Assange: Refugee or Fugitive?
December 9, 2012 at 1:55 am
(This post was last modified: December 9, 2012 at 2:00 am by Aractus.)
On 19 July 2012, Assange walked in to the London Ecuadorian embassy, applied from asylum and was (eventually) granted the legal status as a political refugee. Since that time he has not left the confines of the embassy for fear of being arrested and extradited to Sweden.
The UK has the embassy guarded day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at a reported cost of £11,000-12,000 a day! If that cost is correct then it has cost the British taxpayer over £2,000,000! If I was a Pom I'd be totally outraged by this. Why is the UK being so heavy handed over this matter? Assange is now, legally, a refugee. He has not been convicted of anything in Sweden, and the charges he is on there are totally frivolous in any case (apparently Sweden has the view that every time a man and woman have consensual sex there is cause for action?)
Why waste time and money guarding the place, when we know he's not going to come out while the police are there? He is not a criminal in the UK, why waste so much resources on something Sweden wants to pursue? The UK should now have to recognize his status as a refugee: he isn't convicted of anything in Sweden so Sweden can't claim that he's a criminal. So the UK knows that Ecuador has granted him political asylum, and no country is telling the UK he's a convicted criminal, the UK should therefore adopt the default position afforded to them by Ecuador - asylum.
As I understand it, he isn't even on criminal charges in Sweden - only civil charges. All the more reason why the UK being so heavy handed over a non-criminal extradition matter is all the more disturbing.
It could end up costing the UK government a lot more money yet, if Assange successfully sues them for persecution as a refugee.
The UK has the embassy guarded day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at a reported cost of £11,000-12,000 a day! If that cost is correct then it has cost the British taxpayer over £2,000,000! If I was a Pom I'd be totally outraged by this. Why is the UK being so heavy handed over this matter? Assange is now, legally, a refugee. He has not been convicted of anything in Sweden, and the charges he is on there are totally frivolous in any case (apparently Sweden has the view that every time a man and woman have consensual sex there is cause for action?)
Why waste time and money guarding the place, when we know he's not going to come out while the police are there? He is not a criminal in the UK, why waste so much resources on something Sweden wants to pursue? The UK should now have to recognize his status as a refugee: he isn't convicted of anything in Sweden so Sweden can't claim that he's a criminal. So the UK knows that Ecuador has granted him political asylum, and no country is telling the UK he's a convicted criminal, the UK should therefore adopt the default position afforded to them by Ecuador - asylum.
As I understand it, he isn't even on criminal charges in Sweden - only civil charges. All the more reason why the UK being so heavy handed over a non-criminal extradition matter is all the more disturbing.
It could end up costing the UK government a lot more money yet, if Assange successfully sues them for persecution as a refugee.
