Julian Assange: rapist or not?

[JihadJane]

Poppycock. I think someone accused me of being racist against Germans, and pointed out Assange is careful to say "it's a bog-standard tactic of the pentagon" instead of "i know the pentagon is doing it", and roundabout just accused the English of making it up. If that's your idea of debunking no wonder you believe so much ********

Your hero Assange is the only one being trashed in this thread.

You tried to support your evidence by quoting from a book written by the very person whose contested evidence you were trying to validate.

 

[eirik]

So, Assange has gotten his assurance from the UK that both internal and international/EMC law will be respected, as in all cases.

And he is still fleeing from rape and molestation charges? Suspected rapist and molester, and now we can add obvious scam. My my, this will not end well for Mr. Assange.

 

[Joey McGee]

You tried to support your evidence by quoting from a book written by the very person whose contested evidence you were trying to validate.

What?!?? I have no "evidence" that he said that, or that the witnesses are telling the truth. I simply find them. and the defectors who have complained of hasty redactions, more credible than Assange. You can dance and sing all day about how they are all just jealous of Assange like supporters mostly do, or that it was the Pentagon, just wondering what stupid theory ya'll run with

 

[Jack of Kent]

Here is my post on Assange in the New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/d...09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange

Would be grateful for any comments from fellow skeptics.

David Allen Green

 

[Strawberry]

Here is my post on Assange in the New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/d...09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange

Would be grateful for any comments from fellow skeptics.

David Allen Green

Somebody else posted a link to that here yesterday, I read it and thought you explained it very well. Recommended reading for anyone who has been exposed to the nonsensical hyperbole which surrounds this case.

 

[Here_to_learn]

I.e., a text message was overlooked.

Which the judge described as his "statement was a deliberate attempt to mislead the court", and the Swedish Bar Association warned him for not having followed their Code of Conduct.

And it was not "a text message", there were three of them.

 

[BenBurch]

I am getting the impression that his Swedish lawyer may have known exactly where Assange was.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

A piece from Naomi wolf with regard to how date rape cases in Sweden are normally handled:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/kingdom-of-sexual-violence-20120904-25ci3.html

Now I'm not a huge Naomi Wolf fan, but it does look like in this case she's changed her habits and has actually done some research, which the results being that the handling of the Assange case is anything but normal for Sweden.

Does anyone have any actual evidence (as opposed to empty claims or attempts to shift the burden of proof) to contradict Wolf's evidence? Otherwise it looks to me like the view that Assange's treatment is normal for Sweden has fallen over at the first proper reality check.

 

[theprestige]

A piece from Naomi wolf with regard to how date rape cases in Sweden are normally handled:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/kingdom-of-sexual-violence-20120904-25ci3.html

Now I'm not a huge Naomi Wolf fan, but it does look like in this case she's changed her habits and has actually done some research, which the results being that the handling of the Assange case is anything but normal for Sweden.

Does anyone have any actual evidence (as opposed to empty claims or attempts to shift the burden of proof) to contradict Wolf's evidence? Otherwise it looks to me like the view that Assange's treatment is normal for Sweden has fallen over at the first proper reality check.

I'll let others address Ms. Wolf's points. I'm just here to point out the irony of Ms. Wolf handling the Assange case in a way that is anything but normal for Naomi Wolf.

 

[theprestige]

I'll let others address Ms. Wolf's points. I'm just here to point out the irony of Ms. Wolf handling the Assange case in a way that is anything but normal for Naomi Wolf.

Actually do have one thing to say about one of her claims.

"According to a report by Amnesty International... only 20 per cent of cases were ever prosecuted."

The big unanswered question here is whether Assange's case is being handled abnormally compared to the 80% that aren't prosecuted? Or is it being handled quite normally compared to the 20% that are prosecuted?

Wolf wants us to conclude, based on her research, that Assange's case falls into the 80%, and is therefore getting unusual treatment.

But another possibility (one that seems to be shared by several courts) is that it actually falls into the 20%, and is therefore getting exactly the usual treatement received by the 20% of rape cases that do get prosecuted.

I mean, unless Ms. Wolf is arguing that no Swedish rape cases merit prosecution, and that therefore all 20% that get prosecuted are being handled abnormally... Or unless Ms. Wolf is presenting evidence that--contrary to the findings of several courts--this particular case properly belongs in the 80%...

 

[uke2se]

A piece from Naomi wolf with regard to how date rape cases in Sweden are normally handled:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/kingdom-of-sexual-violence-20120904-25ci3.html

Now I'm not a huge Naomi Wolf fan, but it does look like in this case she's changed her habits and has actually done some research, which the results being that the handling of the Assange case is anything but normal for Sweden.

Does anyone have any actual evidence (as opposed to empty claims or attempts to shift the burden of proof) to contradict Wolf's evidence? Otherwise it looks to me like the view that Assange's treatment is normal for Sweden has fallen over at the first proper reality check.

Well, let's have a look-see at this piece of "stellar" journalism:

If I were raped in Uppsala, where Assange is alleged to have committed his crime, I could not expect prosecutors to lobby governments to arrest my assailant. On the contrary, "ordinary" Swedish rapists and abusers should assume that police might not respond when called. When I tried the rape crisis hotline at the government-run Crisis Centre for Women in Stockholm, no one even picked up - and there was no answering machine.
Rape crisis advocates in Sweden say one-third of Swedish women have been sexually assaulted by the time they leave their teens. Indeed, according to a study in 2003, and later studies through to 2009, Sweden has the highest sexual assault rate in Europe and among the lowest conviction rates.

Okay, Naomi is complaining that in a nation where she asserts rapists often get away with it, the Swedish judiciary system is trying to ensure that a rapist isn't going to get away with it.

When I reached the Stockholm branch of Terrafem, a support organisation for rape survivors, a volunteer told me that in her many years of experience Sweden's police, prosecutors and magistrates had never mobilised in pursuit of any alleged perpetrator in ways remotely similar to their pursuit of Assange. The far more common scenario - in fact, the only reliable scenario - was that even cases accompanied by a significant amount of evidence were seldom prosecuted.
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This, she explained, was because most rapes in Uppsala, Stockholm and other cities occurred when young women meet young men online and go to an apartment, where, as in the allegations in the Assange case, what begins as consensual sex turns non-consensual. But she said this was exactly the scenario that Swedish police typically refused to prosecute. Just as everywhere else, Sweden's male-dominated police, she explained, did not tend to see these victims as "innocent" and thus did not bother building a case for arrest.

So, Naomi talked to some person at a support organization who claimed the police seldom bothered to prosecute rape cases. There's a few problems here:

First, it's not the police who prosecutes crimes in Sweden.

Second, the alleged volunteer is asserting that the Swedish police doesn't see victims as innocent because they are male-dominated. This assertion is made completely without any supporting evidence. According to police figures, 40% of Swedish police employees are female. Not really that male-dominated. Could be better, but still...

She is right. According to a report by Amnesty International, as of 2008 the number of reported rapes in Sweden had quadrupled in 20 years, but only 20 per cent of cases were ever prosecuted. And, while the prosecution rate constituted a minimal improvement on previous years, when less than 15 per cent of cases ended up in court, the conviction rate for reported rapes "is markedly lower today than it was in 1965". As a result, "in practice, many perpetrators enjoy impunity".

The number of reports of rape has increased significantly over the years in Sweden. This does not necessarily mean that rapes are more common. Rather, it means more rape cases or supposed rape cases are reported. The definition has also been broadened, which is what we see in effect in the Assange case.

The number of convictions per year has increased over time as well, effectively doubling the amount of convictions today compared to 1975.

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexualbrott_i_Sverige

Until 2006, women in Uppsala faced a remarkable hurdle in seeking justice: the city's chief of police, Goran Lindberg, was himself a serial rapist, convicted in July 2010 of more than a dozen charges, including serious sexual offences. One victim testified that she was told her rapist was the police chief, and that she would be framed if she told anyone about his assaults. Lindberg also served as the Police Academy's spokesman against sexual violence. The Uppsala police force that is now investigating Assange either failed to or refused to investigate effectively the sadistic rapist with whom they worked every day.

This allegation against the Uppsala police is made completely without supporting evidence. Failing to investigate a criminal is quite common when the criminal manages to hide his crimes, which is what Lindberg did. It had nothing to do with the police covering up rape.

In other words, the purported magical Swedish kingdom of female sexual equality, empowerment and robust institutional support for rape victims - a land, conjured by Swedish prosecutors, that holds much of the global media in thrall - simply does not exist.

I don't know where Naomi got her notion that Sweden was magical, or that female sexual equality was perfect here. We do what we can, same as everyone else. I don't understand how not investigating a supposed rapist is going to help female sexual equality in Sweden, though.

In the Assange case, the Swedish police supported the accusers in legally unprecedented ways - for example, by allowing them to tell their stories together and by allowing testimony from a boyfriend. But other alleged victims of gender-based abuse, sometimes in life-threatening circumstances, typically receive very different treatment. In particular, according to WAVE, a pan-European consortium of service providers for rape and sexual abuse survivors, when migrants, who comprise 13.8 per cent of Sweden's population, report rape and abuse, they face high systemic hurdles in even telling their stories to police - including longstanding linguistic barriers in communicating with them at all.

Naomi is now at the point of throwing muck at the wall to see what will stick. Here she conflates difficulties for non-Swedish speaking immigrants when reporting rape with the Swedish police supporting the two women accusing Assange. It seems Naomi thinks the Swedish police should refuse to listen to the two women.

Likewise, Swedish intake centres for victims of male violence are woefully underfunded, leaving many women who face threats to their safety and that of their children waiting for unavailable places in shelters. When I emailed the rape crisis support institute in Uppsala, I received an automatic reply saying that the facility was temporarily closed.

Yep, under funded public institutions is clearly unique to Sweden, and is clearly part of a plot to ensnare Assange. Or something.

So, for most raped Swedish women, the shelters are full, the hotlines inactive and the police selectively look the other way - that is, unless they are busy chasing down a globally famous suspect.

Ah, here Naomi makes her stupid point. Just because many rape cases go unresolved, the Swedish police shouldn't go after Assange. Makes sense, right?

We have been here before. Last year, when my left-wing colleagues were virtually unanimous in believing the New York Police Department's narrative of a certain victim and a guilty-before-due-process rapist, I made the same call - to the local rape crisis centre. There, Harriet Lesser, who works every day with victims whose alleged attacker is not the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, confirmed that the official support shown for the victim - in advance of any investigation - was indeed unprecedented.

Since Naomi doesn't give any more information, it's hard to determine exactly how a case from last year in New York has any bearing on the Assange case.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that Assange, much less Dominique Strauss-Kahn, committed no crime against women. Rather, Assange's case, as was true with Strauss-Kahn's, is being handled so differently from how the authorities handle all other rape cases that a corrupted standard of justice clearly is being applied. These aberrations add insult to the injury of women, undefended and without justice, who have been raped in the "normal" course of events - by violent nobodies.

Naomi hasn't demonstrated how the Assange case is being handled differently than all other rape cases. She has demonstrated that in Sweden, as in all other countries, rape is an under reported crime that is hard to prosecute. She then makes the mindbogglingly dumb leap to conspiracy.

In short, Kevin, Naomi Wolf has clearly got her ideological blinkers on, as does anyone thinking this conspiracy theory supporting article has any merits what-so-ever.

 

[WildCat]

Here is my post on Assange in the New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/d...09/legal-mythology-extradition-julian-assange

Would be grateful for any comments from fellow skeptics.

David Allen Green

Yes, that was a good article. You've come a long way since In Living Color.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Okay, Naomi is complaining that in a nation where she asserts rapists often get away with it, the Swedish judiciary system is trying to ensure that a rapist isn't going to get away with it.

...

Ah, here Naomi makes her stupid point. Just because many rape cases go unresolved, the Swedish police shouldn't go after Assange. Makes sense, right?

I'm sure you're not being deliberately obtuse, but you have inadvertently created a straw man and completely avoided discussing the actual point of the Wolf article.

Wolf was absolutely explicit that she was not saying that rape cases should not be investigated. Drawing that conclusion from her piece is a very serious failure in reading comprehension.

Her point was that date rape cases in Sweden are rarely investigated vigorously and rarely result in convictions. So the Assange case is unusual in the way it has been pursued and the enthusiasm with which it has been pursued.

I realise that anti-Assange posters most definitely do not want to acknowledge that, because then some explanation of why Assange was treated in this unusual fashion would seem to be needed. However that's an appeal to consequences, not an argument. You need actual evidence that the way Assange has been treated really is usual, as opposed to assurances from the people pursuing him that everything is above board, attempts to shift the burden of proof or other alternatives to evidence.

 

[uke2se]

I'm sure you're not being deliberately obtuse, but you have inadvertently created a straw man and completely avoided discussing the actual point of the Wolf article.

Wolf was absolutely explicit that she was not saying that rape cases should not be investigated. Drawing that conclusion from her piece is a very serious failure in reading comprehension.

She says that rape cases should be investigated, but she thinks it's strange that this one is.

Her point was that date rape cases in Sweden are rarely investigated vigorously and rarely result in convictions.

I can only assume that she thinks this is bad. One therefore wonders why she thinks it would be good in this case.

So the Assange case is unusual in the way it has been pursued and the enthusiasm with which it has been pursued.

It is only unusual when looking purely at report to conviction statistics. She doesn't even address the fact that the Swedish police have evidence (the lack of which is the main cause for charges to be dropped in most rape cases) against Assange that has stood up in Swedish and UK courts.

I realise that anti-Assange posters most definitely do not want to acknowledge that, because then some explanation of why Assange was treated in this unusual fashion would seem to be needed.

Nope, no explanation is needed. What is needed is for Naomi Wolf to make her freaking mind up. Should we prosecute rape cases in which there is evidence or shouldn't we?

However that's an appeal to consequences, not an argument. You need actual evidence that the way Assange has been treated really is usual, as opposed to assurances from the people pursuing him that everything is above board, attempts to shift the burden of proof or other alternatives to evidence.

No, I need evidence that the way Assange has been treated is not just unusual, but beyond what would be expected by the police if they had evidence against a person. Nobody has presented such evidence. The one attempting to shift the burden of evidence is you.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

She says that rape cases should be investigated, but she thinks it's strange that this one is.

I can only assume that she thinks this is bad. One therefore wonders why she thinks it would be good in this case.

This seems like an incredibly simplistic, black-and-white view of the world. It seems trivially obvious to me that there is no contradiction whatsoever in thinking "it is good that rape case A is being investigated" and "it is unusual that rape case A is being investigated".

Similarly it seems trivially obvious to me that one can think it's good that a rape case is being investigated, and bad if the law is being upheld inconsistently to punish political dissent.

It is only unusual when looking purely at report to conviction statistics. She doesn't even address the fact that the Swedish police have evidence (the lack of which is the main cause for charges to be dropped in most rape cases) against Assange that has stood up in Swedish and UK courts.

Having discussed a few miscarriages of justice recently, I become immediately alert when people rely entirely on saying that "courts accepted X", instead of referring to the evidence that the courts used as the basis for their decision to accept X.

If the evidence was any good you wouldn't need to appeal to the authority of the courts, you could just cite the evidence. The problem is, the evidence isn't much good.

 

[uke2se]

This seems like an incredibly simplistic, black-and-white view of the world. It seems trivially obvious to me that there is no contradiction whatsoever in thinking "it is good that rape case A is being investigated" and "it is unusual that rape case A is being investigated".

Similarly it seems trivially obvious to me that one can think it's good that a rape case is being investigated, and bad if the law is being upheld inconsistently to punish political dissent.

But she's not doing that. She goes through the whole article complaining about how little we Swedes are doing to combat rape, but the gist of her article is that we shouldn't prosecute Assange for rape because that would be "unusual". I mean, is this really difficult for you to understand?

Prosecution in rape cases are "unusual" because there's rarely enough evidence to have a chance for conviction. Clearly, in the Assange case, there is enough evidence, as that has been verified by Swedish and UK courts.

Having discussed a few miscarriages of justice recently, I become immediately alert when people rely entirely on saying that "courts accepted X", instead of referring to the evidence that the courts used as the basis for their decision to accept X.

The evidence is part of an open investigation and is thus not available for us to comment on.

Could I ask you, are you a trained police officer? Lawyer? Federal agent? Judge? Why do you think you should be allowed to look at the evidence anyway?

If the evidence was any good you wouldn't need to appeal to the authority of the courts, you could just cite the evidence.

Appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy when the authority isn't an actual authority. A court is the highest authority when it comes to matters of law, so...

Epic fail.

As I said above, it's not up to you or me to judge the evidence in this specific case. What we're discussing is what Naomi Wolf wrote, and what she wrote was a load of crap.

The problem is, the evidence isn't much good.

Oh, so you've seen it then? Care to enlighten us mere mortals?

ETA: These posts by Kevin are perfect examples of what I mean when I say that people I normally consider well capable of rational and critical thinking turns into bumbling conspiracy theorists when their precious politics are threatened. For ***** sake, engage your brains!

 

[The Dark Lord]

It is a straight up moronic argument to say that because most rape cases aren't prosecuted, that because they are looking to prosecute Assange, the CIA must be behind it or whatever the conspiracy theory might be. Why can't it just be that the authorities feel this is one of the cases where the evidence is good enough to go forward? In fact, sans evidence of a CIA conspiracy, which does not exist, it seems to be by far the most rational conclusion.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

But she's not doing that. She goes through the whole article complaining about how little we Swedes are doing to combat rape, but the gist of her article is that we shouldn't prosecute Assange for rape because that would be "unusual". I mean, is this really difficult for you to understand?

"The gist of her article" is a straw man of your own invention. Her actual article says the exact opposite.

Claiming to have divined "the gist" of something is a very popular way to try to smuggle in a straw man, alongside "what it all boils down to" and "basically what they are saying is...". However it's normally done more subtly. Claiming that Wolf is saying the exact opposite of what she actually printed in black and white is pretty cheeky even by SI&CE standards.

Prosecution in rape cases are "unusual" because there's rarely enough evidence to have a chance for conviction. Clearly, in the Assange case, there is enough evidence, as that has been verified by Swedish and UK courts.

Repeating this isn't going to make it any more persuasive.

Appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy when the authority isn't an actual authority. A court is the highest authority when it comes to matters of law, so...

Epic fail.

This is indeed an epic fail of rationality. Courts can and do get things wrong all the time, and educated laypeople can and do call them on it. If you have so little faith in your ability to reason that you dismiss completely the idea that a court could be wrong and you could tell that it was wrong, then that's your own business. I suffer from no such delusions of inferiority.

That's why rationalists should look to the available evidence, not to the opinion of the court, and not to imaginary secret evidence that the court might have had.

ETA: These posts by Kevin are perfect examples of what I mean when I say that people I normally consider well capable of rational and critical thinking turns into bumbling conspiracy theorists when their precious politics are threatened. For ***** sake, engage your brains!

What do you think it feels like to be such a bumbler, from the inside? I put it to you that it might feel as if normally meticulously rational posters, with a proven track record of disagreeing with court decisions when they had the evidence on their side and of being proven right, had suddenly gone insane and were disagreeing with you for no reason.

I assure you, I've suffered no recent strokes or brain injuries. The same brain as ever is behind these posts.

I don't think Assange or anyone else deserves a free pass to sexually assault people for whatever political activism they've engaged in. However I do very strongly think that justice should be blind, and that there is significant reason to think here that Assange is being singled out by the justice system for special treatment as punishment for his political dissent.

 

[uke2se]

"The gist of her article" is a straw man of your own invention. Her actual article says the exact opposite.

The opposite of what I said would be that Wolf thinks we should prosecute Assange because it's not unusual. I think the word you were looking for was "different".

Claiming to have divined "the gist" of something is a very popular way to try to smuggle in a straw man, alongside "what it all boils down to" and "basically what they are saying is...". However it's normally done more subtly. Claiming that Wolf is saying the exact opposite of what she actually printed in black and white is pretty cheeky even by SI&CE standards.

What is Naomi Wolf saying according to you then?

Repeating this isn't going to make it any more persuasive.

What about what I said is controversial?

This is indeed an epic fail of rationality. Courts can and do get things wrong all the time, and educated laypeople can and do call them on it. If you have so little faith in your ability to reason that you dismiss completely the idea that a court could be wrong and you could tell that it was wrong, then that's your own business. I suffer from no such delusions of inferiority.

The problem here, that everyone but you no doubt understand, is that

You haven't seen the evidence but the courts have!

You are simply assuming that the courts are wrong.

That's why rationalists should look to the available evidence, not to the opinion of the court, and not to imaginary secret evidence that the court might have had.

This is just plain bizarre. You are saying "rationalists" should have a look at the evidence (the evidence that isn't available as the investigation is ongoing) before courts make their judgment. Do you think this should always be the case? Should the courts post all evidence online so Joe Schmo can have a look at the evidence and have his say before any verdict in any case is made? Or is this just special pleading for Assange?

I mean, listen to yourself, man.

What do you think it feels like to be such a bumbler, from the inside?

I have no idea, nor do I wish to know.

I put it to you that it might feel as if normally meticulously rational posters, with a proven track record of disagreeing with court decisions when they had the evidence on their side and of being proven right, had suddenly gone insane and were disagreeing with you for no reason.

I wouldn't say that you are disagreeing with me for no reason. I'd say you are disagreeing with the courts who have actually seen the evidence and made an informed judgment based on that, because your political persuasion demands that there be a conspiracy in the works here.

I assure you, I've suffered no recent strokes or brain injuries. The same brain as ever is behind these posts.

I believe you. We normally poke fun at conspiracy theorists at these forums, but it's easy to forget that we are all prone to them, as your posts have ably demonstrated.

I don't think Assange or anyone else deserves a free pass to sexually assault people for whatever political activism they've engaged in. However I do very strongly think that justice should be blind, and that there is significant reason to think here that Assange is being singled out by the justice system for special treatment as punishment for his political dissent.

What makes you think that? Surely not Wolf's article? I believe I have quite thoroughly dissected that one. I mean, it's just one stupid argument after another.

So, in your own words (and backed up with evidence), why do you believe Assange is being singled out?

 

[Here_to_learn]

A piece from Naomi wolf with regard to how date rape cases in Sweden are normally handled:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/kingdom-of-sexual-violence-20120904-25ci3.html

I don't know what's going on but I can't reach that link, and I can't find it one their home page. Strange since apparently others can read it.

Looking at the quotes that uk2se included, I can see at least two parts that she has included in previous blog posts, and that has been shown to be wrong.

In the Assange case, the Swedish police supported the accusers in legally unprecedented ways - for example, by allowing them to tell their stories together and by allowing testimony from a boyfriend.

See point 2 and 3 in Göran Rudlings answer to her previous post.

Short summary: They didn't tell their story together, and there is not rape shield law in Sweden, so the police will interview all they believe may have information.