BPI have declined to answer awkward questions
because they can claim their victory, and the rest of the world carries on, regardless. Everyone (?) is happy.
Two founders of notorious BitTorrent search website, The Pirate Bay, are bidding to get an earlier Swedish court verdict overturned at the European Court of Human Rights. Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Carl Lundström and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg were handed prison sentences and hefty fines in 2009 for their involvement in running …
First we have Assange running away into the arms of Ecuador (that great defender of human rights and the free press) because he is so terrified of Swedish justice, now we have two Pirate Bay guys crying Sweden violated their human rights.
Those Swedes must be tyrants!
Strange really because on the Economist democracy index I found Sweden seems to rank 4th in the world, where as the UK ranks 18 and Ecuador ranks 89. This index looks at electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture.
This suggest to me that if I was an innocent man looking for either of freedom of expression, and human rights Sweden would be a top notch choice.
If you look at the amnesty international web site Sweden does have it's failings. The two main concerns seem to be that accelerated asylum-determination procedures applied to some cases don't meet international standards and the thoroughness of police investigations into rape cases.
You should probably put rape cases in double quotes since Sweden's classification of rape isn't exactly the same as everyone else's.
http://web.archive.org/web/20101207044248/http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/sex-by-surprise-at-heart-of-julian-assange-criminal-probe/19741444
"Rape" - you are quite correct. The activities of which Mr Assange is wanted for questioning by the Swedish police would fall into, a charge of 'Sex by surprise *' in Sweden, where as in the UK they would be rape.
If you read the Jack of Kent post about having sex whilst somebody is asleep the conclusion is that this would be rape in the UK, and indeed appears to part of be the basis for allowing the extradition.
Looking at the law in Ecuador it would appear that "Rape" would be defined as where the victim was under 12 years of age; or the victim was physically, mentally or for some other reason unable to resist; or where the perpetrator used force or intimidation against the victim.
It would seem that the possible charges in the various countries would be 'sex by surprise' in Sweden, "Rape" in the UK, and be innocent in Ecuador. But this is probably just a coincidence and Mr Assange's asylum application will be based on Ecuador's record on 'Freedom of Speech'?
That aside to my mind "rape" is non consensual sex, and consent is defined by the phrase 'no means no, and also stop'. So if one party either says 'no stop that', 'with a condom' or indeed is asleep at the time this is non consensual.
* I assume this is a translation and sounds less comically trivial in Swedish
Given that the supposed "victim" had already had consensual sex with Assange earlier that evening, then didn't object to him not using a condom, because she "couldn't be bothered" reminding him to wear one, she might find it difficult to prove the intercourse was not by implicit consent.
We're not exactly talking about a woman who was abducted, threatened, beaten and sexual assaulted here. She sought him out, followed him around like a little puppy, allowed him to grope her in a public place where she could easily have cried out for help, invited him back to her place, then had sex with him, without ever making any attempt to stop him, despite having many opportunities to just walk away.
This is only "rape" of the order of "I changed my mind". Even Katrin Axelsson of Women Against Rape questions the legitimacy of this case. In reality, it's "rape" as in the CIA paying a financially struggling student and a (now mysteriously missing) radical feminist to set up the Wikileaks spokesman, because his organisation had the audacity to expose US government corruption and collateral murder.
@Homer1 - You seem to have bought into the conspiracy theories well and truly: Julian can do no bad, it's all the CIA. Really? If the CIA were after me, I'd expect them to do a damn site better than pay someone to say I had non-consentual sex with her. It's like many conspiracies, it goes along the lines of "The government is cunning and their ultra skilled secret agents have tentacles throughout society." Followed by "Look, they made a half-assed attempt to frame that guy who everyone is looking at, see how stupid they are."
Also: You do know that the "Collateral Murder" video was edited to remove the rather inconvenient and situation changing "guy with a RPG"? That would be Wikileaks, the non-editorialising, non-journalists, who put information into the public domain so we can all make our own minds up, making their own story about what happened and removing anything that gets in the way.
The US embassy cables that document government corruption are not "conspiracy theories". The public calls for Assange's assassination are not "conspiracy theories". A helicopter gunship firing on unarmed journalists and children, while the crew sneer about it, is not a "conspiracy theory". They're established and admitted facts in the public record.
As for the fact that some of the victims had weapons - good for them. If a bunch of fascist Americans invaded my home with helicopter gunships, and threatened the lives of my children, you better believe I'd be carrying a weapon.
Homer I, you seem to have jumped directly from the allegation of an assault to trying the case.
The nature of the alleged act is what the Jack of Kent and the commentator before were addressing.
What seems to be at issue is the seriousness of the charge not the likelihood of prosecution nor the strength of the defence.
>>This suggest to me that if I was an innocent man looking for either of freedom of expression, and human rights Sweden would be a top notch choice.
I think you answered your question... they're not innocent and they're not heroes of freedom/democracy. Therefore a dodgy South-American country with easily bribed officials is far preferable.
so long as one isn't seen as working against the interests of our liege lord, the US government, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of the MPAA, the RIAA, and the military-industrial complex. In that case, however, our judges, who with few exceptions all seem to be members of societies promoting the interests of so-called «rights holders», tend to give the accused before them short shrift. Makes little difference whether the defendents are the Pirate Bay Four, or Mr Assange....
Henri
On a point of only marginal pedantry, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is nothing to do with the EU, except that Members of the EU have to be signed up to it. The ECHR is run by the Council of Europe, which includes countries like Russia and Turkey which are very much not part of the EU. It's an often-made error though...