Banned Names 143

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Not only have the BBC hierarchy ruled Anna Ardin’s name must not be mentioned. Also Irmeli Krans’ name is banned from the airwaves. And no, she’s not an alleged “victim” in the Assange case.

I put in an official request to the BBC for an explanation as to why it was OK for the BBC to use Nafissatou Diallo’s name but not Anna Ardin’s, in identical circumstances. I have not got an answer yet, but my request did result in a mole within the BBC telling me reporters had been banned from mentioning Irmeli Krans.

Anybody might think they were hiding something.

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143 thoughts on “Banned Names”

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  • conjunction

    I know this is slightly off-topic, but perhaps it should be an essential qualification for membership of the royal family to have been photographed naked at a party in Las Vegas.

  • Komodo

    Just found this re. the possibility/probability of Assange’s extradition by the US, with precedents:
    http://darkernet.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dfat-foi-1112-f264.pdf
    The .pdf consists of several documents – all interesting, but first see MFA 11/08080
    The opinion expressed is from a informed consensus.
    As I opined earlier, they’ll grab him the minute Sweden is finished with him, or if the case goes tits-up while he is still in the UK, they’ll get him here.

  • Chris2

    To understand what is going on in Sweden it helps to have an elementary grasp of European history.
    The Swedish right sees an opportunity to return to its imperial roots by acting as a catspaw for the US in the Baltic. With US support Sweden is looking to re-establish its ancient control of Latvia and Estonia, and to grind down Russian power in the region.

    Already Swedish banks dominate the three former Soviet republics, and are heavily invested in the rather nasty, right wing austerity regimes which have reduced living standards by about 25% in order to save the Swedes’ loans.

    In this Baltic Great Game, Assange’s civil rights are of no more consequence to the government in Stockholm, than were those of the poor bastards they handed over to the US for torture in Egypt.

  • lysias

    And where you’re talking about Swedish banking, you’re talking about the Wallenberg family, the power behind the Moderate Party of Prime Minister Reinfeldt.

  • Clark

    With all the inconsistencies, contradictions, conflicts of interest, varying witness statements, and leaks from the Swedish authorities to the media, it is very odd that Sweden is still perusing its case against Assange.

    I cannot see how any trial about this matter could possibly be fair. Sweden should drop its legal action. Surely, any unbiased judge would throw it out of court just on the basis of the first leak to Expressen.

  • Malcolm Bush

    I think this is much more ‘standard practice’ than most people believe. When September 2001 came along my On Digital and Film 4 Magazine failed to arrive, on the eleventh of September the aircraft hit towers, Pentagon and so fourth. Two day later my On Digital and Film 4 Magazine arrived. I looked though the On Digital magazine and then flicked though the Film 4 Magazine. A page had been carefully torn out of the Film 4 Magazine. This action had removed a program listing for a film about three American soldiers who committed a war crime and the subsequent cover up at a military tribunal; having looked at this I had no doubt in my mind that there would be war crimes regarding what we now know as the “war on terror”. I rang customer services and was told this was a “matter of national security” all such crimes where to be forgotten. I also noticed, mostly because I had become curious, that many “video nasty’s” where put back on the shelves, where Americans or Military had a hero role. Just how much the movie and TV industry is controlled by covert government departments is hard to ascertain. Certainly military tribunals are used to ascertain not guilty verdicts, much more than guilty’s for ‘said to be’ foreign terrorists. In the last week more people, and a more diverse range of people are commenting on degeneration of the justice system and the infrastructure of UK government in general. At least the UK Authorities had in the past, plausible deniability; told us ambiguous lies that could not be instantly disproved.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    The ‘names’ matter is a straw issue, set up to distract people from Craig’s ongoing, excellent analysis/critique/campaign wrt the Assange situation. It is of course a typical tactic.

    Meanwhile, Galloway’s intervention was typically egocentric, morally despicable, politically ill-judged and most definitely not helpful to the Assange situation. I’m afraid Galloway’s attitude towards women is well-known. I think that ultimately this may end up coming back to haunt him and might cost him his career as an MP. Both misogynists and neocons are leaping onto the bandwagon. The key issues here need to be kept clear.

    The possibility of a frame-up cannot be discounted. The possibility that Assange was in the wrong cannot be discounted either. Equally, one must also suggest that both Assange and the two women be regarded as innocent until proven otherwise (though of course, the women are not going to be on trial; I meant in relation to the various intriguing theories about possible frame-ups, etc. – the Cuban link being particularly fascinating).

    My view is, let a court decide on the case. But of course, the USA is the elephant in the sitting-room; it will not commit to not having Assange extradited once his Swedish trial/sentence if found guilty is over.

    Meanwhile, the issue has become ‘Assange/Sweden/Ecuador/UK’, instead of it being ‘Wikileaks/revelations/NATO atrocities/covert ops’, etc. That, one might suggest, is very convenient for the USA/NATO. yet Wikileaks’s (and others’, like Craig’s) work must continue, regardless. One must assume the worst, and keep on.

  • lysias

    We have an explanation of why Assange’s name was leaked in the sex case:

    Yes what about those leaky policemen? What about a Mats Gehlin who gives Julian Assange his solemn promise that nothing more will leak to the media – only for Julian Assange to find out already the next morning that everything’s leaked again?

    Let’s remember Expressen’s editor Thomas Mattsson’s own words about why he chose to violate the strong code of Swedish journalistic ethics and out Julian Assange with the glaring ‘double rape’ headline: ‘because Assange is famous’. Let’s remember how Anna Ardin’s good friend Niklas Svensson sat at his computer through the wee hours of that Saturday morning 21 August 2010 and tweeted incessantly about his ‘scoop’ of the arrest.

  • Stephen Cook

    Did AA go to the press during ay time of the investigation? If so, does anyone have info or links to this information?

  • Clark

    I should clarify my 8:56 pm comment: this case is about publicity, not rape or sexual assault. The accusations of rape and assault can never be fairly tested; that possibility was ruled out within hours of the statements being given to the police, when someone passed information to the media. From that point on, the case had no potential except as a publicity stunt.

  • N_

    You would have thought police officers were trained not to comment on ongoing or recently closed cases under their real names on the internet, but:

    http://rixstep.com/1/1/20110418,00.shtml

    Maybe if you’re a mate of Claes Borgstrom, you can do what you like:

    http://justice4assange.com/Duckpond.html

    A lot of the ‘sex politics’ stuff in Sweden strikes me as crazy. Including the role of leading politicians as ‘feminist men’. And including how it works in the police service.

    Things aren’t what they seem on the surface. Take Uppsala police chief, Goran Lindberg, who was very big on all that stuff, becoming the national spokesperson for the police on gender equality issues. According to Sweden’s EU commissioner, he dedicated his career to fight for women’s rights.

    Except that he, er, didn’t. In 2010 he was jailed for six and a half years for rape, pimping and procuring. Here’s Andrew Anthony’s article in the Observer, published after the trial, not just about that case but also on ‘Sweden’s dark side’, and recent developments in the culture – a kind of Manichean glasnost has appeared in novels, but for a lot of people everything is still ‘lagom’ (classic Swedish word meaning ‘just right’ or ‘in balance’) – until the surface is scratched, anyway. Worth a read:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/goran-lindberg-sweden-crime-palme

  • domesticextremist

    How different things could have been if instead of saying ‘Anna Ardin’ you had said ‘Woman A’ or ‘one of the plaintiffs’.
    It could have been a debate about how whistleblowers are routinely fitted up, often for crimes of a sexual nature, whereas it now a debate about degrees of rape and the protection of victims of rape.

    Rape is a heinous crime but unfortunately it is also one of those crimes where merely to be accused is to be condemned before charge, trial and conviction
    (paedophilia and activities related to terrorism being others).

    For clarity, I condone none of the above crimes but I do believe the accused is entitled to as much protection as the accuser.

  • Fedup

    Referring to the ABC package that quotes Anna Ardin; “despite his (Assange) questionable personal hygiene habits” she was prepared to let him stay a further night over at her flat.

    As any other roadie would, Anna having thrown herself at Assange (spending the evening with the coolest and smartest people in the world) and Assange taking all the morsels of good fortune coming his way sets the scene for buyers remorse on the part of Anna Ardin whom happens to be pals with a lesbian (none can dispute penis envy Irmeli Krans) who is also a cop, and specialises in “rape”

    This kind of transaction is prevalent over any weekend in any nightspot across Europe, and elsewhere. Too many couples getting legless drunk and ending up in the sack with the alcohol induced perception of beauty and grace. For these happy campers the next morning mostly shall suffer the buyers remorse; upon sobering up probably seventy five percent of the participants experience What the fuck did I see in this ugly smelly ……. (fill as applicable)?

    If the laws were as good as the Swedish laws then most of the courts would have been backlogged to the next century with plaintiffs claiming “rape”. Just to exonerate their self worth and reaffirm their standards of: “I (he/she) will not jump into a bed with anybody you know”!

    However for our laws to go so far sophisticated as to make mandatory obtaining a signed affirmation and a contract before each insertion, and or any kind of touch or verbal transaction, with lawyers present and paralegals whispering into the ears of the parties to make probable the ultimate “civilised shag”, perhaps we best start calling it a day and stop fucking around pronto.

    The fact that sex has taken over the very real threat of Billy fourteen pints intention to invade the Ecuadoran embassy is a measure of how quickly the establishment can divert the attention of the plebeians, it is stealing a candy from an infant so to speak.

    So far George Glloway as lost his post as a columnist, Craig is inundated with emotional tossers publishing all manner of tripe about how insensitive the whole male population of the planet is, etc.

    Who is not getting any fucking grief for grandstanding and planning on invasion of the Ecuadoran embassy? The success of the operation is thus that now even more names are being sent down the memoryhole, and the temerity of the bastards is so much that they actually let us know too. That I call an unqualified win campers, “us” nil the “bastards” umpteen

  • nevermind

    Brace yourselves, Louise mensch seems to have taken another line of cocaine, she is just about to open her Newsshite tirade against Assange Galloway and Craig. She will be smiling smugly, whilst the pictures of the three behind her have no right if reply.

    Guess what, the issue is rape…

  • craig Post author

    Stephen Cook,

    Not sure what you meant. Details from the NYT in the post immediately preceding this one, but I think you’ve seen that.

  • nevermind

    Oh dear, she wants a woman justice minister, not because of gender balance, but because of the recent occurrences.
    She was reminded that there is not a single woman in the justice department.

    Cue ken Clarke muttering something about sentences not being hard enough. fact is that British judges have taken rape as a laddish crime, so has the police, so the failure she talks about lies with PARTY POLITICIANS.

    ‘Unbelievable and shocking ‘ she calls Craig a Lib dem and was reminded that he is a former Lib Dem. But
    the decade long failure of party politicians is not talked about, and Louise is raising wishful thinking to another height.

    I get it, its an election broadcast, the three ‘pariahs’ are just there to make a cheap election point, the election in Corby must be going badly for the Conservatives and Cameron must have leant on her. ‘please Louise, one more time before you go’

    Can’t see what a Mensch( Human) can see in her.

    Anybody seen any pictures of prince harry naked? does he look anything like his real father down there.

  • Brendan

    I just read the Gorgeous George has lost his job at a political magazine for speaking his mind. You’d think this is why they employed him in the first place: he is good value, and speaks his mind. Whether or not you think he talks nonsense – I am in two minds – he is perfectly entitled to put a viewpoint across. Not according to Mandy Rhodes, the Editor was was apparently ‘gobsmacked’. The idea that her actions are authoritarian and cowardly probably doesn’t enter her head, either.

    So this is where we are. Opinions can result in dismissal. Fact. And not only that, but it’s ok. More evidence about the media landscape we live in, not that I need any more.

  • nevermind

    Brendan, I do not agree with George Galloway’s brand of sexism and blunderbuss approach, he deserved what he asked for and his timing was awful, was it the wine he apparently ‘never’ touches?

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