Can't help but feel...
... that if this happened in China then all of the free world press would be taking up the case and western governments providing -ahem- "funding for freedom".
Interim conclusion: strange ol' world innit?
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been denied in his bid for a Swedish residency permit, part of the Australian's effort to gain protection for the whistleblower site under Sweden's press freedom laws. On August 18, Assange applied to live and work in Sweden, where Wikileaks maintains some of its servers, and on Monday, his …
...what you do is you go to a country (Sweden) that's at war in another country (Afghanistan), release a load of confidential documents with the potential to damage the Swedish/coalition effort whilst all the time complaining loudly about how Sweden is being manipulated by the USA to blacken your name and have you arrested... and then you can complain a bit more when they don't let you stay.
My heart bleeds.
Y'know, if I applied for residency in a country, I would hope that my application would be private; as in, "We will not publish to the international community whether we accepted or denied your request."
Why is a celebrity so different that we get to know his private application status?
Sweden refused to give the reason why he was denied, so we don't know this. But I guess this application would be an official action, and Scandinavian countries have different ideas about privacy to UK/US. Or if it went through a court, it would be part of official record, so released to the public. I suspect they didn't make a special case out of him.
His application is still private (note that the article states the reason for denial is confidential ie not public) however the fact that he applied is not private and the official outcome (rejection) is not private also, this is surely correct, as it is is in the publicv interest who is applying, just like getting planning permission for buliding works, it gives the public the ability to put forward evidence/reasons for possible acceptance/rejection.
Just like some states publish driving test results showing who passed and who failed (not why they failed though!) as using public roads is in the public interest.
Public application, Private details. Nothing wrong here.
Interestingly he wasn't a celebrity as wikileaks tried to stay secret, until that is the US government brought him far into the limelight to then systematically attack and undermine him. In effect, they raised him up so they could then publicly bring him down. I guess that’s the 21st century equivalently of a medieval public flogging to enforce the idea you need to be fearful of speaking out against our masters.
So this latest move is just another scene from his on going public flogging.
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I support freedom of speech and the people who make public what 'they' would rather be kept from us. But really, this guy shouldn't be surprised when this sort of thing happens.
If you're going to try and stick it to 'the man' then be prepared for the repercussions.
"Never get off the boat. Unless you're going all the way."
Am I imagining it, or didn't Iceland introduce some hefty pro-leaking legislation recently? If he took them up, we'd be able to claim that "'not keeping Mum's' gone to Iceland"!
I'll get my coat...
(and apologies to the non-UK readership who won't get a very rubbish reference to a UK advertising campaign)