Assange Requests Asylum In Ecuador 400
david.emery writes "Julian Assange, his appeals in the United Kingdom having run out, today went to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to request asylum from his pending extradition to Sweden to face questioning for 'unlawful coercion and sexual misconduct including rape.'"
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Informative)
Ecuador's foreign minister had offered assylum in 2010 but president Rafael Correa later dismised it. It's possible they have succombed to US pressure already, or they could be worried he has something they don't want released.
Should be an interesting turn of events either way. I do hope he finds refuge somewhere, to continue the good fight.
Re:All this trouble. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it's not the first time the swedish government bows before their master: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=egyptian-deported-from-sweden-by-cia-freed-2011-08-11 [hurriyetdailynews.com]
Re:how is he going to leave the UK? (Score:4, Informative)
Would they even need to sneak him out? I am not really sure how asylum works; if Ecuador says, "Yes, Assange has asylum here," would the UK government have to allow them to move Assange to an airplane and fly him out of the country?
Nope.
The Ecuadorians have diplomatic immunity, not Assange. Assange doesn't suddenly gain immunity by proxy.
Re:[Stupid] move (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you think he'd ever face trial if he ended up in Sweden? Sweden has illegally rendered [egyptindependent.com] political refugees to the US to be tortured in the past. What makes you think they wouldn't do the same to Assange?
Re:All this trouble. (Score:4, Informative)
They would have ceased caring by this point if it was all nothing but phoney charges
The Swedes did drop the charges, for lack of evidence. Someone cared enough to reopen the investigation and try to force Assange to go back to Sweden.
I do not think it is a stretch to suggest that the US government had something to do with that.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:[Stupid] move (Score:4, Informative)
I live and Sweden and everything you type (and belive) about Sweden is wrong; the only thing you are right about is that Assange is a douchbag.
Getting convicted for ANY violent crime in Sweden with out a confession is very uncommon. We have several cases of murder where all the partisipants have gone free since it has been impossible to prove which one of the accused delivered the killing blow, and they have been convicted of desecrating a corpse since it was impossible to prove that the person was alive when they delivered their blow. A few years back we had a guy who was equitted of rape since he was the last one in the gang rape to have sex with the girl. When it was his turn she was so chocked that she was paralysed. The Swedish court ruled that since she had not protested he was off the hook for rape.
It is unheard of that the Swedish court goes after a man because a woman is pissed because he screwed around. Hunting him across the globe? We don't even do that with convicted killers!
Strange that we have an American deserter turning up so close to Assange getting here. I wonder if there will be two people on that plane back to the US of A.
You are wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Some points to notice, in case you care amidst your ad hominems and strawmen.
1. He didn't break the law. The women who he supposedly "raped" only got pissed because they found out Assange had sex with both of them. The other even tweeted how cool it was to meet Assange and how she couldn't "wait to meet the cool people [incl. Assange] again this evening" (this was following the "rape"). If you were really raped, would you be tweeting like that? No.
2. Assange did not flee. He was not told to stay. There was ample time to collect Assange, but nothing was done, so Assange left after several days. Once Assange went out of the country the Swedish prosecutor went apeshit. Assange become an Interpol wanted persona. Of course, this was according to plan.
The saddest part of Wikileaks is that even after they show irrefutable proof of war crimes and other nasty dealings, what is the reaction - people just chant their national anthem louder. That is sad and disgusting.
It's almost as disgusting as people fervently defending that massive system which conducts those kind of abuses on a daily basis.
Re:[Stupid] move (Score:2, Informative)
It happened in Sweden at least once before. The people were innocent. CIA took them and "extraordinarily renditioned" them. In English this means they kidnapped innocent people and then tortured them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Sweden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Zery
PS. It doesn't really take much effort to look these things up. I don't know why you live in denial, but CIA has basically never been the friendly neighbourhood spiderman. Read up on their history, it's fascinating and gives you some idea how and why CIA does what it does.
Re:Dumb reading (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden is not a lap dog of the United States.
Assange should show up in Sweden, get the case resolved, then go home. End of paranoid story.
I'm certain you are correct. What could possibly go wrong? [wikipedia.org]
Re:[Stupid] move (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm a Swedish resident, and thus biased.
To answer your question; because Sweden has changed. At the time when the Egyptians were rendered, the Swedish population was convinced that Sweden was the best freest and marvelousest country the entire world. We simply didn't pay attention to things like this, because quite frankly we couldn't believe it would happen. The case of the Egyptians was a big eye opener for many here, and we were quite pissed off (well, as pissed off as Swedish people get).
The Assange case has, before anything really bad has even happened, attracted an enormous amount of publicity, and thus has the attention of every Swedish resident before it has even started (w/r to comparing it to the Egyptians). Some here may think Assange is an ass, some may think he should be put in prison and rot, and some may think he's innocent and/or a hero, but nobody seems to think that he should be given to the US. The public is keeping a very close eye on this case, and an extradition would be a political shit storm beyond anything we've seen for ages.
I'm honestly not particularly proud of how "my" country has acted in this - I can certainly see that the Swedish prosecution seems quite incompetent - but I really do not think that Assange would be dumped off the US. It would be political suicide for everybody involved in the process.
Re:You are wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
From what I understand, the term 'rape' is very broad in this country. To the point, people that have been actually raped elsewhere would feel violated.
No, that's bad translation. He's suspected of statutory rape, not rape. Sweden uses the same word for both (lit. "violent taking"), but the law distinguishes between the two.
As well as a case of "sexual misconduct" ("ofredande" - another word that translates to multiple meanings in English, including harassment, assault, discord and molestation. The closest word translation is "disturbance of peace", but that's not the meaning):
"[he] who exposes himself to another in a manner that is likely to cause discomfort, or otherwise by words or conduct [ofredar] a person in a manner that is likely to offend that person's sexual integrity."
Here in the US, the closest thing to these charges would be "statutory rape" and "sexual assault", but that's because we have little nuances and leeway left after the "tough on crimes" movement that has done such wonders in keeping us all safe...
Sweden, on the other hand, are far more lenient.
Re:[Stupid] move (Score:5, Informative)
The reason you're confused is because you're trying to find a direct analogue for 'charged' when there isn't any.
The way things work is that the police investigate a crime, and once they find a suspect they will inform him about their suspicions and ask him to come in for questioning.
This questioning can legally only be done physically in person, not by email, not by telephone, not by video-conference. If you do not come voluntarily then they will arrest you and bring you in for questioning instead.
After questioning you will then either be released (minor crime or suspicions withdrawn) or jailed (major crime or just afraid you'll flee the country) at which point the prosecutor will take the case to court. As you can imagine the jailing part of that gets really rather complicated if you try to do it through teleconference.
Sweden is a very bureaucratic country, this means that if procedure states things are to be done in this order, then they will be done in this order and few if any exceptions will ever be made for any reason.