[mindcrime]

Isn't that basically an act of war? Or something just short of it? I can't remember another time when one country threatened to enter another country's embassy without an invitation... Have there been other cases like this in recent history??

[dailyrorschach]

It's somewhat unprecedented, but has happened in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_mission

It's important to know that as the article points out Embassies do not enjoy full extraterritorial status, and contrary to popular belief are not sovereign.

The practice of the host country entering only with permission is based in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and a violation of this would likely have no real material effect. That convention also requires the host country to protect the embassy and other rules. It is unlikely that the UK's allies would object, and even more unlikely that the country in question here would mount any serious diplomatic or military response.

As always power benefits the powerful.

[k-mcgrady]

From the article:

"The law which Britain is threatening to invoke in the Assange case is the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987.

It allows the UK to revoke the diplomatic immunity of an embassy on UK soil, which would potentially allow police to enter the building to arrest Mr Assange."

If they do that it wouldn't be an act of war, it would be legal. It definitely sets a terrible precedent though and even if it's legal Ecuador might interpret it as an act of war.

[vidarh]

Whether or not it is legal would be pretty much irrelevant, I'd think - it would be something every regime that dislikes Britain would pay close attention to for the purpose of pointing to the moment they decide they want to pick someone up from a British embassy.

I can't imagine Britain would be willing to risk the integrity of its own embassies in that way over Assange. It sounds like sabre-rattling, nothing more.

Consider that they did not even try to enter an embassy over the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher by someone at the Libyan embassy - a murder that achieved infamy in Britain. The Metropolitain Police laid siege to the Libyan embassy for 11 days and the government severed all diplomatic ties with Libya. But they did not try to enter.

If Thatcher was not prepared to do it, I very much doubt the current government would be willing to deal with the fallout.

[elemeno]

The Libyan case doesn't really apply - the suspected gunman was a diplomat and a Libyan national and there's a whole extra set of legal issues involved that don't apply to someone seeking asylum in an embassy for a non-political crime.

[rdtsc]

> a non-political crime.

I think some will disagree with the reason for asylum. I don't think there is any doubt that this is political. This is not about rape accusations. This is very political.

[pbhjpbhj]

Do you honestly believe Ecuador will initiate hostilities against NATO in order to protect a foreign citizen from due legal process in that persons home country?

It would surely be less effort and risk to lift him from the roof by helicopter and whisk him to a waiting jet James Bond style.

The second option seems far more likely to me.

[caf]

There's no current legal process against Assange in his home country.

[flogic]

There's what you say and what you do. I wouldn't be surprised if they called it an act of war. However, a violent response is highly unlikely.

[mc32]

They probably would not call it an act of war without backing it up --so I doubt they would. If they did bluff and get called, next time hostilities flared up with Peru or Columbia, they might not be taken seriously.

[philwelch]

I can't remember another time when a country used the diplomatic immunity of their embassy to harbor a fugitive from rape charges. We're in fairly uncharted territory.

[bluesnowmonkey]

It would be more to the point to say that they are harboring him from espionage charges. We don't have an international incident every time somebody refuses to wear a condom.

[rosser]

But he's not being shielded from any charges. The extradition request is for questioning; he simply hasn't been charged yet.

It's his story that, upon extradition to Sweden, the Swedes will turn around and hand him over to the US to be Gitmo'ed with extreme prejudice, but that's all it is thus far: his story. That said, it's certainly plausible; he's mightily pissed off the US government, which does seem to have a habit — particularly lately — of treating people that embarrass it rather less than gently. It would also explain how het-up the Swedes are to have him extradited, and the fact that Britain is willing to violate the Ecuadorian embassy (which, FTR, is not sovereign territory) in order to retrieve him. But idiotically zealous investigation of alleged rape (let alone lesser charges) isn't exactly unheard of, either.

Either way, however much good Assange has done the world by exposing the stuff he and WikiLeaks have exposed, he is an attention-whore, and his motives are pretty broadly suspect. Personally, I'd vastly prefer he not be subject to "extraordinary rendition" — not because of anything he's done, but because I don't think anyone should be shipped off to countries where they "interrogate" with rectally inserted broken beer bottles (to reference just one of the many stories that have bubbled up from that kind of thing). But that's just me.

[philwelch]

> Personally, I'd vastly prefer he not be subject to "extraordinary rendition"

If he was subject to extraordinary rendition, they'd have him by now. That's the whole point of extraordinary rendition.

[csense]

> If he was subject to extraordinary rendition, they'd have him by now. That's the whole point of extraordinary rendition.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how well-protected and cautious he is, and how much cooperation the renditors can get from the local government.

[rdtsc]

> The extradition request is for questioning;

That sounds pretty silly. He was only a couple of hours away by plane, he is surrounded by media. Runs a talk show. Claiming they can't question him is just ridiculous and make them seem like they certainly have other ideas than just simple questioning for not wearing a condom.

[mkramlich]

> We don't have an international incident every time somebody refuses to wear a condom.

bingo. that's why, in part, this is clearly about something other than the alleged sex incidents. it's pretty obviously about Wikileaks, trying to impede/stop/punish it and him.

[objclxt]

That's nonsense. You only have to look at Roman Polanski, who fled rape charges to a foreign jurisdiction and the amount of press generated over that.

The women accusing Assange have a fundamental human right to due process. It is extremely unusual for someone to deny that process by fleeing into a foreign embassy. Wikileaks adds to the press, but it is noteworthy regardless of that.

[vidarh]

It is worth pointing out that the women in question did not go to the police to file a complaint. Nor have charges been taken out (there is an arrest warrant for questioning on suspicion).

This case was pursued by the prosecutor at the instigation of Swedish police, after a previous prosecutor had initially closed the case stating that there was no indication anything illegal had taken place.

The women in question does not under Swedish law legally have any say in whether or not the case is pursued or not - if a prosecutor believes a crime has taken place, it is their duty to pursue the case in the interest of the state, not on behalf of the women.

(What does make this case stink, though, is that one of the women in question at one point prior to the case against Assange published a blog post about leveraging this exact method to "legally" take revenge against a lover who she found had was involved with someone else)

[rizla]

The prosecutor said there was no case of rape to follow, but did concede that there was a case of sexual assault. The rape case was reopened and the sexual assault case remained opened

[mkramlich]

> That's nonsense.

that's rude. You may not have intended it, but that's how that sounds.

on a related note, I'm feeling HN is getting increasely overwhelmed by rude comments. something about the culture and the kind of people it attracts, perhaps an increasingly young male techie demographic, dunno.

[philwelch]

Criticizing people for being impolite when you're all but justifying raping women isn't exactly arguing from a moral high ground.

[zimmerman]

Interesting parallel perhaps in the two cases: the accused was initially not too concerned about the outcome, and cooperated, then suddenly something changed and it spooked the accused enough to go on the run.

In the Polanski case, his lawyer had arranged a plea bargain, then, later at trial, the judge suddenly reneged without explanation. In the Assange case, he had already been questioned, the allegations were dropped, then suddenly a couple days of media coverage pass and the allegations are reinstated.

Not to imply either is a case of no wrongdoing, but in each case the accused initially faced the allegations, then something changed and scared the accused enough to go on the run.

The victim in the Polanski case has all but forgiven him, but does anyone disagree he would be crazy to ever set foot in the US again? The prosecutors office seems to have a very long memory and an uncanny ability to hold a grudge.

[mkramlich]

there are no rape charges. rape != sexual assault. and one could argue that "sex without a condom" with a naked woman already in bed with you by her own will is not rape, certainly. also there are no charges. merely an accusation. and they merely want to "question" him, which of course they could do easily without forcing him to go to Sweden. The whole thing is a pretty blatant sham, a masquerade for some other goal of theirs.

[MiguelHudnandez]

From an article about the charges [1] "...one of the women alleges that Assange behaved threateningly with her and held her down to prevent her from reaching for a condom. He did end up wearing one, but she thinks he ripped it and deliberately ejaculated inside her. He also later rubbed up against her with his pants off, she says, against her will. The other alleged victim claims that she struggled with Assange over the condom all night, had consensual sex with him when he finally put it on, and then woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent and without a condom. In my personal and professional experience with rape, these kinds of allegations are both credible and common."

These are definitely allegations of sexual assault, and the described behavior treads perilously close to what everyone would agree is rape.

[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/12/the_p...

[vidarh]

You might note that despite the way thesestatements are worded, neither women claimed to have been raped or sexually assaulted. Neither filed or asked to file charges. One of the women are now refusing to sign any past statements regarding the case. The other appears to have left Sweden. At tehe time prosecutor reviewed the statements and made it clear the full statements did not imply a crime had taken place.

Both statements also appears to have been made in interviews conducted in a manner that was a clear violation of Swedish police procedures. For starters, neither were recorded, and at least part of the statements were taken by a personal friend of one of the women.

There are good grounds for being cautious about whether the contents of the leaked statements is an accurate portrayal of what these women told the police at all, much less whether or not these women are willing to stand behind them.

[philwelch]

Unfortunately, it's all too easy to intimidate victims of rape into not cooperating with attempts at prosecution. If the prosecutor has no case, though, Assange has nothing to fear going to Sweden. Even if the US could extradite him, they could do it from the UK just as easily as from Sweden.

Also:

> woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent

By definition that's rape.

[vidarh]

> If the prosecutor has no case, though, Assange has nothing to fear going to Sweden. Even if the US could extradite him, they could do it from the UK just as easily as from Sweden

I disagree. If the prosecutor has no case, Assange has - rightfully or not - every reason to wonder why they are pursuing him in this manner, and every reason to then worry about what the underlying motivation is. He might be more paranoid than justified in how he interprets it, but if I was in his shoes and a prosecutor acted the way the Swedish prosecutor has in this case, and I knew I hadn't done anything wrong (or thought I hadn't), I'd be worried something was up and be far more concerned about that than a potential Swedish jail sentence.

If the prosecutor actually has a case, Assange presumably knows he did what is claimed, and in that case he would have more reason to believe early on that his "worst case" scenario might be a very short stay in a low security, comfortable Swedish prison - the crimes he is wanted for questioning about have very short sentencing guidelines in Sweden.

In terms of extradition, if I was him I'd not be so concerned about legal, above board extradition. I would be concerned about the fact that Sweden has admitted to, and have been censured by the UN for, having violated their own laws as well as international treaties to participate in rendition arranged by the US of two Egyptians to Egypt where they were subsequently tortured. If they were willing to do that with some relatively low level targets, at the behest of the US, then there is every reason to worry they'd be willing to be "flexible" about giving Assange to the US.

The odds of them taking the political fallout from that in this case might be small, but then this is not just about what Assange might objectively have reason to fear - a lot of it boils down to what his actual, subjective fears are. I see little reason to doubt that Assange personally genuinely fear the US is after him and that he believes he is important enough that given its past history with rendition that Sweden might very well be easy to push into handing over him too.

He might very well make irrational choices because of that fear without there being any implication of guilt behind those choices.

Then again, he might also be guilty and just not want to face it.

Point is, this isn't nearly as clear cut as some would like to think it is.

[mkramlich]

> You might note that despite the way thesestatements are worded, neither women claimed to have been raped or sexually assaulted. Neither filed or asked to file charges.

This, ultimately, is why this should be seen as a "non-case" and therefore just an excuse for the US/UK/Swedish government to hassle Assange and therefore Wikileaks.

[mkramlich]

thank you for being another voice of reason in this discussion

[vidarh]

The thing is, I don't even like the guy. Wikileaks is fantastic, but we can credit him for his involvement with that without whitewashing the person.

Even if I were to only accept the parts his own lawyers have conceded, the statements do paint the picture of someone who is quite a bit of an asshole. Maybe he is a bit of a misogynist, though I think it's more likely he is "just" a bit narcissistic and didn't really take anyones feelings into account. Add in some paranoia - even if people are after him, he comes across as believing they care more than I think they do.

I just think there are a lot of things about this case that are fishy to the point where there's good reason to be extremely suspicious about the motivations of some of the people involved, even if one discounts the idea of US involvement. He might very well be guilty for what I know, but that still doesn't mean there's nothing weird going on with how the whole situation has been handled.

[philwelch]

> and one could argue that "sex without a condom" with a naked woman already in bed with you by her own will is not rape, certainly

If one was a misogynist who thought women lost their basic human rights as soon as their clothes were off, one could certainly argue that.

[shrughes]

You can make statements about non-explicitly authorized "wake-up sex" in either gender direction. The fact that we're talking about one particular direction does not make one a misogynist.

You seem quite eager to call people misogynists. It sounds to me like you enjoy it.

[mkramlich]

if one were a rude asshole, one would make the comment you just made

[philwelch]

The notion that once a woman is naked and in someone's bed, they have the right to do whatever they want to her regardless of her consent is pure misogyny. It outright justifies rape. I'm not going to give you a pass on making comments like that out of politeness. Ideas like that need to be called out for what they are.

[mkramlich]

> The notion that once a woman is naked and in someone's bed, they have the right to do whatever they want to her regardless of her consent

I never said that. Quote me where I said that. You can't.

> It outright justifies rape.

I never said that. Quote me where I said that. Again, you can't.

I'm very careful with my wording. You are probably falling into the trap of getting emotional about something that wasn't said, something that lives only in your own mind. Unfortunately this is one of those topics that never fails to draw people out who commit that kind of mistake.

Also, I'd love to meet you sometime for a friendly coffee somewhere. Always good to meet fellow HN'ers, and as a bonus we can clear up any misunderstandings.

[vidarh]

Note that the arrest warrant does explicitly claim rape, though it does so in a very vague manner.

Someone pointed out at the Guardian's site last night that the warrant presented to the UK courts actually is worded in a very contorted way to claim an allegation on rape on the basis that one of the women was in a "state of sleep" without actually stating whether she was asleep or half asleep and whether or not there's a claim that she was not consenting or unable to consent.

If she was claiming to be "half asleep", which is what has been stated previously in the Swedish press, and aware of what was going on, she might very well have been in position to legally consent, and there's to my knowledge not been a claim in Sweden that this in itself is what gave rise to rape claims, but that the rape claim was predicated on him not using a condom in that instance, despite her previous insistence that he had to.

It could be just an innocent bad wording, but given the rest of this case, and how this curiously misrepresents the claims presented in Sweden, this does seem rather odd. It would have been trivial to precisely express the claims presented in Sweden in unambiguous terms in far fewer words than they used.

[droithomme]

"Rape charges"

Phil, do either of the women, Anna Ardin or Sofia Wilén say the sex was rape?

[rickmb]

There are no charges yet either.

We're deep into "if you repeat it often enough people will believe it's true" territory.

[philwelch]

> The other alleged victim claims that she...woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent and without a condom.

Emphasis added. Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/12/the_p...

Please note that "having sex with [someone] without [their] consent" is the definition of rape.

[droithomme]

Here are some facts:

1. Neither woman has stated Assange raped her.

2. Assange has not been charged with rape.

Here are some lies:

1. The women state that Assange raped them.

2. Assange has been charged with rape.

Here is the transcript of the interview referenced in the Naomi Wolf attack article that you have cited.

http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/12/20/naomi_wolf_vs_jac...

[philwelch]

Fine. The truth is, it doesn't really matter. I would be ecstatic for the Swedish criminal justice system to carefully consider all the evidence and come to a fair outcome for everyone involved. My concern is that Julian Assange is obstructing this process out of either paranoid delusion or regular evasiveness, and his political supporters are all too eager to support his actions.

[Flow]

He isn't charged AFAIK.

[ashleyblackmore]

They "just want to have a chat."

[mindcrime]

Fair point. It just struck me that this seems a bit unprecedented.

[jere]

This may not answer your question, but it's somewhat related as it kind of did lead to war against Iran (at least that's what wikipedia tells me).

>The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

[ryanhuff]

Sorry, but which war are you referring to?

[arctangent]

jere is suggesting that it led to Iraq declaring war on Iran, as mentioned here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis#Aftermath

[smokeyj]

They must really want to know if Assange used a condom.

[mechnik]

If he did, he could not very well be the leaky wick.

[Karunamon]

That was bad and you should feel bad.

But damnit, I giggled like an idiot.

[rdtsc]

> Isn't that basically an act of war?

So.

Forget all the legal nuances. We have to answer that question. So what then? So Britain blows everyone the middle finger and declared a war on Ecuador. Just like US invaded Iraq (physically).

Who is going to protect Ecuador? Is Ecuador going to suicide its soldiers by landing in Britain to protect Assange? Some Latin American countries will issue a very strongly worded statement and maybe some other countries will say something, and then I bet you nothing happens.

[brudgers]

Precedent for storming another country's embassy?

Sure. Tehran, November 4, 1979.