Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Rejoice! Evil has been defeated! As you were.

A few hours ago, the world became a safer place.

Sarah Palin, next President of the United States, can now sleep easy in her My Little Republican bedspread. The most dangerous threat to Western Civilisation since Carlos the Jackal has been captured.  I imagine she has already informed her North Korean allies of the good news.  In the last few hours, the Editor-in-chief of Wikileaks Lucius Malfoy Julian Assange has turned himself into London Police to 'face the music' for the (once-closed but now reissued) arrest warrant for a rape charge against him.

Now, let's take a little look at some of the details of this case, the reopening of which of course has nothing to do with the recent release from Wikileaks of thousands of classified documents affecting pretty much every government on the planet - documents which have been especially damaging to the United States. Absolutely not. The two events are completely unrelated.  You'd have to be some kind of nut-job wacky conspiracy theorist to think otherwise.

The astonishing fact and elephant in the room behind this case is the astonishing fact that consensual - and that is the key word here, CONSENSUAL - sex in Sweden without a condom is illegal, categorised as rape and punishable by a jail sentence of a minimum of two years.

Incredible as that may be (especially for a country which proudly boasts how modern it is), let's take a little look at some of the deeper facts behind this case. His two accusers are named Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén. Ardins case is a little odd; after this so-called 'rape' she threw a party in Assanges honour, tweeting that she was with 'The worlds coolest smartest people, it's amazing!' - tweets she has sought unsuccesfully to delete since (and incidentally, this is a woman who has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends). Both women proudly boasted of their connection to the 'celebrity' of Assange before and after the "rape".

Julian Assange is a playboy, this much is true. His main crime in this case would appear to be having sex with two women in four days, and then not calling either of them afterwards, which I don't believe is in itself a crime punishable by a lengthy jail sentence.

Neither Ardin or Wilén complained to the police but instead followed a legal technique known in Sweden as 'seeking advice' (some time later, after comparing notes with each other). This 'seeking advice' is a technique used by the Swedish authorities to avoid false complaints. Both women sent SMS texts to each other in advance discuss contacting the Swedish newspaper Expressen in order to maximise the potential damage to Julian Assange.


Assange was originally represented last October by an Australian lawyer by the names of James D. Catlin who blamed the Swedish authorities for "making it up as they went along".  The whole thing stinks of a smear campaign, and it sickens me that the media aren't making more of this.  Assange is a scapegoat, nothing more.  The reopening of a dead case is pretty much testament to that.

One thing I can guarantee; As this story gathers in momentum over the next few weeks, I imagine that the media will mention few (if any) of the details I've mentioned above - and I don't think I'm alone in the opinion that the facts are really quite important, am I?

If this rape case doesn't stick - and I don't expect that to be the case, given the Power behind the throne that will put their weight behind this - expect to see arrest warrants against Assange for being responsible for the Second World War, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (and the loss of subsequent Pompeii - ORLWAYS IN ARE HARTS), the sinking of Atlantis and Jedward.  If after a few months we ever hear about Assange again, if Palin has her way.

Normal fluffy service will be resumed with the next blog post, hopefully.  I just felt compelled to write about this, because I'm finding the whole thing abhorrent.  Here, have a picture of a cute Red Panda.

8 comments:

  1. It may well be that the press CAN'T make more of it than they are. I'm not sure how it works with international warrants, but certainly English law means journalists are very limited on what they can print about a case once proceedings are active (i.e. once an arrest has been made). It's all about not being held in contempt of court for potentially infuencing a future jury. It's why you often have a media blitz about, say, a serial killer, then see nothing in the paper for weeks, until the trial has finished.
    Contempt of Court Act 1981, if you're interested.

    ReplyDelete
  2. By which I mean, nothing in the paper beyond very careful reporting of the trial itself

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're absolutely right of course, Steven. I think the final words may have been me "going off on one". Surprised that no details of the case emerged after it was closed last October though. I think the overall theme of the blog was about how stupid it is that the case has been reopened at all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. facts huh?

    http://jezebel.com/5627400/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-wikileaks-rape-scandal#ixzz17R1LQz4N

    http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/12/06/some-thoughts-on-sex-by-surprise/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Perhaps I'm taking the actual evidence of SMS messages from the girls presented by the defence for Julian as "facts". Perhaps the odd timing of the case being reopened hours after the biggest wikileak as a "fact".

    ReplyDelete
  6. Assange himself is a prick, I'm not denying that. A sex mad prick at that. However, that's not a crime.

    ReplyDelete
  7. it doesn't help that he has that look about him for sure ;)

    ReplyDelete

I love comments. Love 'em. However, abusive or spam or Anonymous ones may well be sent straight to the bin. Thems the rules.