10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Assange

[Stephen Morgan]

Presumably you are a straight man. Have you ever had a woman call you 30 times in an hour b/c you were late getting home? How many major motion pictures in the US have portrayed women the the lead antagonist role as obsessive, homicidal stalkers? Likewise women just kill less people and start less fights and abuse their spouses less (though the last one is probably under-reported).

So your position is that men are portrayed as creeps because men are creeps, whereas women aren't because they aren't. By the same logic the reason criminals on film are often black is because black people tend to be violent intimidating criminals. And as is firmly established women commit the majority of spousal abuse.

[Simulist]

Men aren't creeps, but more creeps are men.

[jlaw172364]

@Nathan28

I was referring to Internet portrayals of men as creeps and stalkers, I was not thinking of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Most film killers are male. (Ten to Midnight, anyone?) I was also thinking of experiences with certain women where if you call, text, or email them more than once in a row without their reply, you are automatically a creepy psycho stalker who wants to rape and kill them, not necessarily in that order. These are women who usually don't like you romantically, but don't want to tell you that; so they invent a pretext to shun you. Why can't they just say they're not interested? Why do they have to label you as an evil creep first, and use that to justify their lack of interest? Maybe they just want to avoid guilt, who knows?

I just didn't think it was fair to label Assange's dating profile as creepy per se.

@Cowbell

I agree about the he said / she said thing.

This is why I lean towards the he said:

In their allegations, they never alleged that they ever clearly stated: NO! to him. Or even No. Or even no. It was more like they alleged that they were conflicted, that MAYBE they thought no, but didn't say it.

I doubt JA is a mind-reader even under the best of circumstances. When people are horny and getting it on, they often aren't thinking clearly; maybe they're focused on what they want. This is why people have to clearly communicate what they want and don't want.

For example, I don't like biting, scratching, or pain of any kind. Any attempts to do that will result in a "No, stop that immediately," from me.

I don't agree with Jaclyn Friedman "They were in a state of fear," thing either. They never alleged that they were afraid of him. Just because a guy holds you down doesn't mean he won't respond to know. A lot of men think that women want to be dominated, or want a man who is a little aggressive. However, these same men would back off if you told them "No."

It seemed more likely that they were conflicted between wanting to please their hero, and wanting to be true to themselves.

[JackRiddler]

Naomi Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman Debate Julian Assange's Rape Charges
Noted feminists go head to head about how we should think about the allegations against the Wikileaks founder.
December 20, 2010 |


Last week, Naomi Wolf wrote a snarky open letter to Interpol that raised the ire of feminists. Entitled 'Julian Assange Captured By World's Dating Police,' she seemed to dismiss Assange's rape accusations -- and, by proxy, his accusers -- as banal and trifling. Jaclyn Friedman, Executive Director of Women, Action and the Media, was one of Wolf's most vocal critics. This morning, they debated the issue on Democracy Now!. Watch:

I forgot the alarm on, damn it, and woke up to Part II of this debate playing on the radio today... very interesting.

Here's the latter part, the whole transcript is at http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/21/ ... ns_against.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: In a moral—in my moral universe, where everyone is an adult moral actor—

NAOMI WOLF: Mm-hmm?

JACLYN FRIEDMAN:—people are only having sex with people who are enthusiastic about what they’re doing at all times and enthusiastic about the circumstances.* If you are pressuring your lover into something—

NAOMI WOLF: Right.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN:—if you are coercing them, if you are having sex with them without consent when they are asleep, that is not a moral actor.

NAOMI WOLF: So, I just—Jaclyn—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: That is morally unjustifiable.

NAOMI WOLF: I mean, in a way—in a way, Amy, I have to say, I find this conversation extremely frustrating and wrong, because really—and this is why I was reluctant to have this particular debate. You know, here we are debating, oh, you know, nuances of what is to me, working 23 years with rape victims, a highly ambiguous situation compared to the cut-and-dry, clear assaults and violence and, you know, date rapes that do not get a legal hearing every day, including in Sweden, whereas really the issue is a man who has, you know, released information showing wrongdoing at the highest levels being dragged out of the line of justice, out of any kind of ordinary treatment of ordinary assault—and by the way, these women did not make charges against him. They went to the police to see if they could get him to take an STD test. The police, the state brought charges.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait, now, stop for a second. Explain that. We have talked about that, but—

NAOMI WOLF: OK, it is a very important distinction. And, you know, when I worked with rape survivors in the United Kingdom in the ’80s, there was a same situation where it was the state and not the women who pursued the case. And this very much marginalized what the women wanted. So, let us remember, the women didn’t go to the police and say, “This guy assaulted me,” or “This guy violated me,” or “This guy molested me.” That’s not what happened. They went to the police, much subsequent, and said, “Can we get him to take an STD test?” And the police walked them through what had happened, and the police said, “That’s against the law."

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: He is alleged to have held one woman down and to have raped a woman in her sleep. It’s not at all about the condom.

NAOMI WOLF: He didn’t—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: The condom is an issue, but to make it about the condom—the issue here is that we are minimizing the attempt for two women in Sweden to get justice.

NAOMI WOLF: That is not correct. Jaclyn, I strongly object.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: And what that tells victims everywhere across the world is that they are not going to have a chance either.

NAOMI WOLF: Jaclyn, Jaclyn—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: What we should be doing is taking this as an opportunity to raise the bar internationally for the way we expect governments to protect their citizens—

NAOMI WOLF: Exactly, exactly.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN:—including female victims of rape.

NAOMI WOLF: And that involves having a single standard of justice and a single standard of justice where rape victims and those accused of rape can be sure that the state will and the judiciary will take appropriate single standard action—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: And the way to be sure is to make sure your partners are enthusiastically consenting. I have to say I am really offended by your continuing to talk on behalf of rape victims, as a rape victim myself.

NAOMI WOLF: I am speaking on behalf of the rape victims who are emailing me.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: You do not speak for me.

NAOMI WOLF: I am not saying I speak for you, Jaclyn. I’m speaking—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: And I am speaking on behalf of the rape victims that I work with every day, and I’m speaking on behalf of myself as a rape victim whose situation was accused to have not been cut and dry, because you know what most women hear when they allege rape? They hear, "Oh, well, it’s ambiguous. We really can’t do much about this." You know how endemic that is, and how much that is the reason rape is not reported and prosecuted?

NAOMI WOLF: Well, I do. I do know, Jaclyn, which is why—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: It’s the exact thing you’re saying right here: "Oh, it’s not a real, cut-and-dried rape."

NAOMI WOLF: Jaclyn, please do not twist what I’m saying.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: And that is insulting to victims worldwide.

NAOMI WOLF: What I’m saying is, it’s because—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: You just said it!

NAOMI WOLF: It’s because rape is so—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: There’s tape. We can watch it back.

NAOMI WOLF: Jaclyn, please.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s do one at a time.

NAOMI WOLF: This is a really important issue, and it’s important for us to have a substantive debate about it. And an ideally respectful debate. So, it is because I take the issue of rape so seriously, and it’s because so many women—and when I say—I don’t mean ambiguous like date rape or ambiguous like she was drinking too much. I mean ambiguous like she consented and consented and consented. That is a big difference. I, too, support women—

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: That’s not what happened here!

NAOMI WOLF: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Jaclyn and Naomi, let me interrupt for one second and say, what would you like to see happen at this point in this case? So, you have Julian Assange who was held for a week in jail on allegations of sexual assault. He has been released. What do you want to see happen right now? What do you each think would be fair? He faces an extradition hearing on December 11th, extradition—on January 11th, extradition to Sweden. Jaclyn, let’s begin with you. What do you want to see happen now?

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: I am mostly concerned that he faces the allegations. It does not concern me. I agree that extradition is extreme in a case like this. It certainly is not typical. On the other hand, he agreed to come back and volunteer for questioning in October and did not do so. But if the British wanted to insist that the Swedes go to Britain and interview him there and have him proceed with a prosecution there until they decide whether or not they want to bring formal charges, I think that would be perfectly reasonable. My concern is that these allegations are taken seriously, not minimized, treated as real, because they represent the real experiences of real rape victims everywhere, and that he is made to answer to them to the satisfaction of the justice system, at the very least.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Wolf, what would you like to see?

NAOMI WOLF: Well, I mean, what I’m interested in is equal justice and the rule of law. And so, I do believe that everyone who’s accused of a serious crime needs to know that they are acting without someone’s consent. So I’d like, going forward, for—you know, I think it’s incumbent upon people to express to each other if they are consenting or not. And so, to me, I agree that there should be a hearing, obviously. But I think it should weigh very seriously, as it does for me, reading these, as a supporter of rape victims, as a crusader on the issue of rape—it is important that I don’t see anywhere these women expressing a lack of consent. In fact, I see them indicating consensual willingness to engage in sex, consensual willingness to engage in sex without a condom. I see that from the record. So, to me, an impartial hearing would be ideal, if improbable.

And I have to say, I think we are being naïve. And I am kind of reluctant to be drawn into this side of the debate, because the larger picture is, why is the guy resisting coming back to Sweden? He’s resisting coming back to Sweden the way any journalist would, because in Sweden they will extradite him to the United States, where he is facing, you know, prolonged isolation, like Bradley Manning, which drives people insane, according to human rights activists. He’s facing being called an “enemy combatant” by some of our most senior political leaders, which would mean that they could ship him to Guantánamo, you know, where they’re still torturing people, where they’re still holding people in kangaroo court conditions, where there’s still—you know, people are dying mysterious deaths in Guantánamo, even in Obama’s Guantánamo, where he’s facing abuse or mistreatment of hideous kinds and the possibility of never having due process, because we now have, you know, a banana republic situation off the coast of Cuba, where people can get lost in a black hole, where their innocence or guilt doesn’t matter. And so, to be talking about, you know, these discussions about these complaints—you’re right that they’re not charges—without putting it in the larger picture of he’s not every guy who doesn’t want to go back to where women have accused him of sexual impropriety. He’s a guy who, if he goes back, is going to lose his freedom and his life, because he’s being made a scapegoat and a martyr, you know, on behalf of journalists everywhere by the most powerful government on earth, that doesn’t want whistleblowers shining any kind of light on their wrongdoing, even as they continue to surveil us, wiretap us, break the Fourth Amendment every single day. So, I think we have to keep that larger picture in mind.

I would like justice to be done. I would like a hearing. But I would also like my country to behave according to the rule of law and my country to stop acting like a global bully, you know, intimidating other nations and other judicial systems, which is clearly what happened here, into bullying and intimidating journalists, because, believe me, Amy, if he is taken into custody, if he is prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which closed down dissent in this country for a decade, and he’s made an example of in this way—wrongly, because he’s the New York Times, not the Daniel Ellsberg in the case; he is just the publisher—then you and I are not going to be safe doing our jobs as journalists any longer.

AMY GOODMAN: Jaclyn Friedman, do you find any common ground here?

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: Naomi, I couldn’t agree with you more about my concerns. Yes, I could not agree more about concerns about having him extradited to the United States, about the Espionage Act. I agree with you about all of that. However, I speak for myself and many, many rape victims when I say we are so tired of having our bodies thrown under the bus for the concerns of a powerful white guy. I totally agree, but I would like to see—and if he does get extradited to the U.S. from Sweden, I will be on the front lines with you protesting that. But, denying these two women justice is a denial of justice. He needs to be made to answer these charges anyway. While, yes, I think it is political and extraordinary the way this is being pursued, it’s an opportunity to raise the bar for the women of Sweden and the women internationally for what we can expect from our justice systems for women who are alleging sexual violence.

NAOMI WOLF: And I would have to say that I think you’re living in a—

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Wolf, final words.

NAOMI WOLF: I mean, I think it’s a fantasy world to think that after this case is over the bar will be raised at all. This is the last time we’re ever going to see consensual sex involving a dispute about a condom criminalized. And it’s the first time I’ve seen it in 23 years, and I am sure that after they’ve done whatever violent, brutal thing they’re planning to do to Julian Assange, it’s the last time we’re going to see it. I don’t think it helps the women of Sweden in the least to trivialize the very real issue of rape with this kind of thing.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: Many, many of the women in Sweden think it is helping them. And I listen to the women there.

NAOMI WOLF: OK, I listen to the women there, too, and I guess there are many women in Sweden who have different opinions about this.

* Phrased as an absolute, universal standard for all cases, that's admirably... insane. This goes beyond a strict definition of consent to the idea that everyone should like it equally at the same time, always.


Sad to see how this is working as a divide and conquer issue. It's like Clinton all over again.* (Strange thought: Hoover in his time was too repressed to think of having King's affairs exposed immediately in the public to destroy him, rather than as blackmail and reserve strategy.)

If these charges were not opportunistically taken up but actually devised from the start as a psyop, it's insidiously well done. I lean to opportunistic, out of expecation that a full set-up would have scripted an indisputable rape, or worse.

Bottom line, the women's query to the police about an STD test would have almost never turned into criminal charges, the charges would have never been restored after the higher prosecutor had them dropped, Sweden would not be asking for extradition, unknown high UK officials would not be demanding that Assange be held without bail, and states would not be duping Jaclyn Friedman into thinking they've very suddenly adopted new standards of enthusiastic consent for rape cases, if it wasn't about the leaks and incapacitating a man who for his essentially journalistic activity has now been called (or "likened") to a terrorist by so many politicians and blowhards, from the Vice President of the US on down. Where the fuck is the outrage about throwing around the terrorist and enemy combatant labels in a time when the state boasts of renditions, torture under the name of "enhanced interrogation," summary assassination orders, humane drone strikes and all the rest?

.

[Plutonia]

It seemed more likely that they were conflicted between wanting to please their hero, and wanting to be true to themselves.

Or that, on discovering that they'd both had unprotected sex with him, they thought it would be expedient to get the police to make him have an STD test:

"Both complainants say they did not report him to the police for prosecution but only to require him to have an STD test. Link

Oops.



There may be only one way left for JA to redeem his reputation with the ladies and secure the approval of the American electorate - get married!




Come to think of it, isn't some of that going on with this?:

[Plutonia]

Here's the latter part, the whole transcript is at http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/21/ ... ns_against.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: ...While, yes, I think it is political and extraordinary the way this is being pursued, it’s an opportunity to raise the bar for the women of Sweden and the women internationally for what we can expect from our justice systems for women who are alleging sexual violence.

...

NAOMI WOLF: ...I think it’s a fantasy world to think that after this case is over the bar will be raised at all. This is the last time we’re ever going to see consensual sex involving a dispute about a condom criminalized.

Seems that Jaclyn Friedman is pursuing her own political agenda without regard to context. That reduces her arguments to dogma.

[JackRiddler]

There may be only one way left for JA to redeem his reputation with the ladies and secure the approval of the American electorate - get married!

Ha, that is exactly what I thought after hearing Democracy Now! today. But now they'll have to include in their vows a clause mandating "enthusiastic consent" at all times and in all contexts.

[Plutonia]

There may be only one way left for JA to redeem his reputation with the ladies and secure the approval of the American electorate - get married!

Ha, that is exactly what I thought after hearing Democracy Now! today. But now they'll have to include in their vows a clause mandating "enthusiastic consent" at all times and in all contexts.

Srsly. Someone should extradite Sweden to San Francisco for a week-end.

Though come to think of it!

A Wikileaks psyop to justify policing and controlling normal, human, consensual, sexual relations so that future carnal encounters will be mediated through government approved and regulated (and taxed!) technological arbiters?!! Egad! How did we miss it!!?

[JackRiddler]

sorry wrong thread

[Plutonia]

Transcript from today's interview:

The Assange interview

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been holed up in a mansion in East Anglia since he was released from prison last week.

He is under strict bail conditions while he fights extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning about claims of sexual assault.

Today programme presenter John Humphrys went to meet him for what is Mr Assange's first face-to-face broadcast interview since his release.

Q: Why won't you go back to Sweden?

JA: I have been back. I was there for some five weeks after these initial allegations were made. They were dropped within 24 hours of them first being made. The most senior prosecutor in Stockholm reviewed them and they were dropped. Then politician Claes Borgstrom became involved, other forces became involved and the case, the investigative part of the case, was taken up again. We waited some four/five weeks to be interviewed, so I could put my side of this case forward, and that did not happen.

Q: But it has now.

JA: It did not happen, and then I asked: "OK, I have things to do, I had only planned to be in Sweden for one week, it's time to leave. Is there any problem with that?" For the first three weeks, the Swedish prosecution refused to answer whether it was ok to leave or not. So caught there in limbo. Finally, grudgingly admitted that there was no reason to keep me there. And at that stage I went about my normal course of work. And then they say they want another interview, fine. There's plenty ways to do that. So why can't those things be done?

Q: Why can't you go back to Sweden?

JA: I don't need to go back to Sweden.

Q: You do because the law says you must.

JA: Well no, the law says that I also have certain rights. I do not need to go and speak to random prosecutors around the world who simply want to have a chat and won't do it in any other standard way.

Q: But they don't just want to have a chat, do they?

JA: No, they do.

Q: That rather belittles what this is all about. Very serious allegations have been made. It puzzles a lot of people that you're not saying: "Yes, I want to go to deal with these serious allegations, I will go anywhere they want me to go."

JA: I have already spoken to them.

Q: But they want to talk to you again. That's not uncommon in these cases.

JA: If they want to charge me, they can charge me. They have decided not to charge me.

Q: Yet.

JA: Or they can come to Sweden (or they can come here - JH corrects) or we can do a video link up, or they can accept a statement of mine. They have rejected all of that. And they have asked, as part of their application that, if I go to Sweden and am arrested, that I am to be held incommunicado. Entirely incommunicado. They have asked that my Swedish lawyer be gagged from talking about the evidence to the public.

Q: Everything you say may be true. I've no way of judging that. But, surely you can see how very, very damaging, at the very least, it is to somebody like you, somebody who has spent a large part of his life saying: "People are accountable. We must have systems that do transparency. We must have systems under which the public knows what's going on and people can be held to account." And here you are facing, possibly facing, very, very serious charges indeed, double rape even, is a possibility - and you are saying: "I will not go back to the country where those offences are alleged to have been carried out to face the music."

JA: No, I have never said that.

Q: In that case you can catch the next plane back to Sweden.

JA: No, I do things according to proper process. I stayed in Sweden for five weeks to enable that proper process to occur. Proper process did not occur. I left as part of, you know, just my normal course of activity - no complaints from the Swedish government. I have an organisation to run. I have my people to defend. There are other things at stake here… There are other things at stake here. I have a serious brewing extradition case in relation to the United States. I have a serious organisation to run. People affiliated with our organisation have already been assassinated. My work is serious. I do not have to run off to random states simply because some prosecutor is abusing a process in those states.

Q: No. It is happening because a couple of women have alleged that you seriously assaulted them, sexually assaulted them.

JA: No. One of the witnesses. One of the friends of one of those women, she says that one of the women states that she was bamboozled into this by police and others. These women may be victims in this process.

Q: Or they may not be. We can't try the case here, can we? We don't. I don't know enough. I do know what I've read in the newspapers. You know what has been printed in the newspapers. Serious allegations have been made against you.

JA: Most of what we know is, in fact, from the newspapers because somehow the Swedish prosecution has been, deliberately and illegally, selectively taking bits of its material and giving them to newspapers.

Q: Can't you see that it's a bit rum for you to be sitting there under these circumstances. You, Julian Assange, the Wikileaks man, who's become terribly famous, as has your organisation, for leaking material that other people didn't want to see published and here you are saying: "They've leaked something about me."

JA: Not at all. We are an organisation that does not promote leaking. We're an organisation that promotes justice…

Q: You hardly discourage it when you print a couple of million private cables.

JA: … that promotes justice through the mechanism of transparency and journalism.

Q: Based on leaks.

JA: When a powerful organisation that has internal policies, that is meant to be creating and following the law, i.e. Swedish prosecution's judicial system, abuses its own regulation and its own position to attack an individual, that is an abuse of power.

Q: The idea that you have to be dragged back to another country, a civilised country not a banana republic, a civilised country…

JA: A bit more of a banana republic…

Q: It's a country that is respected around the world for its social-democratic system and its rule of law...

JA: That was.

Q: All right, your view no longer is that… that you will be dragged back to this country, possibly in handcuffs, to face charges of serious assault, sexual assault, against a couple of women. What impact so you think that will have on your organisation and what sort of figure do you think you, Julian Assange, cut in the face of all this. How will you be regarded? What will it do to you?

JA: I think it will be quite helpful for our organisation.

Q: Really? You see yourself as a martyr then?

JA: I think it will focus an incredible attention on the details of this case and then when the details of this case come out and people look to see what the actions are compared to the reality of the facts, other than that, it will expose a tremendous abuse of power. And that will, in fact, be helpful to this organisation. And, in fact, the extra focus that has occurred over the last two weeks has been very helpful to this organisation.

Q: You don't think it's damaged you at all?

JA: Two days ago I did a search on Google for my name, some 40 million web pages have my name in it. Now, searching for my name and the word "rape", there is some 30 mil web pages. So this has been a very successful smear.

Q: Well, is it the smear and if it is, who is responsible for it?

JA: But when this is undone, that will also be immunising. People will start to see what is really going on.

Q: Just to answer that question then. You think this will be good for you and good for Wikileaks?

JA: I've had to suffer and we've had incredible disruptions.

Q: You do see yourself as a martyr here.

JA: Well, you know, in a very beneficial position, if you can be martyred without dying. And we've had a little bit of that over the past ten days. And if this case goes on, we will have more.

Q: If all you have is accusation and denial - which is what we have here. We know what the women, you were alleged to have assaulted, have said because we've read it in the newspapers….

JA: Well, they have never said the word "rape". And that is something that is being adduced by other parties.

Q: None the less, people know what they are reported to have said in various forums and that is that you assaulted them in ways that they did not want to be assaulted. That is to say, in one case the woman agreed to have sex with you, apparently she insisted you use a condom, the condom got ripped. In another case the woman said she went to sleep, she woke up and you were trying to have… you were having sex with her without a condom. These are serious allegations. Some people regard them, that second one in particular, as rape. Is there any truth in any of those stories?

JA: No.

Q: No? You deny them completely? But did have sex with the women?

JA: We know there is all sorts of nonsense in the tabloid press and all sorts of spin conducted for all sorts of reasons.

Q: But you haven't denied having sex with those women?

JA: No, I haven't denied that.

Q: So you did have sex with those women?

JA: I have always tried in this case and in my other dealings to be a private person and to not speak about matters that are private.

Q: This is now public. So I'm asking you the question. Did you have sex with those women?

JA: It's a matter of public record as far as the courts are concerned but I am not going to be exposing other people's private lives or my own more than is absolutely necessary. That is not what a gentleman does, that why I have also never criticised these women. We don't know precisely what pressures they have been under, exactly. There are powerful interests that have incentives to promote these smears. That doesn't mean that they got in there in the very beginning and fabricated them.

Q: So you're not suggesting that this was a honey-trap? That you were somehow set up by the Americans, by the CIA? You don't buy into that idea because your lawyer's suggested that that's the case.

JA: He says that he was misquoted. I have never said that this is a honey-trap.

Q: You don't believe it?

JA: I have never said that this is not a honey-trap. I'm not accusing anyone until I have proof.

Q: Do you believe it is possible?

JA: That's not how I operate as a journalist because almost everything is possible. I talk about what is probable.

Q: All right, what do you think is probable here?

JA: What is probable? It is less probable that there was that type of involvement at the very beginning. That kind of classic Russian-Moscow thing. That is not probable.

Q: That leaves us with the fact, because you accept this, that one of those women at least did make a complaint against you.

JA: Not even a complaint. It appears, from the records that we do have, the suggestion is that they went to the police for advice and they did not want to make a complaint. What they say is that they found out that they were mutual lovers of mine and they had undertaken sex and they got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of sexually transmitted diseases. They went to the police to…

Q: They wanted you to have a test as well.

JA: …to have a test.

Q: Did you have a test?

JA: Ridiculous thing to go to the police about.

Q: The allegation against you, the very broad allegation that's been made over and over again in the media over recent days is that you're some sort of sexual predator who has sex with a large number of young women, ideally without a condom, and that you do it because you can, effectively, because in some cases they're groupies or they're enthralled to your fame or whatever it is. Are you a sexual predator?

JA: That's ridiculous. Of course not.

Q: How many women have you slept with?

JA: That's a private business. Not only does a gentleman not tell, not only does a gentleman like to talk about his private life, a gentleman certainly doesn't count.

Q: Many, without being specific?

JA: I've never had a problem before with women. Women have been extremely helpful and generous.

Q: Not quite the question I asked you.

JA: No, women have been extremely helpful and generous and put up with me. But…

Q: Does put up with you mean having you in their beds?

JA: Of course on occasion, I mean I'm an adult man, but women have been generous to me over many years.

Q: In what sense?

JA: You know, in a sense of assisting me with my work, caring for me, loving me and so on. That is what I am used to. So this particular episode in Sweden came as a great shock. The personal shock of having people you're close to doing that, actually much harder to deal with, in a much greater feeling of betrayal than all of these political disputes I have with United States and being sued by banks and so on. Much harder to handle.

Q: What has the Wikileaks leaks achieved, in your view?

JA: Already we see that we have changed governance, we have certainly changed many political figures within governments, we have caused new law reform efforts, we have caused police investigations into the abuses we expose, UN investigations, investigations here in the UK especially in relation to our revelation of the circumstances of the deaths of 109,000 people in Iraq. Before Cablegate, the change is so vast that I cannot, and my whole team cannot, even keep track of it.

Q: Isn't there a danger in the long term that we will know less about the way governments, authorities, various institutions run, because of what you call Cablegate, this release of millions of documents, millions of cables? Because in truth… what people in organisations like MI5 and MI6 will say is: "If we were doing bad things, we won't stop doing bad things, we just won't write them down."

JA: That's something that I thought of before we ever launched this project. It's not so easy. There is a reason why people write things down. Yes, you can organise a small group of people to do something with just word of mouth. But if you want to enact policy, for example, to get Guantanamo Bay guards to do something, get the grunts to do something, you've got to write it down or it will not be followed.

Q: But you do see the difference between transparency, which may or may not be desirable, and accountability, which is always desirable?

JA: Yes of course. I have always said that we are an organisation which is designed to promote justice, through the method of transparency. But we do not put the cart before the horse. We know what is leading this, justice is leading this.

Q: You will have released, by the time it's all over - Cablegate - maybe a quarter of a million documents… A lot of it's fascinating. A lot of it's intriguing. But it's tittle-tattle. It's the kind of thing an ambassador would tell his boss at home just because it's something he's found out. In whose interest is it that we should all of this stuff?

JA: With respect it is not tittle-tattle. There's is very, very serious matters in there. When the head of the state or an ambassador is reporting what you call tittle-tattle, it is no longer tittle-tattle. It is either very dangerous poisonous political gossip, or it is the truth.

Q: But do you really believe you can stop people gossiping? Gossip is what makes the world go round? You do it. I do it. Everybody does it.

JA: We try and do it less than other people.

Q: But in whose interest is it that diplomats can no longer speak freely to their own foreign office or whoever it happens to be?

JA: They can speak freely… They just have to start committing things to paper that they are proud of.

Q: This is very different from releasing, for instance, the kind of information that was released relating to sensitive sites, in some cases important security sites. In whose interest was it to do that, apart from people who might potentially benefit, like terrorists?

JA: Your suggestion was that it is tittle-tattle. Now you are saying that this is something that is serious.

Q: I said the vast majority of it was tittle-tattle but I would also suggest to you that some of it was dangerous.

JA: I believe none of it is dangerous. Vastly more detailed things have been released by the United States government itself, by Congress. For example, a year-and-a-half ago it released a list of all US nuclear sites.

Q: But that is for them to decide, because they are the elected government of that nation and they can do that… You are getting leaks illegally.

JA: Not illegally… We have been victorious in every single court case we have ever had. Legality is something for the highest court in the land to decide. It is not what a general claims.

Revealing illegal behaviour is in most countries not illegal. We are a publisher. We accept information from whistleblowers. We vet it, we analyse it and we publish it and that's what we do.

Q: It is illegal to hack into protected sites. It is illegal.

JA: Where is the suggestion that any of the things we have published about government sites have come from illegal hacking?... The allegations are in this case, that an intelligence agent walked out with the material on a CD. That's the allegation.

Q: I'm going to have to end this interview very soon because you have to go off to report to the police for your daily check.

JA: For my high-tech house arrest.

Q: Just a final thought. Do you see yourself… as some sort of messianic figure?

JA: Everyone would like to be a messianic figure without dying. We are bringing some important change about what is perceived to be the rights of people who expose abuses by powerful corporations and then to resist censorship attacks after the event. We are also changing the perception of the west.

Q: I'm talking about you personally.

JA: I'm always so focussed on my work, I don't have time to think about how I perceive myself… I had time to perceive myself a bit more in solitary confinement. I was perfectly happy with myself. I wondered what that process would do. Would I think "my goodness, how have I got into this mess, is it all just too hard?"

The world is a very ungrateful place, why should I continue to suffer simply to try and do some good in the world. If the world is so viciously against it ,why don't I just go off and do some mathematics or write some books? But no, actually, I felt quite at peace.

Q: You want to change the world?

JA: Absolutely. The world has a lot of problems and they need to be reformed. And we only live once. Every person who has some ability to do something about it, if they are a person of good character, has the duty to try and fix the problems in the environment which they're in.

That is a value, that, yes, comes partly from my temperament. There is also a value that comes from my father, which is that capable, generous men don't create victims, they try and save people from becoming victims. That is what they are tasked to do. If they do not do that they are not worthy of respect or they are not capable.

[The Hacktivist]

It seems to me that if we want to find out the truth about these rape allegations we need to look more closely that this statement, about halfway down the article:

The following day, Harold told police, Miss A called him and for the first time gave him a full account of her complaints about Assange. Harold told police he regarded her as "very, very credible" and he confronted Assange, who said he was completely shocked by the claims and denied all of them. By Friday 20 August, Miss W had texted Miss A looking for help in finding Assange. The two women met and compared stories.

We know from an earlier post that this "Harold" fellow (do we even know his real name, the article uses quotes around "Harold.") is the:

On the following morning, Saturday 14 August, Assange spoke at a seminar organised by Miss A. A second woman, Miss W, had contacted Miss A to ask if she could attend. Both women joined Assange, the co-ordinator of the Swedish WikiLeaks group, whom we will call "Harold", and a few others for lunch.

I am not sure exactly why but these two paragraphs, especially the top one, stand out to me as "something being cooked up between these three, A, W and "Harold," and it isnt lunch...


Why was Harold so eager to turn on his man Assange and who the hell is Harold anyway?

[Plutonia]

"Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism"?!! Haha!!

The original interview doesn't appear to be online but I found the above quote buried in this article:

Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, received a salary of $86,000 (£56,000) in 2010 - two-thirds of the organisation’s salary budget of $130,000 (£84,000) - it has been reported.

By Toby Harnden in Washington 8:07PM GMT 26 Dec 2010

The German-based Wau Holland Foundation collected about $1.3 million in donations in 2010 on behalf of WikiLeaks, according to the Wall Street Journal. WikiLeaks is facing increasing financial difficulties since Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have blocked money transfers to the group.

Details of the finances of Wikileaks came as Mr Assange said he had signed books deals of $1.5 million (£970,000) for his autobiography in order to fight sexual assault charges in Sweden and keep his organisation in business.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he told a Sunday newspaper. "I have already spent £200,000 pounds for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

It has been reported that German-based Wau Holland Foundation collected about $1.3 million in donations in 2010 on behalf of WikiLeaks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Assange was paid $86,000 (£56,000) in salary in 2010 – two-thirds of the total WikiLeaks salary budget of $130,000 (£84,000).

The Australian former internet hacker, who became one of the most vilified people in America after he published hundreds of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents, said he had signed separate deals in Britain and the United States.

He said he would receive £325,000 from Canongate for British publication and $800,000 (£518,000) from Alfred Knopf in the US. Money from other markets and serialisations are is expected to raise the total to £1.1 million, he stated.

Mr Assange, 39, is on bail in Britain fighting an attempt by Sweden to extradite him over allegations of sexually assault two women. He is facing difficulties in financing WikiLeaks with the credit card companies Visa and MasterCard and the internet firm PayPal blocking donations to his group.

Mr Assange has been staying at Ellingham Hall, the country seat of his friend Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club, in Norfolk since his release from jail on December 16 on bail conditions that include wearing an electronic tag and reporting to the police each day.

In the interview, Mr Assange said he regarded himself as a victim of Left-wing radicalism. "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism," he said. "I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism."

Mr Assange claimed that one of the women who said she had been sexually assaulted by him took a "trophy photo" of him lying naked in her bed.

He said the woman, identified in court documents as Miss A, 31, had invited him to stay in her empty flat in August when he visited Stockholm to give a lecture. By his account, she returned home early and insisted he sleep in her bed. "We went to bed, and things went on from there."

She later alleged that although he had reluctantly used a condom at first, he then appeared to have ripped it. Unprotected sex without a partner's consent can be a crime in Sweden.

A full extradition hearing is due in London on February 7th. The US government is understood to be investigating whether he can be charged with espionage.

*looks*

finds this:

[JackRiddler]

.

Assange would be smarter to leave some things unsaid (he's not the only one) and "Saudi Arabia of feminism" is definitely one of those. Both outrageous and very counter-productive to a cause (meaning Wikileaks) that doubtless still has many more supporters among Swedish feminists than Saudi imams. "Tabloid schmuck" was a smart and admirable way to give expression to his ego and to defend himself against a set-up by the ABC News reporter Jim Sciutto (Tabloid Schmuck). This interview is not an admirable expression of his ego and does not serve his defense.

It's almost like a psy-op lab somewhere asked: How can we fix it so that dedicated hacker of secrets and rape avenger Lisbeth Salander won't know if she wants to save him or kill him?

.

[Plutonia]

.
Assange would be smarter to leave some things unsaid (he's not the only one) and "Saudi Arabia of feminism" is definitely one of those.

Agreed. Though to be fair, we haven't seen the original interview (I looked but couldn't find) so perhaps that sound bite has been taken out of context. (Hahaha! Laughing cause what justifiable context could there be?!!)

It's almost like a psy-op lab somewhere asked: How can we fix it so that dedicated hacker of secrets and rape avenger Lisbeth Salander won't know if she wants to save him or kill him?.

Actually, this whole scenario fits nicely into the Millennium series "script": Salander seduces controversial journo Mikael Blomkvist, who also happens to be an unapologetic womanizer (ongoing friends-with-benefits relationship with his editor.) Salander gets butt-hurt about it and disses him for most of books two and three. In the end, Mikael become her most determined champion, saves her life, proves her innocence and re-gains her affection. Yes, it's that bad.

[nathan28]

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It's almost like a psy-op lab somewhere asked: How can we fix it so that dedicated hacker of secrets and rape avenger Lisbeth Salander won't know if she wants to save him or kill him?

.

HMWs, thou art avenged?