[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.

[philwelch]

In Assange's own mind, yes, he probably is the victim of a massive international conspiracy whether or not he committed rape. It's a little disappointing to see so many people on HN take those delusions of grandeur at face value.

[rbanffy]

Don't you think it's a little bit strange that the Ecuadorian offer to have Assange interviewed by the Swedish prosecutors was refused?

What's the priority? Question him to find out what happened or bring him to Sweden?

[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]

Doesn't it seem like Assange has introduced most of the weirdness himself? Lots of people run into legal trouble overseas. Most of them don't hide in the Ecuadorian embassy.

[vidarh]

The vast majority of this weirdness preceded his decision to hide in the Ecuadorian embassy. In fact, the vast majority of it took place even before the arrest warrant was issued, and by the time of the initial extradition decision the prosecutor had continued to make it worse by refusing even more offers of interviewing Assange while making excuses for why she can't that are directly contradicted by Swedish authorities behaviour in other recent cases.

[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.

[philwelch]

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

I never claimed you did say that. But you introduced the notion as something "one could argue", and the only thing I'm attacking is that notion, not you personally. That's more than you can say for yourself, incidentally.

That you took it personally says far more about you than it does me. When one puts forward a notion on the basis of "one could argue", sometimes it means it's a notion they're not especially attached to but they think is worthy of consideration. Other times, it means they're evading personal criticism for believing in that notion. In the first case, one would not feel so worked up and personally attacked by having the notion criticized; in the second case, they would. Your reaction, I'm afraid, has given you away.

[Steko]

"But you introduced the notion as something"

You keep spooning these words into his mouth but no he didn't ever say them. You think they are equivalent to what he said but they are not. What he said was 'X is arguably not rape'. That doesn't mean 'X is ok'. That means exactly what it says.

[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.