, which seems a rather bizarre and ridiculous claim to make for someone who is meant to be a respected voice at the UN.
"I literally quoted the two claims he makes interchangeably."
You did, but I was asking for clarification, since I didn't understand your issue with this. That he uses them "interchangeably"? Maybe we'll have to disagree, since I either I still don't understand, or I do understand and don't think that's true. Assange alleges torture. Assange is allegedly tortured. Those aren't used interchangeably in the interview, and are two distinct concepts.
"They're not mutually exclusive, one is a much more serious claim than the other and yet he's not provided any evidence for it."
Do you know that he's not provided evidence for it? Or do you mean he didn't provide evidence in the interview? What evidence would satisfy you? I guess not the testimony of the two medical experts on torture who examined him in solitary confinement; nor the fact that he has been in solitary confinement for 51 weeks. If you don't know the effects of solitary confinement on the human mind, here are some links: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solitary+confinement+effects&atb=v...
"As for the other claims by the Swedish police, I can go through every single point that he makes, but I think we'd all agree that's probably over the top for a HN comment. One of the highlights is his assertion that it constitutes misbehaviour for the police to act on a report of a crime simply and should have deferred to the witness's interpretation of the law."
Hmm. To my mind, that's cherry-picking a very weak element and arguing against that. You're absolutely correct that the police should be able to pursue a crime even if the victim does not believe herself to be a victim, and if that were the entirety of the Rapporteur's testimony, or even a major part of it, then you would be correct! But that's not even a trivial point that he makes. Piling on the emotional words "bizarre" and "ridiculous" doesn't strengthen your point.
How about steel-manning your argument against the article?
I live in the Nordic region. It simply never happens that someone is named in the press before trial. And yet, here we have leaks about Assange going out to the press in highly unusual circumstances. From the authorities themselves. Twice.
Along with the woman deciding not to press charges, we have Assange repeatedly turning himself into police to make a statement, and the statement not being accepted. We have Assange informing the prosecutor that he will be leaving the country, and the prosecutor acknowledging this. We have the prosecutor issuing an arrest warrant the day he leaves. We have Assange agreeing to return to Sweden with assurances that he will not be extradited. We have more, but it's all right there in the article.
Out of all of that, you decide to focus on one small component, the weakest, and thereby reject the entirety of the testimony as "bizarre" and "ridiculous".
The Rapporteur has presented some very damning testimony that, if true, indicates the world is less safe for you and me. It's not about Assange. It's not about sexual assault. I don't know why people can't see that.
I am sad that US is trying prosecute Assange for espionage, but the attacks from other sides on the Swedish prosecutors who tried to prosecute Assange seem just as bad. Assange is not above the law, or common decency, just because of founding Wikileaks. The implications of that for justice and prosecutors worldwide are scary.
Also, I think that it really would have been better for him and Wikileaks to just submit to Swedish investigation, especially if he is really innocent regarding sexual offences and after he already got publicity on that front.
No, the attacks on the Swedish prosecutors are fully warranted. He submitted to Swedish investigation multiple times. From the article:
In this case, things are constantly happening that shouldn’t actually be possible unless you look at them from a different angle.
We have to stop believing that there was really an interest in leading an investigation into a sexual offense
Assange learned about the rape allegations from the press. He established contact with the police so he could make a statement. Despite the scandal having reached the public, he was only allowed to do so nine days later [..] Assange appeared at the police station to make a statement. [..] At the beginning of the conversation, Assange said he was ready to make a statement, but added that he didn’t want to read about his statement again in the press. [..] But that same evening, everything was in the newspapers again. It could only have come from the authorities because nobody else was present during his questioning. The intention was very clearly that of besmirching his name.
That is a further indication that Sweden was never interested in finding the truth. [..] Swedish officials can travel to the UK, or vice versa, to conduct interrogations or that such questioning can take place via video link. During the period of time in question, such questioning between Sweden and England took place in 44 other cases. It was only in Julian Assange’s case that Sweden insisted that it was essential for him to appear in person.
Assange’s lawyers petitioned Sweden’s highest court to force public prosecutors to either finally press charges or suspend the case. When the Swedes told the UK that they may be forced to abandon the case, the British wrote back, worriedly: «Don’t you dare get cold feet!!»
Keep in mind, this is the UN's special rapporteur on torture, not some random opinion. Further on in the article:
When a country like Sweden declines to answer questions submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, it shows that the government is aware of the illegality of its behavior and wants to take no responsibility for its behavior
So the prosecutor's and the police opinion are just "some random opinions"?
Melzer actually gives us absolutely no reason to think that any evidence were forged, assuming one is not going to just take his word for it.
Imagine someone else was sought by Sweden for multiple counts of sexual offence on different women, and then he (and his team of lawyers) used the extradition process to wait for the statute of limitations to pass so he would dodge even an investigation of the accusations.
> During the period of time in question, such questioning between Sweden and England took place in 44 other cases. It was only in Julian Assange’s case that Sweden insisted that it was essential for him to appear in person.
This "smells" bad, but really even that (without elaboration) does not excuse the attacks on the Swedish justice system. I would like for someone from the Swedish prosecutors' side to explain that, though. I think there very well could be a reason for video-linked questioning to be appropriate in 44 cases, but not in Assange's.
EDIT: Replying to children: The interview makes a narrative by presenting things out of context, but what they are doing is actually quite inappropriate in the case of the sexual assault allegations. Some examples:
* They present the potential victims as unwilling regarding charging Assange with rape. The first problem with this is that it implies that rape is a civil matter, when (as is well known) it is in fact a crime. Thus the potential victims are only relevant as witnesses, they would not be parties to the case except as witnesses (and maybe they could get some damages). The second problem is that the two women were in fact quite interested in getting Assange prosecuted: they got legal representation, and prevented the prosecutors from dropping the investigation.
* I do not think that it is necessarily suspicious that no DNA could be recovered from the condom. Especially in the context of the allegation, with Assange allegedly breaking the condom on purpose.
> Melzer actually gives us absolutely no reason to think that any evidence were forged
What makes you think that there was any evidence at all, to begin with?
I can only point to the order of events: A woman walks into a police station. She doesn’t want to file a complaint but wants to demand an HIV test [from Assange]. The police then decide that this could be a case of rape and a matter for public prosecutors. The woman refuses to go along with that version of events and then goes home and writes a friend that it wasn’t her intention, but the police want to «get their hands on» Assange. Two hours later, the case is in the newspaper. As we know today, public prosecutors leaked it to the press – and they did so without even inviting Assange to make a statement. And the second woman, who had allegedly been raped according to the Aug. 20 headline, was only questioned on Aug. 21.
Not a single trace of DNA from Assange or A. A. could be detected in the condom that was submitted as evidence.
> I would like for someone from the Swedish prosecutors' side to explain that, though.
Yes, the UN special rapporteur wanted that too. He was ignored. What makes you think you'll fare better?
If a person walks into a police station and describes an event that is legally rape, then it's down to the police whether they pursue it. The person providing the evidence isn't the person charged with interpreting the law. So a woman can walk into a police station and describe something they don't think is a crime but that doesn't stop it being a crime. Now, according to the rapporteur, that's not true, according to the rapporteur, it's the other way around.
no, it is not. you are mixing up the two cases, one were there was no condom indeed with S.W., and the other case with the other woman A.A. where the condom was allegedly damaged.
Yes, I would like the Swedish government to respond, too. According to the interview - with the UN Rapporteur on Torture - he asked them and they refused to comment. Again, according to this fellow - who has experience in talking to governments - "No comment" is highly unusual _when the government in question has nothing to hide_.
Are you resisting / dismissing that Assange may actually be innocent of the crimes that he is accused of because the implications are so terrifying? If so, I get it, man.
> Melzer actually gives us absolutely no reason to think that any evidence were forged, assuming one is not going to just take his word for it.
If Melzer was just "some random opinions" it would be easy to dismiss. But as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture one should probably put some weight on his professional opinion. Or Swedish officials should explain why the allegations are wrong, but they reportedly refuse to do so.
Also if Melzer fabricates the allegations here, that would be a problem for credibility of the position of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and investigated. Another reason for Swedish and UK officials to answer in some form.
The article also contains original copies of the mail exchanges between the Swedish police (at least it says so), but I don't speak Swedish and so cannot read it.
The mails discuss how some unclear problem (apparently related to completeness) should be handled, and arrives at saying that the unnamed police should make a new document, paste "the text" into it, and then sign. The Named superior will then write a PM about the fact that there are now two "interviews" when only one was formally held by the unnamed officer.
Do I understand correctly that Melzer is then either lying or wrong about the emails ("Now the supervisor of the policewoman who had conducted the questioning wrote her an email telling her to rewrite the statement")?
Yes, I would say Melzer is wrong or misinformed. The document is a copy of RE: RE: RE:-type mail conversation and has to be read from the bottom up to make proper sense (the included timestamps support this reading). When one does this it is clear that there will in fact be two documents regarding the interrogation and a separate PM explaining this.
However, if you read it top down you might come to the honest (but erroneous) conclusion that someone is being told to manipulate the original document directly.
> When one does this it is clear that there will in fact be two documents regarding the interrogation and a separate PM explaining this.
Melzer claims there is only one statement/document. From the article: "We don’t know, because the first statement was directly written over in the computer program and no longer exists."
There is no reason to believe there actually is two documents. It could just as well have been removed, either by accident or on purpose. I certainly trust Nils Melzer more than any police employee.
What exactly are you saying you trust Melzer word on? Do you trust his word that the document provided is evidence of tampering of the record?
Because anyone that understands swedish and reads the text in the chronological order indicated by the datetimes will conclude that the final word is that two documents are to be created. Weird flex, but ok..
> We don’t know, because the first statement was directly written over in the computer program and no longer exists. We only know that the original statement, according to the chief public prosecutor, apparently did not contain any indication that a crime had been committed. In the edited form it says that the two had had sex several times – consensual and with a condom. But in the morning, according to the revised statement, the woman woke up because he tried to penetrate her without a condom. She asks: «Are you wearing a condom?» He says: «No.» Then she says: «You better not have HIV» and allows him to continue. The statement was edited without the involvement of the woman in question and it wasn’t signed by her. It is a manipulated piece of evidence out of which the Swedish authorities then constructed a story of rape.
I went back to look at documents submitted with the häktespromemoria[1]. There is no second document and no PM written by Mats Gehlin but there is a PM by Irmeli Krans (the other person in the conversation) on page 15. It dosen't say what was changed but it says "förhöret skulle renskrivas" which to me implies that the changes should be in spelling, grammar, and structure and should not significantly alter the meaning of the text. It does however seem likely that the meaning was altered as the edited version alleges criminal conduct while the first allegedly did not. It appears the first version that according to the PM was only a draft was saved separately and not in the DurTvå system that Krans claimed not to have had access to at the time it would normally have been saved. I assume it was deleted after the new version was uploaded to DurTvå.
Have you taken a look at the entire freedom of information document? I am interested if the possible missing context changes your understanding of the situation.
Anyway, I submitted a post on HN to request speakers of Swedish to try and make sense of the situation, that presumably includes you :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209868
