Wikileaks Boss Assange Arrested in London Today - Takes Refuge in Ecuadorian Embassy

[Kev Bar]

Michael Moore and Oliver Stone in The New York Times in defense of WikiLeaks The two filmmakers defend WikiLeaks and decry the bureaucratic circus around founder Julian Assange as an offense to free speech. The people who want Assange have reason to dislike the way WikiLeaks reveals government misbehavior, they write. If Assange ends up in the U.S., "the consequences will reverberate for years around the world," they say, because if the U.S. can do this to Assange, China or Russia could do the same thing to foreign journalists. "The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/op...h.html?_r=1&hp

Drop all the debris from the digital rock star gig and you have a cyber version of Fonda in 12 Angry Men.

[Count Bobulescu]

Drop all the debris from the digital rock star gig and you have a cyber version of Fonda in 12 Angry Men.

Though I disagree on substance, well put.

[fluffybiscuits]

Some revealing info on the wikipedia entry on Assange. A number of people have called for Assange to be assasinated, tried for treason and other forms of persecution. There have been commentators, politicians and other people calling for him to be shot. The American establishment is still smarting from the damage Assange did to their reputations and uncovering their lies. Some of the links include

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

On 6 December 2010, during a segment of the Fox Business show Follow The Money, Fox News political commentator and analyst Bob Beckel stated: "A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, he's treasonous, [sic] and he has broken every law of the United States...And I'm not for the death penalty, so...there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a *****." Other guests[who?] on the programme agreed.[188]

On 29 November 2010, Rep. Peter T. King, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) wrote to the Attorney General, Eric Holder, asking that Assange should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, and that he should be declared a terrorist.[190][191] The same day, King also wrote to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, requesting that she designate Wikileaks as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).[190][192][193]

Sarah Palin compared him to a terrorist (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...n-leaders.html) and other politcians have asked that Wikileaks be placed on the list of terrorist groups.

It is highly unlikely that should Assange get to the US that he would get a fair trial. Sweden have not given any assurances that he wont be extradited to the US to face charges and are keeping schtump pretty much on what their intentions are.

[ZeroWedge]

The CIA seductress was photographed partying with Julian Assange AFTER she supposedly had been raped.

In the two days after the alleged assault in Sweden, Mr Assange and Woman A, as she is known, attended a conference and two dinner parties where it is claimed they were practically inseparable.

During one party, Woman A tweeted that she was ‘with the world’s coolest, smartest people!’.

http://www.hangthebankers.com/the-ph...e-is-innocent/

[fluffybiscuits]

The CIA seductress was photographed partying with Julian Assange AFTER she supposedly had been raped.




http://www.hangthebankers.com/the-ph...e-is-innocent/

Wasnt that tweet deleted or something like that I read in reports?

More on that pic in the Australian media

http://www.news.com.au/world/victims...-1226459390051

So the accuser apparently was with him after the alleged rape? Even though the pic is pixelated out would be interested to see her facial expressions and what her body language says.

A friend of Assange who attended the dinner where the photo was taken said it was a "jolly occasion".

Ecuador and Sweden and UK are going back to the negotiatiing table. For what? The Swedes want to question him and the English want to get rid of him, cue him losing asylum and being fucked back to Sweden...

[C. Flower]

In the UK, the SWP and SP are supporting the extradition. It seems very naive to assume that Sweden would prevent his extradition to the US.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/au...assa-a27.shtml

The SWP’s Tom Walker writes, “Julian Assange must face rape charges, not US revenge.” He notes the fate of Bradley Manning, “the US soldier accused of leaking state secrets who has so far spent more than 800 days behind bars without trial in military prison.” He points out that Manning has been chained hand and foot and mostly held “in solitary confinement for 23 to 24 hours a day and denied clothes and blankets at night.”
But he does so only to then claim that the “case of Assange…is far more problematic” because his extradition to Sweden, thwarted by his being granted asylum by Ecuador, is “for arrest and questioning over accusations by two women of rape and sexual assault.”
“Assange and some of his supporters have refused to take the rape allegations seriously,” he complains, before admitting, “We know that Assange faces a secret ‘sealed indictment’ in the US, and a grand jury has been convened against Wikileaks.”
To square the circle, he urges the Swedish authorities to guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US, which would “clear the way for him to face his accusers.”
Walker is, of course, well aware that Sweden has refused to give such an undertaking and that it would be meaningless even if it did so.

The conduct of the case against Assange in Sweden really seems bizarre.
It seems to have been cobbled together out of next to nothing.

[Baron von Biffo]

In the UK, the SWP and SP are supporting the extradition. It seems very naive to assume that Sweden would prevent his extradition to the US.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/au...assa-a27.shtml



The conduct of the case against Assange in Sweden really seems bizarre.
It seems to have been cobbled together out of next to nothing.

So the Irish SP and SWP have UK competitors in the moron stakes.

[ZeroWedge]

It seems very naive to assume that Sweden would prevent his extradition to the US.

Most people seem completely unaware that Sweden participated in Bushs "extraordinary rendition" program. Check this out.

Two Egyptians living in Sweden, Mohammad Al-Zery and Ahmed Agiza, were arrested by Swedish police and brought to an airport. An executive jet was waiting with a crew of mysterious masked men.

"America security agents just took over," says Tomas Hammarberg, a former Swedish diplomat who pressed for and got an investigation into how the Egyptians disappeared.

"We know that they were badly treated on the spot, that scissors and knives were used to take off their clothes. And they were shackled. And some tranquilizers were put in the back of them, obviously in order to make them dizzy and fall asleep."

An airport officer told 60 Minutes she saw the two men hustled to the plane. She didn't want to be identified, but she had no doubt about where the plane came from: "I know that the aircraft was American registration ... because the 'N' first, on the registration."

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-678155.html

[fluffybiscuits]

So the Irish SP and SWP have UK competitors in the moron stakes.

+1

[Kev Bar]

Good piece here from the Guardian.

A series of interviews with people who knew/met or worked with him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...julian-assange

[Count Bobulescu]

Good piece here from the Guardian.

A series of interviews with people who knew/met or worked with him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...julian-assange

I suppose it is because of relationships gone sour, I thought Rusbridger and Keller the most interesting.

[fluffybiscuits]

Good piece here from the Guardian.

A series of interviews with people who knew/met or worked with him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...julian-assange

Nice piece there about him

He appears to be somewhat paranoid and who can blame him but extremely extrovert with certainly a lot of good friends who believe in him

[fluffybiscuits]

https://twitter.com/wikileaks

Reports coming out the British Ministry of Defence hacked by pro Assange protestors

[Astral Peaks]

Reports coming out the British Ministry of Defence hacked by pro Assange protestors

Funny how the Wikileaks Twitter has suddenly gone silent on domestic opposition in Ecuador to the Ley de Comunicación?

[C. Flower]

Funny how the Wikileaks Twitter has suddenly gone silent on domestic opposition in Ecuador to the Ley de Comunicación?

Has it ?

Wikileaks seems to be a fairly politically incoherent operation, and there has been plenty to complain about from day 1. I have done my fair share of it.

I still don't think Assange should be extradited to respond to these absurd charges.