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by bayesian_horse 1192 days ago
Julian Assange has not been charged with exposing secrets or being inconvenient for the powers that be. He has been charged on the quite plausible accusation of helping Chelsea Manning illegally acquire these secrets. There are lines journalists (and you can debate if he is a journalist) are not supposed to cross, this is one of them.

Most of the negative consequences in his life stem from him running from this accusation, and from the rape charges in Sweden. He'd like to frame it in a different light, understandably...
1 comments
mariusor 1192 days ago
The timeline is actually a bit different. The US espionage charges came into the light after Ecuador revoked his asylum and Assange was arrested by the UK police. He was hiding on the suspicion that Sweden would extradite him to the US and everyone made fun of him and called him paranoid for 7 years.
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bayesian_horse 1192 days ago
As I said, he was hiding from rape and espionage/computer hacking charges. There's nothing fishy about either of those, conspiracy theories not withstanding.

"Everyone made fun of him" is a large overstatement. He didn't want to face any of the three or four justice systems he was dealing with (Uk, Sweden, US and Australia) so he opted to go into Asylum in that embassy. He could have been convicted (or acquitted) of those charges and gotten pardoned by now.

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mariusor 1192 days ago
You're rewriting history. When he asked for asylum Assange was only seeking refuge from being questioned on Swedish soil about the rape allegations from 2010. When he was granted asylum however, he breached the bail conditions from the UK and there were indeed two governments after him. But, I repeat, no espionage/computer charges were known until 2018.
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bayesian_horse 1192 days ago
He assumed, and rightly so, that the US government was after him. Otherwise he wouldn't have stayed in the embassy past the charges in Sweden getting dropped. It is immaterial if the indictments were known or even already existed.
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mariusor 1191 days ago
For me there's a slight nuance difference between being a fugitive from "official prosecution" by the US and being a fugitive because "he feared" prosecution. The US government had official communication when he entered the embassy that he is not on their wanted list.
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