I haven’t been watching the Assange case that much lately but this caught my eye from Geoffey Robinson.
“In so far as Mr Assange held her arms and there was a forceful spreading of her legs, there’s no allegation that this was without her consent,” he said.
“Sexual encounters have their ups and downs, their ebbs and flows. What may be unwanted one moment can with further empathy become desired. These complex human interactions are not criminal in this country.”
The argument that Assange used the weight of his body to pin her down “describes what is usually termed the missionary position,” he said.
Reading the above made me feel uncomfortable. Firstly, it comes across as mealy-mouthed but more importantly is Robinson seemingly suggesting you can have non-consensual sex and that it’s part of life? What has the “missionary position” got to do with it? Yes, the mechanics is where a man is on top of a woman. But a man can, precisely, use his weight to pin down the woman. This seems to me to be a thing that you decide in court: was Assange deliberately using his weight to force the woman into sex or not?
Who knows as this is about Assange fighting the extradition charges to Sweden. Regarding this case there is so much of the unknown as the actual allegations have not been tested in court.
Assange argued, when he left court:
“We have not been able to present my side of the story. I have never been able to present my side of the story.”
Well, the remedy for that is for him to face his accusers, have his day in court where he will be able to present his side of the story.
See Cath Elliott’s post as well.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Zoe Stavri, HarpyMarx. HarpyMarx said: Blogged: Assange should face his accusers! http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/assange-should-face-his-accusers/ [...]
I think that the most of the Swedish people think that Assange has been crossed the allowed boundaries of the law. He said that his box of rape after the trial shall be empty. I think that he has been lied a little bit and did something in the grey zone. His lie is necessary because Sweden has terrible laws about sexual assaults for man against woman. In Sweden it’s always a he which is arrested for rape , waited sometimes a long time in jail before he go to court. The he would not get a fair trial. Hearing of rape cases are behind closed doors and they believe the woman first and there is also a political influence. Sweden makes the law for rape very complicate. If the woman go to the police than they make the arrest warrant without risk for the woman. Sweden think that they are the best guys of Europe and have a modern state with modern laws. I think that’s wrong if I look how they handle crimes of sexual assaults. On this moment with Marianne Ny as prosecuter for rape cases I think that Sweden is a kind of Saoedi Arab for men. If I look to the black pages in the history of sexual crime in Sweden against women I think the government must look good to her own history of the twentieth century before she makes such inhumane strong laws against men. Sweden has a terrible sexual crime history, because in the past she has been made it for some groups of the inhabitants impossible to get children. They sterilized in the twentieth century a lot of Swedish women. This group in the North of Sweden was unwanted and must be limited. So Sweden be careful if you make and use laws against sexual assaults and suppose that you make and use the laws better than in the beginning of this century. Normal people and governments are not without any crime. What the Swedish prosecuter do with the foreigner Assange is unfair. In mijn opnion a rape-process with prosecuter Marianne Ny is barbarian.
I’ve heard that Julian ‘carried on’ against the wishes of the woman.
Jansen I don’t know about you but I reckon that if that did happen then Julian should stand trial. Sod what you think of Swedish law. If he did this then he should be prosecuted… don’t you think? Or are you one of these blokes that believes no means yes?
Assange really isn’t a nice guy. He leaked documents which personally identified dozen and dozens of Afghanis who had cooperative relationships with the Americans – informants and the like – which put the lives of these men and women at risk. If the Taliban ever return to power, which they very well might, these people might well be murdered in brutal and horrible ways. Julian Assange was warned about this an said he didn’t care. Nice guy. People that believe in honesty, openness and transparency should pick a better figurehead and hero than Julian Assange. I have no idea whether the rape charges against him are genuine or trumped up but Assange is at the kernel and heart of his being a nasty, unconscionable piece of work.
Well if you think that Assange should stand trial in Sweden — despite the fact that no charges have been laid — then why don’t you campaign for him to be extradited?
Let’s see the protests out there on the streets: “Extradite Assange to Sweden!” Assemble and march!
If you think as you do , why not?
But the fact is — as you already know — that the real rape issue is down your own street and in your own neighbourhood and it is disingenuous in the extreme to deploy the complexities of the Assange rape allegations as a poster issue for womens rights.
So much of the pragmatism invested in the Assange case side steps that key issue.
RAPE is an an everyday issue and the focus on the Assange allegations is a convenient celebrity case — very conveniant for the US of A. Not even Roman Polanski — a truly guilty paedophile and rapist — has been treated with the same attention as Assange.
Leastways on the left…. But still you’ll get many more rulings on Assange’s guilt — question mark! — than you will on Polanski or any misogynist prick who date raped last Saturday night.
So excuse me if I suspect that you are playing up to media spin and indulging in liberal angst.
If you are so concerned about rape then why only now are the civil rights protesters — male and female –railed against over Julian Assange and the male activists alone accused of being sexist and mysogynist because we question the convenience of the allegations or the prospect of a fair trail in Sweden?
Granted that no woman receives a fair trail for rape — I think that’s self evidently clear — but given the complexities of Assange’s political context maybe that should at least be recognized.– but you don’t!.
The real criminal fact about rape is that it is an everyday issue, and that women who are raped are vilified and humiliated if they take it to court and then in (overwhelmingly) most instances will not secure a conviction….Go look at the statistics and then try and tell us that nailing Assange for rape is the best way of dealing with the terrible numbers and advancing womens rights.
The very best way to campaign and make a point today is extraditing Assange?
Even during the Tahrir Square protests an Australian journalist was raped:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1485066/CBS-reporter-raped-in-Egypt
And this woman has no recourse whatsoever…
So what you gona do about that? Now? You gonna post about that too and condemn the whole Egyptian revolution — or Arab men per se — for being misogynist through and through?
Denis: I am sure that Harpy understands everything you wrote but the post was just focusing on the words of Geoffrey Robinson the lawyer of Assange. Consider the words carefully.
‘Mr Assange held her arms and there was a forceful spreading of her legs, there’s no allegation that this was without her consent,”
Forceful spreading. ‘Forceful’ is the key word. When you do something by force it means you are doing something without someone’s consent. The very fact that he had to force meant that it was without consent. And Assange’s lawyer is admitting that he did that but saying there was nothing wrong with it!
With regards to the media publicity and the prospect of a fair trial then you have to ask whether any trial should happen when there is a celebrity accused and media attention. Going by this logic OJ Simpson should have been have spared the ordeal of a trial because of the media hype.
What gets me is how other celebrities like John Pilger are using the media to spread lies in order to protect Assange. Pilger said that the whole case was the behind the scenes work of the USA as they would have more prospect of extraditing him from Sweden. First off, there is more prospect of extraditing him from the UK. Secondly, if he was extradited to Sweden then in order for him to be extradited to the USA the permission of both the UK and Swedish governments would be needed.
John Pilger is a personal friend of Assange and he has also been heavily pushing the line that Assange will not get a fair trial in Sweden using his media contacts. This has been picked up by the mainstream media and has obviously influenced you. So in effect you have been influenced by someone who has been spreading lies in order to protect his Aussie celebrity mate. The media can work in both ways.
Let Assange face his accusers in court.
I’m in a slightly difficult position here as I work ‘at’ (though not ‘for’) the law firm representing Assange here in the UK. The two issues of ‘Wikileaks’ and the rape allegations appear, to me, to be both connected and separate. Connected in that I doubt whether the forces of the Swedish and British states would be mobilised against him on this charge if he hadn’t been such a target for the US government. But the accusations against him are extremely serious and his defence team have not denied them as such. Merely arguing that what he did isn’t illegal in the UK, or that (as implied above) it wasn’t really ‘rape, rape’. And Assange himself has implied that he faces a conspiracy of extreme feminists! But there can never be an excuse for rape, and the Left should never provide a smokescreen for it.
Assange must face his accusers in court.
But I cannot believe that it is impossible for this to happen in a trial where the issue of ‘Wikileaks’ and the US’s desire to see him extradited is not allowed to interfere. I believe that ‘we’, and the state, should seperate the two totally.
@Harpymarx: I hope you don’t mind but I’ve put a link to this post on my blog as I think it’s such an important issue.
Choler, I absolutely agree the two should be separated.
Don’t mind at all re linking to my post.