Assange loses appeal against extradition

[Prolesworth]

High court judges rule the WikiLeaks founder should face accusations of rape in Sweden

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/02/julian-assange-loses-appeal-extradition

GOOD.

I'm pleased by the decision so at least he will have to face questioning regarding his actions, unless of course he succeeds at appeal. I've found the idea that the Swedish criminal justice system is so corrupt that he would risk "rendition" of sorts to America to face totally unrelated charges a bit too smoking gun.

What troubled me most about this case was the number of people who jumped to dismiss any possibility that Assange might have broken the law in Sweden, that the two women could have actually been assaulted, insisting that it was just a "honey trap." That term in itself is horribly misogynist. I was also appalled by disclosures about the two women designed to discredit them. Sadly, this isn't uncommon when it comes to cases of sexual assault.

In this case, for me, it underlined the fact that those on the left of politics can be just as misogynist as those on the right of politics.

yy KRITIQ and the person who first discredited them was Israel Shamir who is a notorious anti-semite. See Laura Colffe(? I'll check that)

Sandra Cuffe 'Mostly Water' (not even very close;sorry!)

Sandra Cuffe link here

I don't really see the relevance of Shamir being an anti-semite EXCEPT that Ian Hislop (Private Eye ed.) reported a really strange phone call he received from JA in which he (JA) was rambling on about there being a Jewish conspiracy against him. He really came across as a bit of a loon.

Just pointing out the unlikely allies lefty boys make to defend their 'heroes'. Otherwise they would (and have) hang Shamir out to dry. Only women are considered worthy of sacrifice, no-one else.

JA is definitely a loon. IMO. A relative did some work with him so I've heard some stuff.

Ah, yes, I get it

Loved the article btw. I think she gets to something that galls me about all this - how cynical he's been in manipulating the dear little conspiracy theorists and the public at large (although I think that support is on the wane) - he's created in their minds a link between his arrest and the leaking of all those documents. In many people's minds he's successfully muddied the waters.

By calling him a loon I was being kind

The problem is that the rape case WON'T be resolved, if he is tried and found not-guilty. Everyone knows that rape is a uniquely difficult crime to prove beyond reasonable doubt, and that most rapists escape conviction for that reason.

Come on, we all know that if he's found not guilty it won't make a blind bit of difference to most people here, who have clearly played judge, jury and executioner already in their own minds.

It's uniquely difficult because the law makes it so. Rapists escape conviction because they're not reported, not charged and not effectively prosecuted.

Isn't it uniquely difficult because it's the only crime where conviction depends not on whether the act itself took place, but purely on the attitude (consent vs non-consent) of the participants?

If someone burgles my house, they're not going to have a defence by trying to show that I "consented" to being burgled. Same if they murder me. We all know, and the law assumes, that people just don't ordinarily consent to being burgled or murdered.

Yet every day, millions of people all over the world have consenting sex. So a rapist doesn't have to deny that the act of sex took place, like a burglar does. They just have to deny that the victim didn't consent.

And the problem there is the presumption of innocence. If there is no compelling evidence whether they consented or not (or the evidence is equivocal), the default operation of our legal system, as for all crimes, is to find not-guilty.

That's a much deeper and more intractible problem than lack of reporting or ineffective prosecution, isn't it?

"And the problem there is the presumption of innocence."

Actually that's not the only problem. The other problem, is the presumption that women are in a permanent state of consent and that unless they can prove otherwise, you have to assume as a jury that a woman consented, even though she is telling you she didn't.

So any of my male neighbours could knock on my door, if I let them in (and there's no reason for me not to) and one of them rapes me, the law basically says that I haven't been raped, because I can't prove that I didn't consent. It doesn't matter how repulsive the neighbour is, it doesn't matter whether he's got a partner and therefore I mgiht be assumed to not be interested in having sex with him, it doesn't matter if I have a partner and therefore might reasonably be assumed not to be interested in him - no, I am automatically deemed to be in a state of consent, unless I can convince a jury that no I wasn't. Which I won't be able to, because the rape myths tell them that I am unreliable, hysterical and don't know what I want and as everyone knows, women lie about rape (except that the reality is they don't - only 4% of allegations of rape are false and those are mainly women with mental health problems who don't actually name a perpetrator).

Basically, in effect, it is nearly always legal to rape women in this country. Because of the default premise that a woman is always in a state of consent, unless she is actually asleep or in a coma, or in a state where she is unable to consent to sex, but you cannot prove that you were too drunk or high to consent and you cannot prove that you were asleep, so basically most times.

That might go some way to explain why feminists are so angry about rape. 1 in 4 of us are raped or sexually assaulted, and practically none of us get justice.

I see what you mean. That's a very good point.

People give each other money all the time for a variety of reasons, and let each other into their houses, but muggers and burglars don't routinely get away with claiming 'He gave me his watch!' or 'He left the window open for me!' Because judges and juries would take plausibility into account.
But in rape cases, defendants have claimed that women wanted to be injured, or approached them in an alleyway in the middle of the night and asked for sex. And they have been believed.
So there is a lot more going on than rape being the only crime where consent matters.