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Comment by adityab | Hacker News Reader

The two women have not accused Assange of sexual assault. Ever.

They merely went to the police and asked if it was possible to pressurize him to submit to STD testing.

The accusations of rape are done by an overzealous prosecution office that has hijacked the case later; it seems they have the right to do that. That the office chose to make the accusations augmented by descriptive statements from the two women gives the impression that the two are the accusers. Both (or at least one, supported by the other) have since requested that the issue be dropped.

To see the entire arguments of the prosecution and the defense in today's session, read the liveblog[1] by Falkvinge (now ended, of course).

[1] http://falkvinge.net/2014/07/16/live-detention-lift-hearings...

EDIT: Minor nits.

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Jul 16 18:08 - VERDICT: Julian Assange is to REMAIN in detention in absentia. Just announced.

Looks like an overzealous persecutor found himself in front of an overzealous judge. Combined with the English courts agreeing as well that he be extradited. Quite an international conspiracy!

Or maybe professionals doing their job can see enough evidence exists supporting the accusation that he raped and assaulted women to bring him before a court for trial.

>The two women have not accused Assange of sexual assault. Ever.

The two victims described sex crimes for which the Swedish government has chosen to accuse Assange of committing.

>They merely went to the police and asked if it was possible to pressurize him to submit to STD testing.

If merely walked into a police station and said someone stabbed me with a dirty syringe and I'd really just like to know if he's HIV positive it wouldn't be up to me if the police device to go find him and the prosecutor decides to charge him with assault. Replace dirty syringe with penis.

Victims don't get to dictate justice.

>Looks like an overzealous persecutor found himself in front of an overzealous judge. Combined with the English courts agreeing as well that he be extradited. Quite an international conspiracy!

This is perhaps the second most politically persecuted person in the western world, after Snowden. Do you really find it so implausible that his persecution would not be overzealous, especially with a Five Eyes collaborator and Sweden, which has extremely close intelligence ties to the US?

>If merely walked into a police station and said someone stabbed me with a dirty syringe and I'd really just like to know if he's HIV positive it wouldn't be up to me if the police device to go find him and the prosecutor decides to charge him with assault. Replace dirty syringe with penis.

Except that people don't stab others with dirty syringes as often as they have sex with each other, and neither are the two remotely related, so you're comparing apples to oranges. If someone simply asks the police if it is possible to force an HIV test, the police should perhaps obtain a court order to get something such done instead of filing a case of sexual assault.

> Victims don't get to dictate justice.

If a woman feels she was raped/not raped, the only opinion that matters there is hers (from a common decency POV). I do not know what Swedish law says in this regard.

Let me expand on my downvote: putting aside the issue of sexual assault entirely, Assange has made enemies of several major intelligence agencies. Leaked documents discuss “the start of an international effort to focus the legal element of national power upon non-state actor Assange, and the human network that supports WikiLeaks”. Assange is indisputably the target of one or more international conspiracies.

He might also be a rapist, but it's intellectually dishonest to dismiss the conspiracy angle offhand.

It's dehumanizing to the victims to dismiss allegations of sexual assault because of a convenient theory that aligns with your politics. While it may be your version of Occam's Razor to assume that this is an internationally-coordinated plot against him, I find it much easier to believe that a person with a lot of public self-regard could be guilty of one of the most common crimes committed by humans: acquaintance rape.

What's really frustrating is watching people conflate Assange with Wikileaks and defend the individual as if he's the organization. It causes people who are skeptical of rapists and cult-of-personality individuals to be made out to be anti-whistleblowers and that's not fair. I think Wikileaks operates best as an anonymous organization and not under the control of a figurehead.

I dismissed no allegations. Let me put this as clearly as possible: Assange is a target of multiple powerful intelligence agencies, all with world-class experience executing dirty tricks. Having the figurehead of Wikileaks charged with an abhorrent crime, guilty or not, is very much in the interest of these groups. Not because Assange matters, but because of the backlash you describe in your second paragraph.

Personally, I think they didn't have to lift a hand. Assange discredited himself, with his own actions. But it's an indisputable fact that Assange is the target of one or more agencies whose job it is to conduct internationally-coordinated plots. If you want to ignore the possibility of foul play that's your choice, but don't pretend that you're standing up for truth and justice by making assumptions.

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