The BBC repeatedly named Nafissatou Diallo, the alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss Kahn, while the criminal investigation into the alleged rape was still in progress. Yet they have a policy that Anna Ardin, the accuser of Julian Assange, must not be named – or investigated.
Why the contradiction?
Nafissatou Diallo and Anna Ardin had both gone public and given statements to the media in support of their allegations.
From the New York Times, 25 August 2010:
Anna Ardin, 31, has told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the complaints were “not orchestrated by the Pentagon” but prompted by “a man who has a twisted attitude toward women and a problem taking no for an answer.”
There was no legal barrier to my mentioniong Anna Ardin last night; the case is no longer sub judice in the UK and there is no expectation of any legal proceedings here. Those are precisely the grounds on which the BBC mentioned Diallo very often. I did not see Oliver Kamm, Charles Crawford, Harry Cole, Charles Murray or any of the other far right commenters trolling about my “disgrace” last night, make a single protest at the naming of Diallo on scores of occasions by the BBC. Why their sudden new-found concern in the case of Assange?
Why the difference? Why is Ardin protected from scrutiny in the entire British mainstream media when Diallo was not, in precisely the same legal circumstances? Has Ardin been D-noticed in the UK when she is reported widely everywhere else in the world?
Anybody who still believes that the Assange allegations are a genuine criminal proceeding following due process, should think very hard indeed.
@Nevermind:
“Maybe you should also have commented later, once the facts have sunken in, ce, would you not agree?”
Yeah that’s what I thought too. Kind of an admission of defeat.
PM Radio 4 now about to discuss issue
[Mod: link added]
CE, I don’t watch television, so maybe that’s why I don’t have an impression of “vacuous grandstanding” by Assange; his written statements and Internet appearances seem calm and measured to me. But as to it seeming like his “raison d’etre”, absolutely not; developing, running and publicising a project like Wikileaks is a major undertaking involving a lot of work.
VivaEcuador, understanding other people’s viewpoints is never a defeat.
Craig – to answer your question, no great conspiracy in my view.
Esler, slave to political correctness and second-guessing his BBC bosses, reacted on the hoof, egged on by an over-excited Joan Smith. He hadn’t thought it through, and feared it was his Matthew Wright/John Leslie moment. This was a live debate after all. I’m not sure this is so much a case of BBC policy as their usual double standards and Esler busking it. They are UK-centric at the BBC… the DSK case was a long way from home, the protagonists sufficiently distanced and the alleged victim’s name already all over the telly… they just followed the lead of the American networks. Really, the people employed in BBC news are not half so bright nor cunning as they used to be. I don’t think this would’ve happened on Paxman’s watch.
Ok, I’ve watched the ABC docu and it does nothing change my view. The talking heads defending JA seem to be his colleagues and legal teams in various countries. I still see no reason why it is better to hide from the law in an Ecuadorian embassy rather than face Swedish justice. To argue both these women and the Swedish Justice system are agents of US imperialism is risible.
Forget the personalities, and both wikileaks and the US’s dangerous behaviour. An alleged common criminal is abusing the political asylum system to evade the ends of justice. The fact he is hiding behind a country with it’s own somewhat dodgy human rights record merely clarifies the mans rank hypocrisy.
With regards to extradition, why would the US make a martyr of JA when he’s doing a superb job of destroying his own reputation?
Assange’s anonymous supporters hit back hard at the UK’s version of the modern state: http://bit.ly/OVobMX
Firstly, thanks to who ever changed the code to stop removing newlines. tedious havng to add dots.
I’m not going to Mince words. Gavin Elser is a cunt of the highest order. Having watched the interview on Newsnight I duly noted that Esler’s final repetition of his outburst was “please do not name a rape victim on television” deliberately IMO omitting the crucial ‘potential’.
Anyone who watches the BBC, especially the repulsive Mark Thompson’s refusal to broadcast only two DEC humanitarian appeals, both of which were for aid for the victims of Zionist Massacres in Lebanon and Gaza, or especially the way the odious Andrew Marr, on News at 10 09-04-2003 lied through his teeth claiming that Iraq was taken without a bloodbath and the Iraqis were celebrating [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_JC371jxPI ],will know that the BBC is a slave to the Rothschild-Masonic-Zionism and it’s warmongering neoconservative Leo Straussian supporters.
I also distinctly recollect that a few months ago another cunt of the highest order, plum throated twat Tim Wilcox demanded that an interviewee on his program didn’t refer to the fictional assassination of the already dead Osama Bin Laden as an ‘Assassination’ on the grounds of BBC impartiality.
Esler, Willcox, that other nauseous Elite mouthpiece Frank Gardner, and others simply wouldn’t hold on to their careers if they weren’t willing to comply with the unwritten rules. Propaganda mercenaries the lot of them!!
The excellent Noam Chomsky demolishes Andrew Marr into the snivelling snotrag he really is in this interview and tells him why he is compliant… 3 parts posted here on my forum … http://www.smeggys.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=21662
Assange is being set up hook lien and sinker
CE, Assange fully cooperated with the Swedish and the UK legal systems until threat of incarceration would have made escape from extradition to the US impossible for him. I see no evidence that Assange is attempting to avoid the Swedish proceedings.
Can you see an alternative? How could Assange have escaped extradition to face unconstitutional US proceedings and possible treatment like Bradley Manning’s had he submitted to Swedish incarceration and a US extradition request had then been served?
Clark:
Just to clarify, CE barrelled in calling us JA’s “useful idiots” when it turns out that he has not studied the allegations against Assange as contained in the ABC documentary. That is a stark admission of defeat in his debating tactics.
But I totally agree, understanding the other’s side point of view is never defeat.
@CE:
It is curious that in your reply above, you don’t answer any of the specific challenges to the prosecution’s case raised in the documentary.
Why is that?
@CE:
Vituperation is not argument.
How do you account for Anna Ardin’s (oops, am I allowed to mention her name?) contradictory behaviour after the alleged rape?
How do you account for the police dropping the case?
How do you account for the grand jury in the US?
Damn it, CE, if this blog is going to be about debate, then let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and debate!
That’s probably where we differ Clark.
I believe that there is no real threat of JA facing extradition from Sweden.
Despite my distaste for his dangerous actions, I do not believe he should be extradited or that the US should have any involvement in this matter. These two women deserve to have their complaints fully investigated(and not by internet detectives or Gorgeous George), that’s the bottom line for me.
VivaEcuador, we all live immersed in very effective propaganda from the corporate media; I have to assume that everyone is affected by it, including myself. I know the power of repetition, of the narrowing of debate, and of being surrounded by people with closely similar beliefs, because I had to de-program myself from my religious upbringing. I know that people who mocked or insulted my religious beliefs did noting to help me overcome them; quite the opposite. It was evidence and rationality that eventually helped me to change my beliefs.
Assange did not just, fully cooperate, he stayed, voluntarily for 5 weeks. He had permission to leave Sweden.
@CE:
“I believe that there is no real threat of JA facing extradition from Sweden.”
Actually, it’s not what you believe in this case. The question is whether it is at all reasonable for Julian Assange to believe that he is being set-up. The ABC documentary provides a very clear answer.
I’m not privy to the Swedish prosecutions arguments or evidence unfortunately.
I believe this should be settled in a Swedish court of law, not by media character assassinations of the two women in question.
It’s not up to the accused to decide if they’re being set up.
CE, why do you not see a threat from the US? There are the Stratfor e-mails, and the Grand Jury referred to in the ABC documentary, I believe. There is a file on Assange of over 4000 pages, there is Obama’s unprecedented clamp-down on whistleblowers (six charged under Obama, vs. three in all previous US history), and there is the appalling treatment of Bradley Manning. Copious the evidence for this is linked from these threads. Why do you see no threat to Assange?
@CE
“media character assassinations of the two women in question.”
Evidence. I want you to point to specific examples of this in the documentary.
@CE:
“It’s not up to the accused to decide if they’re being set up.”
It absolutely is when everything is pointing in that direction!
CE, why do you regard “media character assassinations of the two women in question” as more important than the early leaks from the Swedish prosecutor’s office to Expressen, and Ardin talking to Aftonbladet? Assange appears to have suffered more from disclosures to the media than the two women. After he was questioned, he awoke the next day to find rape accusations in the most popular Swedish paper.
“It absolutely is when everything is pointing in that direction”
I’m glad you don’t work for the Judiciary.
These women have set themselves up, ce, by contacting a friendly police contact who duly ‘persuaded’ these two to make it a judicial case.
why would Ms Wilen refuse to sign the statement, if it was true, why did she leave in tears?
was it because she did not get the police to calm down?
was it because she wanted to have nothing more to do with this impromptu set up?
Is it a proper conduct to take a statement from close friends? should she not removed herself and let somebody else investigate this alleged incident?
All day you have argued without knowing the facts, by your own admission, do you think that makes you a credible person to debate with?
CE, VivaEcuador was describing Assange’s position, not a judge’s. Please try to be fair.
CE, Surely, under presumed innocence, Assange could in your terms only be described as a “suspected common criminal” and not a “common criminal” as you assert.
I find myself wondering what your reaction would be if Assange were to be cleared of these accusations. It is difficult to imagine that such a decision would satisfy you, or that it would result in a retraction, or apology. Would you ardently be calling for justice and for indictment of the women?
CE is concern trolling and has no real argument, just outrage. You keep asking it for supporting docs, and it moves on to the talking point.
Send it to someone who cares, like Fawkes.
Agreed Clark, The Swedish Police have not been watertight and behaved without absolute probity. Does that mean I think JA should hide out in an Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid answering charges? No.
People with agendas on both sides will undoubtedly attempt to fill the media vacuum with their own slant or take on the affair. That’s why I would like to see the facts laid out in a court of law.
Thanks Clark but it’s to be expected. CE is simply avoiding a real debate.
I was outside the Ecuadorean embassy on Hans Crescent today and saw a woman who may have been Margaret Hodge, but I’m not certain. Has anyone heard that she’s doing a bit of negotiating?
I find it impossibly hard to believe that George Galloway really thought he was helping people to focus on the real issue (“WIKILEAKS, stupid”, in his words) when he made a video to publicise his opinion that if all the sexual allegations against Julian Assange were true, then he’d only be guilty of bad manners rather than anything criminal.
I am not referring to his macho and sexist misunderstanding of the notion of consent, which I imagine is shared by many rapists. (Actually one of the accusations in my opinion wouldn’t even amount to bad manners, but one of them could easily constitute rape, on any sensible definition of the term.)
I mean his idea that he’s seriously wants people to focus on the state persecution of Wikileaks. How can he be so naive? As a seasoned politician – so experienced, for example, in meeting foreign leaders in times of international heaviness and reporting back to London – how can he really think he’s helping?
Anna Ardin is CIA. This is proved at the 99% level.
@Clark – Ardin herself used to work for Expressen, as an intern.
The more I look at this, the more rational I see Assange’s response to be. As to the corporate media’s ridicule about Assange going to the Ecuadorian embassy, I’m sure that in Assange’s position, I would have gone anywhere to escape the reach of the US and Bradley Manning’s fate.