Naomi Wolf seems to have had a re-think

[Snorbs]

Article here. In it she points out that this case is so unusual and worthy of comment is the way that the Assange case is being handled in comparison to "normal" rape cases.

She writes:
"Never in twenty-three years of reporting on and supporting victims of sexual assault around the world have I ever heard of a case of a man sought by two nations, and held in solitary confinement without bail in advance of being questioned."

I thought it an interesting article and one that showed Wolf in a much better light than her previous one.

if she had only written that one and not the other one, fair enough.

but in the light of the other it feels a touch self-serving to me in the way she keeps going on about her history of listening to rape victims: it is like she has seen she has been criticised and is going 'I am a feminist really! I do have feminist credibility, honest!'

she doesn't seem to stick to her guns much, that Naomi Wolf....

what she did in that other one was inexcusable.

I thought this article www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1435_b_797188.html by NW was disgusting too, in which she still thinks Assange was being investigated for 'sex by surprise'.

Agree with Seth, completely self-serving.

I think the point is that Assange isn't being pursued so assiduously because various governments have finally woken up to how shoddily they've prosecuted rape cases in the past and now those governments are Doing The Right Thing for rape victims. He's being pursued so keenly purely because of wikileaks. It sadly wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if once Assange gets charged with espionage or whatever for the wikileaks stuff, the rape cases get quietly dropped. That's not to say that I don't think there's any case to answer. Rather, I suspect the rape victims are being cynically used by the prosecutors as a means to an end.

And did Assange "flee" the country? My general impression was that he has spent a long time moving frequently to stymie prosecution attempts for his wikileaks work. And I have read several times that he specifically asked the Swedish prosecutors if he was free to leave Sweden and they said he could. Again, I believe that he left Sweden after the first charges were brought (which largely fizzled out) and before the second ones.

Admittedly, though, the details of this story have changed a number of times so I could be wrong on this.

OK, I can see that the keenness of the Swedish prosecutors to track down Assange is the way that rape cases should be prosecuted.

But the fact that 99.999% of rape cases aren't prosecuted with anything like this level of energy says a lot about what this case is really about. I absolutely agree that rape cases should always be investigated and chased this strongly. But while they're not, except in this one particular case, does that not suggest to you that something fishy is going on?

To answer your question, yes I have thought that it's possible he's fighting extradition so hard because he knows he's guilty. But it could also be that he sees the rape allegation as a canard and that once he's in Sweden he's more likely to end up being extradited to the US.

Snorbs wrote - "once he's in Sweden he's more likely to end up being extradited to the US"

I heard a report on BBC Radio last week saying that he is less likely to be extradited from Sweden to USA, because unlike the UK, Sweden does not have a "special relationship" with America.

'and I have read several times that he specifically asked the Swedish prosecutors if he was free to leave Sweden and they said he could. '

Assange had a date to go back for questioning. He decided not to bother.

The police report has now been leaked with details reported in the Guardian and the NYT. I have no way of knowing if they have been translated adequately from Swedish and whether the papers are reporting fairly:

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden

www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

A blogger called Unity has written a few very intersting posts on this case: www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/ Including the origins of the stories in the media, a newspaper called, Aftonbladet, and also their connection with Assange.