Important (Imv) article by Owen Jones on Julian Assange's extradition to Sweden.
Although now granted political asylum by Ecuador, Assange is a rape suspect who skipped bail. Yet some of his supporters have ended up making arguments that they would never dream of making about anybody else.
Powers have always dominated other peoples without their consent, but high levels of secrecy are needed to maintain acquiescence from their own citizens. The leaking of 400,000 documents about the Iraq war in October 2010, for example, exposed widespread torture and the deaths of thousands of civilians.
That Western governments preferably want WikiLeaks crushed is indisputable. Former US soldier Bradley Manning languished in solitary confinement for 11 months on suspicion of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, leading to the UN's special rapporteur on torture to accuse the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. A US grand jury is currently examining evidence that might link Assange to Manning, though it is yet to report. Fears that Assange could end up extradited to the US – and what might happen to him there – are not without foundation.
But that does not mean Assange should be immune from very serious allegations in Sweden. Two women have both accused Assange of rape, and there have been repeated attempts by some of his supporters to discredit them. There have been suggestions that they are part of some kind of CIA honeytrap. The campaigning journalist John Pilger has described them as "concocted charges". But Assange's own lawyer, Ben Emmerson, does not dispute the sincerity of the accusers, arguing in court: "Nothing I say should be taken as denigrating the complainant, the genuineness of their feelings of regret, to trivialise their experience or to challenge whether they felt Assange's conduct was disrespectful, discourteous, disturbing or even pushing at the boundaries of what they felt comfortable with."
Although now granted political asylum by Ecuador, Assange is a rape suspect who skipped bail. Yet some of his supporters have ended up making arguments that they would never dream of making about anybody else.
Powers have always dominated other peoples without their consent, but high levels of secrecy are needed to maintain acquiescence from their own citizens. The leaking of 400,000 documents about the Iraq war in October 2010, for example, exposed widespread torture and the deaths of thousands of civilians.
That Western governments preferably want WikiLeaks crushed is indisputable. Former US soldier Bradley Manning languished in solitary confinement for 11 months on suspicion of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, leading to the UN's special rapporteur on torture to accuse the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. A US grand jury is currently examining evidence that might link Assange to Manning, though it is yet to report. Fears that Assange could end up extradited to the US – and what might happen to him there – are not without foundation.
But that does not mean Assange should be immune from very serious allegations in Sweden. Two women have both accused Assange of rape, and there have been repeated attempts by some of his supporters to discredit them. There have been suggestions that they are part of some kind of CIA honeytrap. The campaigning journalist John Pilger has described them as "concocted charges". But Assange's own lawyer, Ben Emmerson, does not dispute the sincerity of the accusers, arguing in court: "Nothing I say should be taken as denigrating the complainant, the genuineness of their feelings of regret, to trivialise their experience or to challenge whether they felt Assange's conduct was disrespectful, discourteous, disturbing or even pushing at the boundaries of what they felt comfortable with."
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