She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't). Whether she felt this should be described as rape or not, the facts as expressed would qualify as rape not only under Swedish law, but also under English law - see section 116 and onward of https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assan.... The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed, meaning that there was an opportunity for everyone involved to avoid being further involved. The cited link rebuts none of this.
> [SW's] police report states that, after Assange woke her up trying to initiate intercourse, the two had a conversation in which she asked Assange whether he was wearing a condom and he replied he was not. She then said he “would better not have HIV” and he replied that he did not, after which, she “let him continue” (lät honom fortsätta) to have unprotected intercourse. There are no indications of coercive or incapacitating circumstances suggesting lack of consent. Accordingly, Chief Prosecutor for Stockholm Eva Finne stated: “I do not think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape” and closed the case on 25 August 2010 concluding that the “conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all”.
Thanks. I guess that's the '27 August 2010' update in that document - is there more to read on it somewhere?
The doc I linked suggested it was the police who modified SW's statement, which triggered the re-evaluation of the case.
"AA took SW to a police station, so SW could enquire whether she could force Assange to take an HIV-test. There, they were questioned together by an investigating officer who knew AA personally and ran on the same political party ticket as AA in the general elections three weeks later. When superior investigators insisted on registering SW’s enquiry as a report of “rape” and to immediately issue an arrest warrant against Assange, SW reportedly refused to sign her statement and became so emotionally distraught that the questioning had to be suspended. While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06). Once Chief Prosecutor Finné had intervened and closed the case, it reportedly was again the police (not SW) who “revised” her statement lodged in the police system to better fit the crime of “rape” before it was resubmitted by a third Social Democrat politician to a different prosecutor who was prepared to re-open the case."
The "Social Democrat politician" was Claes Borgström (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m) - calling him a politician without noting that he was a qualified lawyer with a track record in representing women in sexual assault and trafficking cases is incredibly misleading.
> The narrative presented in that post also ignores the fact that after the initial investigation, the case was dropped - it was only reinstated because the legal representative of the women involved asked that it be reviewed
the post says
> · After an arrest warrant was issued a senior prosecutor named Eva Finne pulled rank and canceled it, dropping the matter completely on August 25th saying the evidence “disclosed no crime at all.”
> · Out of the blue it was restarted again on the 29th, this time by another prosecutor named Marianne Ny.
your first claim in the quoted sentence is that the post ignores that the case was dropped. it does not ignore it; it explicitly describes the case being dropped, explaining how and why. indeed, a large fraction of the post is devoted to discussing these facts from different angles
your second claim is that the case was only reinstated on the request of 'the legal representative of the women involved'. the post does not rebut this so much as it flatly denies it; that's not surprising, since it's a claim i haven't heard before, so possibly she hadn't heard of it either
additionally, in the context of replying to a link to this post, your perfectly objectively correct lead-in text
> She described being in a situation where she was unable to give consent, and where Assange acted in a way that violated her previous expression of consent (in that she'd expressly only agreed to sex if he wore a condom, and in this case he didn't).
implies that caitlin johnstone, the author of the post that you were presumably commenting on, believed or at least suggested that the alleged situation would not amount to a crime, if it had happened. the point of view you are implicitly imputing to her is one that she vehemently disclaims at length in the linked post. for example, she writes:
> I see a lot of well-meaning Assange defenders using some very weak and unhelpful arguments against this smear, suggesting for example that having unprotected sex without the woman’s permission shouldn’t qualify as sexual assault or that if AA had been assaulted she would necessarily have conducted herself differently afterward. Any line of argumentation like that is going to look very cringey to people like myself who believe rape culture is a ubiquitous societal illness that needs to be rolled back far beyond the conventional understanding of rape as a stranger in a dark alley forcibly penetrating some man’s wife or daughter at knifepoint. Don’t try to justify what Assange is accused of having done, just point out that there’s no actual evidence that he is guilty and that very powerful people have clearly been pulling some strings behind the scenes of this narrative.
> it does not ignore it; it explicitly describes the case being dropped, explaining how and why
It discusses it in a manner unrelated to the agency of the women involved, ignoring the fact that they were involved in it being reinstated. I should have associated the two clauses there more closely to make it clearer what I was objecting to.
> implies that caitlin johnstone, the author of the post that you were presumably commenting on, believed or at least suggested that the alleged situation would not amount to rape, if it had happened
This was intended to be in reference to the observation that initially nobody asserted that they'd been raped. Rape isn't defined by whether someone believes they've been raped, and there's evidence that many people who will disclose that they've been subject to all the elements of rape will refuse to describe it as such. A victim failing to describe it as rape doesn't give you a significant amount of information.
I don't really get why most the discussions here about the rape case. While very important to him personally, to us the rest of the world the implications of the WikiLeaks should be way more important, or am I wrong?
> I don't really get why most the discussions here about the rape case. While very important to him personally, to us the rest of the world the implications of the WikiLeaks should be way more important, or am I wrong?
Why do we nowadays talk about Harvey Weinstein's rapes and not ignore them because his movies are far more important to the "rest of the world"?
My comment was out of disappointment: how much HN traffic generates the condom of Assange in comparison with how the justice handled the leaks case. It's almost like, sex would be more important to chat than freedom? Or are we all already in agreement over WikiLeaks and banter here only about the dropped rape case? If yes, it wasn't obvious to me, sorry. I do trust the justice to be served to proven rapists and if not, by all means let's raise our voices. And by the way, the case of Weinstein is by no means comparable with Assange's, in scope or implications - which cases again were not the topic here but look at me, getting dragged into the very out-of-topic discussions I complained about.
Courts concluded that under both Swedish and English law, what was described (if accurately described, which is a separate issue) qualified as rape. Section 116 and onwards of https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/assan... describe this in more detail. This isn't an arbitrary conclusion - it's based on an analysis of the described behaviour against national law. Someone unfamiliar with the specific law of the nations involved may reach a different conclusion, which is understandable and also entirely irrelevant.
I don't know what to believe. That document is pretty damning reading to be honest (thank you for sharing and pointing to the relevant sections), but the original post from Melzer still raises some alarming issues I think
Assange is both being unfairly targeted for leaking embarrassing information and is a man with a troubling sexual history who likely raped a women in Sweden. Both can be true.
Do you know how many children Assange has? Do you know how much time he spent with them before his arrest? He seems to have a Musk like breeding fetish and was known to exploit his fame for sex. He even engaged in multiple relationships while in hiding and incarcerated.
Condom removal is rape. Sex with a sleeping person is rape. Sweden takes rape much more seriously than most countries and counts it differently.
An interesting read, with lots of comments emoting views on morality which is quite distinct from legality. It's entirely possible the greater good was revealing awful acts by the US military. The offence here was in
conspiracy, and inducement/excitement to break the law.
Unrelated I wonder if the people who paid bail for Assange in the UK only to have him skip bail got refunded.
The OP points out a lot of half truths and hot takes exist especially around the Sweden side of things.
They tried to not pay, given that for some it was a substantial portion of their life savings, but obviously they didnt have any real case to avoid it. I would hope wikileaks repayed them but I highly doubt they did.
Some ardent supporters from that era have little nice to say about Assange - including those that paid significant bail provided huge amounts of assistance.
Or more broadly any in this great series of posts by Caitlan Johnstone: https://medium.com/search?q=Assange+Smear+caitlan