Well, wow, blimey. I just been looking at the European Arrest Warrent procedures. No wonder the New Statesman's legal correspondent doesn't seem to keen to respond to my questions about how this thing works, it's principles and application.

I suspected it was problematic and controversial, but I never dreamed the EAU was an outrageous attack on fundamental civil rights and the most basic judicial principles. This thing is a charter for the application of gross injustice on a massive, continent-wide, scale. It's like something from a nightmare. The nightmare of living under the power of a semi-fascist, police state, where an individual's rights not only don't mean very much, they have effectively ceased to exist.

I live in Sweden and last year published a piece on Swedish rape law in The Local, a Swedish English-language media site. I believe it adds some understanding to these debates about Assange:

http://www.lauraagustin.com/is-rape-rampant-in-gender-equal-sweden

Alan - you are right, I do find liberal misogyny more unedifying than conventional rightwing misogyny, because liberals are supposed to be able also to see things from the other person's point of view, and that includes from women!

Loach, Jagger, Khan, Pilger et al do not know whether Assange did sexually assault or rape those women, only Assange and the two women involved know that, but that is why there is a court, in Sweden, which can determine this - simple, really.

Misogyny from liberals and lefties is again on the rise in Europe - you see it all the time in the pro-islamic extremism of Vanessa Redgrave, Ken Loach, John Pilger, and in the pro-Polanski hypocrisy of Goldberg, Jagger, Khan, and now in the pro-Assange, vicious America-hatred of this lot...just be honest, John Pilger! Come right out and say that because Assange and his Wikileaks hackers have exposed America's secrets, he cannot therefore be guilty of rape or sex assault, so we'll publicly support the (possible) male perpetrator and not the female victim!

I think they should all go the whole hog, and enlist in the Taleban...

Firstly, I'd like say how much I appreciated the comments of 'Writeon' above for their attention to the actual details behind what has so far gone on in the Assange case (as far as anyone can know from the information made available).

To follow, I want to say that I was discussing this issue with a friend recently, who (staggeringly) had not heard about this whole debacle, and I was confronted by her over the same issue raised here - discomfort over the outright dismissal of the possibility that rape could have occurred in this case (and more generally, the largely misogynist reactions by the dominant discourse to the issue of rape). I was momentarily caught off guard, for indeed I have myself felt enraged by this very same behaviour, and was made to question whether I, in my total denial of the allegations being made against Assange in the account I was presenting to my friend, was indeed also engaged in this discourse.

After some further reading of the details behind the whole case - which I urge everyone to do if they want to voice an informed opinion about it - I remain convinced of one thing very strongly.

Not whether Julian Assange is innocent or guilty of having committed 'sexual offences' in Sweden earlier this year (the word 'rape' is in fact ambiguous in this instance since the allegations do not necessarily speak of 'rape' as it is understood in either British or Swedish law, but an 'assault on a woman's sexual integrity', which however appalling and humiliating it may have been, is not the same as legal rape and should therefore not be continually confused). No one observing this case from their living room, and who has not been privy to the intimate details of the case, can make a judgement on his guilt or innocence.

What I do know is that this case has not been conducted by the book (Swedish or otherwise). In the rush of reactions to the arrest of Assange, it is worth taking a moment to think about how the case has been handled both in Sweden up till now, and in particular the significance of the issuing of a code red arrest warrant (usually used for highly dangerous or violent criminals or murder suspects) through Interpol, for an interview with Assange (yes, they want him in Sweden simply to talk to him about the case) regarding allegations (not charges, since no charges have yet been brought on Assange) of sexual offences. This is, of course, highly irregular. The actions of the international community over this issue are entirely and irrefutably disproportionate to the crimes of which Assange is alleged to have committed.

The proceedings of the Swedish prosecutors in this case (the second lot of prosecutors, as the first dismissed the case for lack of evidence) also do not stand up under scrutiny as being without some highly suspect and irregular features. The rule of law has not been followed in the correct manner, and that does beg the question, why?

I find that the question is - sadly for the women in this case, if their claims are genuine - not about Assange’s innocence or guilt over the alleged sexual offences, but the mishandling of his case, and the dubious activities and motives of the Swedish and international authorities. Even if he were guilty, it would be irresponsible and legally incorrect to try him when so much of the actions and dealings used to bring him to stand up against those allegations can be called into serious question. The prosecution and its allies have spoiled the case for it to have any legal merit.

It has happened in the past that however guilty a defendant is assumed (or even known) to be, the prosecution (just as the defence) cannot engage in illegal or irregular activity, commit falsehoods, or step outside of legal convention to win their case. That makes a mockery of the legal system itself.

That is what I fear is happening in the Assange case, virtually beyond reasonable doubt, and that is why, guilty or not, Julian Assange should not be sitting in prison right now.

What are "liberals"? They are people who when given a shove by the state instinctively jump to the right.

I think this article is absolutely terrible, appalling, though not as bad as the truly ghastly one written by Libby Brooks in the Guardian.

One really doesn't know where to start pointing out the flaws in the arguments presented, and Green is supposed to be a lawyer and the New Stateman's legal correspondent?

Should I even bother? What's the point? Is the sub-standard quality of the article worth my time? I think it's embarrasing to read.

First it's outrageous to conflate the legal problems Assange is having and the claims made against him with what's happening on the net, or anywhere else. How are they precisely connected to Assange? This is in itself a kind of smear tactic, or a clumsy attempt at guilt by association.

Then there's this misogyny crap. Let's put this in perspective. How can Bianca Jagger, Jemima Khan, Naomi Wolfe be accused of misogyny? Or are they the equivalent of "self-hating women"?

Just because some people have written rubbish about the two women involved why blow this aspect out of all proportion? Compare the remarks of nobodies, to the open calls for Assanges assassination by leading American politicians, journalists and pundits for a bit of balance.

Christ, I'm glad I'm not a "liberal."

The reason people are so angry about this entire affair is because it is a travesty of justice and appears to be a witchunt designed to smear and deliver Assange to the American authorities so they can try him in the USA for espionage under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Green seems to know virually nothing about this case yet he's happy to see it proceed, despite it's oddity. He, like Brook, mentions those aspects which are harmful to Assange, yet ignores those that raise fundamental questions about the nature and conduct of the Swedish authorities in their handling of the affair.

Assange is innocent, until proven guilty by a court. Yet he's been imprisoned in this country and denied bail, despite there being no formal charges laid against him. How is that possible? Since when has a foreign arrest warrent which doesn't contain any specific charges been enough to imprison someone in the UK? So now one can lose one's liberty on precisely what legal grounds? And Green seems totally relaxed about this, as if it's the most natural thing in the world! He seems totally uninterested in whether this is legal or not. Because of the seriousness of the charges it seems to be a mere detail. Crap.

Let's think about the European arrest warrent. My Swedish friends, who are lawyers and should know something about Swedish law, tell me that it's almost unique for a prosecutor to obtain, or issue an international warrent through Interpol in a case where there, as yet are no formal charges of any kind against Assange. They wonder about the legality of the warrent itself under European human rights legislation. Assange has a right to know what the charges are against him in a language he can understand. His lawyers in both Sweden and the UK have received absolutely nothing, repeat, nothing form the Swedish authorities about the specific charges, so how can they build a defence for their client? Once again, it's perculiar and outrageous.

And here's a final question for Green. How can the Swedish authorities argue that Assange has committed action equal to an extriditable offence when they don't think it's serious enough to bring formal charges?

"Should I even bother? What's the point? Is the sub-standard quality of the article worth my time?"

Oh dear. Has there ever been a better definition of a self-important, pompous, narcissistic a**? :-)

Actual argument conspicuously missing - beneath you, eh, Mr Writon?

How can anybody - not mentioning the (naturally stupid) Swedish authorities argue anything that does not agree with you world view? You did make my day, though, Mr Write on. Yours is a truly funny non-argument.

Lots of long comments but the only reality is how do you disprove a charge that involves 2 people as evidence?

I also believe the two women involved are victims too, like Assange. Victims of a process that has spiralled out of control into something close to hysteria. I wonde how they will pick up their lives after all this? I wonder if they will think it was worth it? Of course rape is a vile, terrible, crime which should be punished severely. But from the reports I've read in the Swedish media, the two women have not, repeat not, accused Assange of raping them at all.

Yet one sees the accusation reapeated again and again, the link being made between Assange and rape, especially in the US media, but perhaps that is understandable. That the US Secretary of Defence, Gates, smiled and said that the news of Assanges arrest on rape charges was "good news" shows something of how these people think, the people who rule the world, or at least their part of it.

Who then raised the "rape" alligation if it wasn't the two women? According to Swedish sources it was a the woman police officer they first talked to who first raised the spectre and then things began to roll once somebody in the prosecutor's office leaked the details of the case, breaking Swedish law, to the media. The Swedish version of the Sun. Then the ball really began to roll and gather momentum.

But then the prosecutor dropped the case for lack of evidence and doubts about whether the case would stand up in court. This is in Stockholm.

Then somehow Claes Borgstrom, a former politician and lawyer specialising in sexcrimes gets involved. He has a high profile in Sweden, and likes it, and this case with an international celebrity is just up his street. Lawyers can be very vain.

Borgtrom then looks around for a sympathetic prosecutor because he believes he's got a good case. He finds one he knows on the other side of Sweden, in Gothenberg. A prosecutor who "specialises" in sexcrimes too. Marianne Ny get's involved and revives the case, which was stone dead, and the ball gathers speed again, bureaucratic speed, as the wheels of the state begin to turn and the case begins to take on a life of its own, as these things often do.

According to Assange's Swedish lawyer at no time do the authorities inform him or Assange of the charges against him, they learn what's happening mostly through more leaks to the media.

Assange then asks if he can leave Sweden and asks if they want to interview him. The prosecutor has no questions and allows Assange to leave Sweden.

Then bizarrely, suddenly an arrest warrent is issued the new european arrest warrent and Interpol is contated to help serve the warrent, even though Assanges lawyers have informed the Swedish authorities that Assange is in England, so an Interpol red alert is ususally reserved for violent, serious, criminals or murderers on the run, not somebody who hasn't even been charged with anything, let alone convicted.

My Swedish lawyer friend is incredulous at the way the authorities in Sweden have handled this case. It makes Sweden look ridiculous and incompetent. They couldn't even fill in the extradition warrent properly and it was rejected by the British police, so they tried again. That inspires confidence.

The Swedish authorities don't need to interview Assange before they charge him with a sex crime, if they have enough evidence to proceed. Do they actually believe Assange or his lawyers who will be present at an interview would be dumb enough to make the state's case easier for them by saying something incriminating in a interview? His lawyers would speak for him and very, very, carefully indeed. And Assange is not required to say anything if he chooses to remain silent, which is his right under Swedish law. So why is the interview so important, why go to the trouble of seeking to extradite a man from England when it would be so much easier to just interview him in England?

Anyway, there are still no formal charges and it's raised eyebrows in legal circles that Assange has been imprisoned under highly unusual circumstances, which doesn't look right. So he'll probably be out on bail next week.

Newspapers in Sweden have now leaked that the Americans are secretly negotiating with the Swedes to extradite Assange to the USA, so this will probably make his extradition to Sweden even more difficult.

Finally, supposedly, one of the women involved has apparently fled Sweden, which is understandable, for Israel, and according to rumours has broken off her cooperation with the Swedish police. Curiouser and curiouser.

Mountt,

In a criminal trial, two people are not regarded as evidence. People are not evidence. These women are not even witnesses. There are no witnesses in this affair. The two women are the accusers, and as they conferred before they visited the police one could argue that their statements are tainted.

What's also rather odd, is that their actions after they slept with Assange. Women A organised a party in her flat for him and invited her friends to meet Assange. Strange if she'd been "raped." Woman B after she'd slept with Assange went out to a cafe the next morning and had breakfast with him and bought him a train ticket back to Stockholm!

Only after they met together and discovered to their surprise that Assange had had sex with both of them, did they, apparently, suddenly, realize that they'ed been "raped"!

Also the law isn't perfect, far from it in fact, it's flawed, like our justice system.

In Green's article he also states that Assange shouldn't be treated any worse or any better than anyone else.

This is obvious, in theory, practice is something entirely different of course. I'd like Green, who after all, is a lawyer, the New Statesman's legal correspondent, to say whether he's aware of if it's normal practice to jail somebody, refusing them bail, when there are no formal charges. What is the legal basis jailing him? I know that formerly it's the European arrest warrent, but how vague does that have to be and still be valid, and justify imprisonment without charge. Is that what he means by treating Assange like everybody else, no better, no worse?

And of course justice doesn't in practice work like a blind machine. The law and justice and the courts are not impartial. That's a simplistic fairytale. Assange isn't just an ordinary person anymore. He's a famous and influential person, with friends who've got influence and money. He's got the best lawyers available and others who will take this case up and up in the legal system for months. Not everybody can do that.

Assange, like other people with substantial resources at their disposal, the rich, are able to "buy" the best legal advice, and "buy" more and better justice than poor people can ever hope to. Which is why so few rich people go to prison compared to the poor.

qweqwqwe

Thank you writeon for having the courage, and intellect that seems to be a void among most of the posters here. This is not a libral, or conservative argument as some who would like to use that diversion. Assange had sex with two woman who freely complied, and even bragged about it afterwords. He is not guilty of any crime, even if the pathetic Obama administration tries to conjure up charges against him, they will never stick, and he will never go to the US. Mark my words. What is really at play is how the American Empire is so desperate to save face. One must thank Wikileaks for exposing the lies, and deceit that are the very foundation of all Empires.

@writeon at 10:15, that's the big state for you. Nice to see your conversion to genuine liberalism, as opposed to spurious "progressiveness"...

Well, at least one of the women has withdrawn her 'rape' allegation and retired to help the poor people of the Gaza Strip. Makes you wonder what kind of help she might need herself.

David, Zzz, Thinkov, and others. Thank you for your kind comments and not least, understanding.

To be honest I've been feeling rather isolated here. I've been in the wars in the Independent and the Guardian as well. They've published some truly dreadful, shameful, stuff about this sordid affair too. And I've been shocked and incredulous that articles so devoid of the most basic knowlegde about the affair, Sweden, criminal law, and basic principles of justice, have appeared seemingly with any proper editorial supervision or scrutiny.

Journalism seems to have really degenerated in all three publications to an extraordinary degree, which I find rather sad, as I've been reading them since I was a boy. It's depressing to see publications that one used to admire falling so low.

It seems that what matters isn't the truth, or quaint concepts like facts, logic, or reasoned argument; but ideology. The writers see the world and events through an ideological lense, which distorts reality, but that's fine. They prefer their "reality" that way. It makes it easier to understand. And it's bourgeois ideology through and through, though the worst, most superficial and anti-intellectual bourgeois ideology imaginable. As the child of a really successful bourgeois house, I shake my head in disbelief at what the "intellectuals" of the "liberal" bourgeoise have degenerated into.

And if these "left" "liberal" publications and their journalism is so bad on issues like the witchunt surrounding Assange, then what must the rest be like? It makes one dispair. Was it supposed to be like this?

In truth I on my way out. I'm disgusted and I've got a lucrative career that I've neglected recently. But I felt that someone had to stand up for Assange and defend the most basic principles of bourgeois justice, which are being eroded systematically as we speak, as we wallow in brutal neo-imperialist warfare, and trash the ideals of the Enlightenment, and lurch towards barbarism. Bring back torture, the rack, and trial by fire, all is foregiven!

So I've kind of had it with the frickin' "liberals" and the established, bourgeois "left", they're moral cowards who've allowed criminals to take over society and the state and prosper. It's all too much for me I'm afraid. Fuck 'em all.

There are, for people with my resources and access, other ways to resist, fight, and try to bring down the empire.

Well, all day as I was out cross-country skiing, I was thinking about this affair. How truly awful most of the coverage in the "quality" publications really is. The chronic lack of even basic knowlegde disguised as "bourgeois principle" which is close to an oxymoron.

The women are pawns, expendible, sacrificial lambs, slaughtered on the media altar stone, human sacrifices. Offerings to the American Empire, almost to prove our loyalty, like the young soldiers we send off to kill and be killed. It would be more honest, and less hypocritical to just slit their throats over a stone in Trafalgar Square like the Aztecs.

The attacks on Assange are a way to attack Wikileaks and ultimately the free Internet itself, which is rightly perceived as a threat to bourgeois democracy, as it morphs into a new form of Fascism.

And what is bourgeois democracy anyway? I've called it a pretty, coloured bird in a gilded cage. I stand by that. But I'll go further as I ride off into the sunset.

Bougeois democracy, which my lot made ten of millions out of, has degenerated beyond repair, sorry "liberals."

If "democracy" is a system in which the rich and powerful elite have actually convinced the people to voluntarily castrate themselves; well, you can keep it.

Can Mr Green explain why the "raped" bragged about having slpet with Assange? Can Mr Geeen eplain why the accusations against Assange were dropped in September & whopps resucscitated like the dead just some weeks later. This whole thing is nothing but a politial Inquistion!

you can help solving these crimes with a Criminal Justice Degree, search the internet for "United Forensic College"

David - excellent, powerful stuff: Assange is accused of serious sexual assault and rape, yet Pilger, Loach, and the human rights mega-rich lawyers hate Amercia so much and so venomously that they instinctively rush to his defence.

They have showed themselves up as the patriarchal liberal creeps that they truly are, misogynists to boot...

It reminds me of the liberals and lefties who back Polanski, who had sex with a 13 year old girl...truly disgusting misogynistic people,one and all.

Liberal hatred of women is an unedifying spectacle... I dont know if Assange is guilty or not, but you are right, he must face those charges in Sweden IN COURT...

John Pilger, Ken Loach, Jemima Khan et al...you have shown yourself for what you are, which are morally repugnant and deeply reactionary individuals!

"Liberal hatred of women is an unedifying spectacle"

Are you saying that 'liberal' hatred of women is more unedifying than the traditional and much more common misogyny of those on the right?

Well said but just one thing: As a liberal I've always believed in the presumption of innocence, however this case has made me rethink.

If the accused is innocent until proven guilty, surely that must mean the accuser is guilty until proven innocent? And I don't feel comfortable with calling a rape victim a liar. Just because there's an obvious motive for Assange to be set up as part of a conspiracy to punish him and darken his reputation, doesn't mean he's incapable of rape.

I believe that when it comes to rape both the accuser and the accused should remain anonymous until the trial is over. If the accused is guilty then by all means let people know who he is, if not then the identities remain secret.

Of course if that was how rape was dealt with then it would have been very ironic for Julian Assange's alleged crime to be a state secret!

I think the fact that the case was dropped by the first magistrate to receive it, and has since been resurrected makes it easy to be sceptical. Having also read what details there are available of the alleged assualts the case sounds flimsy at best. Certainly anyone who has read the Wikileaks releases would not put it beyond the US Gov. to engineer something along these lines.
The fact that assange may, instead of facing a court in Sweden, end up getting extradited to the US is another reason people don't want to see him go there. I would also be interested to know how often Interpol put individuals accused of similiar crimes on their most wanted list.

Here here DAG. It's Polanski all over again x100. Or something.

If Assange was a left-winger for Man City I doubt Pilger & Co would demand his release on baseless evidence of a vast conspiracy that requires no proof BECAUSE THEY ARE THE CIA.

This letter really goes to the heart of what Pilger is about. If you are anti US, you can do what you want, it's fine by him. No questions asked. He'll even bring out a dismal haigiography about you to keep his corpse from going cold.