Julian Assange's speech at the Ecuadorian embassy

[Anomalocaris]

I agree, completely. It's ridiculous. But why wouldn't he go back to face them? He's as likely to be deported to America from the UK as he is in Sweden. Our record on deportation at America's request is just as bad if not worse. That's what I don't get.

Clearly the US is quite prepared to abuse the concept of justice to the degree necessary to get him. the US would undoubtedly be happy to lock him up in some american monte cristo and throw away the key.

The longer and more dramatically he keeps himself in the news, the more uproar there would be if he was eventually tried. The better the odds that US would feel constrained to how to take its revenge upon him.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

He's as likely to be deported to America from the UK as he is in Sweden

The Swedish authorities have vehemently denied that is possible under Swedish law.

Source; public channel news, here last night.

There is nothing unusual for a country to ask for the extradition of a person accuse of a crime. My understanding is that Assange has been accused of rape.

[jonb]

My personal feeling are that one of the things that is outstanding about European, American, Australian etc culture is the individual, that people who are creative and awkward and don't fit in can be driving forces for the whole culture, and a protection of that individual has been the ability to escape from the jurisdiction of the rulers he has just upset, like Voltaire, Wagner, Paine etc. It seems we need countries which are against our governments to safeguard our liberties.

[Tiberius]

The Swedish authorities have vehemently denied that is possible under Swedish law.

Since when have countries cared about the law when dealing with people they despise? I wouldn't be surprised if the USA convinced Sweden to create a new law that allowed extradition of Assange.

There is nothing unusual for a country to ask for the extradition of a person accuse of a crime. My understanding is that Assange has been accused of rape.

Accused, but not charged. You'd think that a man like Assange would be clever enough not to incriminate himself in a interview, so how come the Swedes haven't charged him yet? If they have enough evidence to charge him, they should. If they don't, then I doubt interviewing him will lead to him giving them any evidence that could convict him. It's very suspicious behaviour.

[frankiej]

I don't think they have specified that it is rape that he is accused of. All I have seen is "sexual assault claims". Have they ever actually released what it was that he apparently did? Almost everything about this situation is suspicious...

[Tiberius]

He apparently had sex with a woman without a condom despite her telling him to wear one, and also had condomless sex with another whilst she was sleeping.

The problem is, the original arrest warrant was dropped for a week before being reinstated (alarm bells), and one of the accusers wrote a (now deleted) blog post which said the best way to get revenge on a man was to claim he raped you (further alarm bells).

Nothing about this case is standard.

Also, @padraic: If it is so against Swedish law to extradite Assange to the US, why can't they give him a diplomatic assurance that it won't happen? He has said on numerous occassions that he would go to Sweden for questioning if such assurances were made.

[frankiej]

Ah, fair enough. No one is ever truthful in situations like these... man, I hate people...

[Justtristo]

My views of Julian Assange are very similar to this columnist in The Australian. Mind you I have zero sympathy for those Australians who get either jailed or executed for smuggling drugs into countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand or Singapore

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/g...the_music/

However I do believe if Assange went to Sweden, the United States could likely extradite him to face charges ranging from espionage, conspiracy, unlawful access to classified information and computer fraud.

[LastPoet]

There are several strange things in this case:

1- The UK, that usually don't like to extradite people (Portugal has been trying to extradite an ex footbal director charged of corruption and embezzlement for more than 3 years now), seems very... cooperative about this one.

2- The accusations of sexual abuse are sketchy at best.

3- Although Sweden has in the law that they won't extradite people to countries that have the death penalty, they seem to fear making an official statement guarateeing that they won't.

I don't like to give way to conspiracy theories, but this case smells. It smells like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck... hmmmm.

[Napoléon]

He apparently had sex with a woman without a condom despite her telling him to wear one, and also had condomless sex with another whilst she was sleeping.

I'm sorry, but:

1. It's just as much the woman's fault that she didn't ensure he was wearing a Johnny.

2. How the fuck can you have sex with someone while their asleep and not wake them the fuck up. Unless he's physically knocked her out, I don't even see how that's possible.

Also, aren't these claims not supposed to have happened years ago?

Why are they strangely brought up now.