However, I don't find his rape and assault accusations to be humorous and awesome.

repeating this false information? The women themselves made that clear. One of them empasized that there was no rape, no assault, and the he was 'not violent' and that she was 'not afraid of him'.

This is all coming from the insane Swedish Lawyer, and I mean insane, who inserted himself into this case and appears to be of the belief that even a woman says there was no rape, she doesn't have the right to make that claim. Yes, that is what he believes.

There are no charges, and no accusations of rape and there never were.

per the alleged victim..

There were accusations of un-requested, coercive, sex.

This is a crime in some places.

The closest English language concept is "rape".

The ONLY thing alleged was that a condom broke and a question was asked of the police, whether a man could be ordered to take tests as a result of that. No one should ever have known about that visit to the police, according to Swedish law, but somehow mysteriously, that very night, a right wing rag published the story and turned it into a rape charge.

How they got the story, was supposed to have been investigated as it is against the law for the police to reveal such information. It's also against the law for a newspaper to publish it. Oddly though, in nearly two years the promises of an investigation appear to have been forgotten.

At least here on DU we should try to get the facts straight. Let the right spread the lies, everyone knows they lie anyhow. But the facts are easily obtainable and there is no excuse to continue to distort them here.

This whole thing was a set up as far as I and millions of people around the world believe, and it's an embarrassment to the Swedish Govt, now viewed as a puppet of the US, to have been involved in it. But then, with their Right Wing PM having hired Karl Rove as an adviser for three years, no one is really surprised.

You seem to be using a singular form, "a".

This was not a singular event, this involves two women.

Without charges, how can they get away with harassing him this way. It's the weirdest fake showdown I've seen.

Meanwhile, those who caused upwards of a million deaths are getting heart transplants, and brain transplants.

I spent the night in jail (Occupy Denver civil disobedience if you're wondering.)

But I didn't have the benefit of an embassy.

I am still trying to understand this: Sweden wants to extradite Assange for an investigation into what is at most, a fineable offense (having sex without a condom), when the girls were fine with it until they talked to a prosecutor, in fact, one went out and bought him breakfast,

and

Assange, before he left Sweden, told the authorities he was going out of the country, and asked if they needed to talk to him before he left, and the answer was "no".

He has not been charged with a crime anywhere, in Sweden or in any other country. so why can't Sweden simply send an investigator to GB to take a statement from Assange? Why is Sweden furiously tap dancing around the facts of this case, and why did GB allow extradition for an investigation, into unproven minor allegation (not an actual crime) that as made with no evidence at all, aside from the two girls' word, and their stories are very suspect in the first place?

I believe Sweden is being "encouraged" to pursue this course of action by another sovereign power that wishes to shut down Wikileaks and punish - in a very public fashion - anyone or any entity that would dare to expose their dirty little secrets to the planet.

In other words, I don't think Assange wants to spend the rest of his natural life in a 9 x 9 cell at Quantico or disappeared to Gitmo.

Just a thought...

and for ordinary people. The response to the release of that material is, too, even more so. And that contempt is being played out in plain sight for us all to see.

You put it so plainly. Most Americans have no idea what this is really about. I hope he gets to safety. Why in the world wouldn't he resist, knowing what we know about how Bradley Manning is treated.

18 November 2010 - The Stockholm District Court orders arrest of Julian Assange and the Director of Public Prosecution issues a international and European warrants
22 November 2010 - Julian Assange appeals the District Court order
24 November 2010 - The Svea Court of Appeal upholds the warrants
30 November 2010 - Julian Assange appeals the Court of Appeals judgment
2 December 2010 - Sweden's Supreme Court denies the appeal

7 December 2010 - Assange surrenders to the London Metropolitan Police and is remanded to Wandsworth
14 December 2010 - He is granted bail but continues in custody while Crown Prosecutors appeal
16 December 2010 - He is released with bail and sureties, subject to certain conditions
7, 8, & 11 February 2011 - The extradition hearing proceeds at Belmarsh
24 February 2011 - His extradition is upheld
2 March 2011 - Assange appeals to the High Court
12 & 13 July 2011 - The High Court hears his appeal
2 November 2011 - The High Court dismisses his appeal
1 & 2 February 2012 - The Supreme Court hears his appeal
30 May 2012 - The Supreme Court dismisses his appeal
14 Jun 2012 - The Supreme Court refuses to reopen his case and grants Assange until 28 June to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
19 June 2012 - Assange seeks refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador, violating his bail conditions

The deadline was yesterday.

Thanks!

dotting the i's and crossing the t's ,which the UK media are fully aware of. Why on earth they are bothering to report this defeats me.

Ofcourse none of us know what has really happened but statements from the women in question seem to contradict any charges of rape as I understand it. I appreciate what he's done and hope that somehow his political convictions and his moral convictions mirror each other. God knows that is not always the case and I have been terribly crushed in the past by men whose personal failings made them unable to reach their full political potential. (looking at you anthony weiner) Let's see what happens. But I think he better settle in with a looooong book.

He told the truth, THAT is the crime they want him for.

a right of diplomatic asylum. Even if Ecuador does grant Assange asylum, the UK will not be obliged to grant him safe passage out of the country ...

No general right of states to grant diplomatic asylum consequently exists, except, possibly, in cases where it is temporarily granted to preserve human life and in situations of civil and political unrest. Despite the hyperbolic claims made by some of his supporters, such an exception would not appear to cover Julian Assange's case.

International law is clear that diplomatic premises are inviolable, so Assange remains outside the reach of the UK authorities so long as he remains within the Ecuadorian embassy ...

Assange's refuge in Ecuador's embassy doesn't exempt him from UK law
UK authorities can arrest Julian Assange as soon as he exits the embassy, and Ecuador may be legally obliged to surrender him
Matthew Happold
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 June 2012 10.57 EDT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-not-exempt-uk-law

Yes Julian. Unique young man.

But a lot hinges on how Ecuador decides to play it. They can kick him out in the street, grant him asylum, or look the other way while more active measures are attempted.

I figure as long as he has a fast internet connection, he won't get too bored, and since he no longer needs to consider the sensitivities of the UK justice system he is free to make trouble again (and I don't expect the UK justice system will consider his much either now, once you jump bail ....)

and even if he's granted asylum it seems like he can still be taken into custody if the UK nabs him outside of the embassy.

UK will grab his ass now if they find him outside the door. One thinks of the Parisian sewers in in Les Miserables.

Just in case.

In addition to the Ecuadorian embassy, there also seem to be a Colombian embassy, a Spanish Defense Office, the Punch Cartoon Library & Archive, some offices of The Capital Group Ltd, some offices of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), some offices of Jungian Psychoanalyst Ann Casement, some offices of the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association ...

http://nyjung.org/?page_id=25
https://www.bodc.ac.uk/data/information_and_inventories/edmed/org/83/
http://emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?7,153503

I'm just watching the show.

You is wants to be stay ignoraful, it ain't is my fault

Needless to say, while I find it interesting, I don't find it that interesting, and I do have other things to do.

was even aware of him, he was on the run from dictatorships whose corruption was exposed by Wikileaks when they gave whistle-blowers a chance to release information not exactly complimentary to the regimes.

Which is why he never had a permanent address.

For his work in exposing corruption, the job of any good news organization, he was presented with several awards.

While the US only became aware of him after he received material from a US whistle-blower, he had been doing this for at least four years prior to that and had earned a reputation in many countries around the world, as a hero.

Asked why he had never published anything about the US, prior to the War Logs and Embassy Cables, he stated that Wikileaks had simply never received anything that pertained to the US.