Anna Ardin herself went to the media, under her own name, as long as two years ago to publicise her allegations against Assange. 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.”
The furore that I “revealed” her name on Newsnight is a pathetic spasm of false indignation by establishment supporters.
A google search on “Anna Ardin” reveals 193,000 articles, virtually all relating to her sexual allegation against Julian Assange. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week broadcast nationwide a documentary investigating Ms Ardin’s allegations and not only naming her repeatedly, but showing several photographs of her and Assange together; it is a documentary everybody interested should watch. Literally thousands of newspapers and magazines all over the world have named her, including the New York Times and the Times of India, aside from those near 200,000 internet entries. The Twittersphere numbers are astronomical.
Gavin Esler, Joan Smith and I all knew her name – what special rights do we three enjoy that entitle us to know that, but would intend to debar the viewers from knowing that? I am willing to bet that virtually all those tweeting and pretending outrage that I named Ms Ardin, already themselves knew her name. They just somehow think nobody else should be allowed to. There is virtually nobody in Sweden – which is after all where she lives – who does not know her name. It is a cause celebre there.
If what I did was illegal, as is being claimed, then somebody had better come and arrest me. As however there are no legal proceedings on this issue in the UK and no prospect of a prosecution here, I know of no lawful reason I should not have named her. I suspect that the number of Newsnight viewers who heard the name for the first time is very small indeed. It might, of course, give some a tool to research further for themselves the facts of the case. That would be very useful indeed.
As for the interview, I was sorry that Aaronovitch was not there (as I had been told he would be) as I might have been more robust – I felt rather constrained arguing with Joan Smith as I generally like and respect her. Strangely enough, as I did the interview I was much less worried about it than I was on subsequently hearing it, because I did not realise the extent my microphone had been turned down compared to Gavin’s and Joan’s when they were speaking across me – which was most of the time I was speaking. It would be interesting if someone with the patience could tot up how many seconds I had speaking with nobody speaking over me, compared to Joan.
To sum up, I was insufficiently assertive and allowed myself to be shouted down, than which I really should know better. But I did succeed in getting over the fact, with examples, that whistleblowers are routinely fitted up with unrelated charges. And all the manufactured fury at my naming Anna Ardin might well lead people to research her claims and behaviour, which would be a good thing. So I am reasonably relaxed.
UPDATE
I have just found the transcript of the Australian Broadcasting Company’s documentary on the Ardin claims against Assange. This is genuine and painstaking investigative journalism from the flagship and long-established “Four corners” programme and shows a glaring contrast between the British and Australian Broadcasting Company approach. The BBC won’t even allow you to mention Ardin’s name, let alone question her story or her motives. The ABC does a full investigation and comes up with some extremely important facts.
It is also interesting that ABC interview Ardin’s own lawyer, as well as Assange’s, and neither shows any concern at the repeated use of Ardin’s name in the interview, of a piece with the fact that it has frequently appeared in the Swedish media.
The documentary is entitled “Sex, Lies and Julian Assange.” This extract starts about twenty minutes in. Click on the title for the full thing. Another interviewee, politician Rick Falkvinge, is obviously extremely conscious of what he may and may not say legally while extradition proceedings are in train, but again appears to have no problem with the interviewer using Anna Ardin’s name.
What is such a big issue for the BBC, and the politically correct media twitterers of London, is apparently not an issue for those in Sweden most closely connected to the case.
ANDREW FOWLER: At the heart of the matter is whether the Swedish judicial authorities will treat him fairly. Certainly, events so far provide a disturbing picture of Swedish justice. Using facts agreed between the defence and prosecution and other verified information, we have pieced together what happened during those crucial three weeks in August.
On August 11th, 2010, Assange arrived in Sweden to attend a conference organised by the Swedish Brotherhood – a branch of the Social Democratic Party. He was offered Anna Ardin’s apartment while she was away, but Ardin returned home a day early on Friday the 13th. She invited Assange to stay the night, and they had sex. She would later tell police Assange had violently pinned her down and ignored her requests to use a condom. Assange denies this.
The following day, Assange addressed the conference with Ardin at his side. Later that afternoon Ardin organised the Swedish equivalent of a top-notch barbeque – a Crayfish Party. She posted a Twitter message. “Julian wants to go to a crayfish party. Anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow?”
The crayfish party was held that night in a court yard off her apartment. It went on until the early hours of the morning. Ardin tweeted at 2am: “Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest, smartest people! It’s amazing!”
A guest at the party would later tell Swedish Police the event was a very hearty evening. When he offered to put Assange up at his apartment, Ardin replied, “He can stay with me.”
In the past 24 hours, Ardin had worked closely with Assange, had sex with him, organised a crayfish party on his behalf – and, according to one witness, turned down alternate accommodation for him. It is during this same period that police will later investigate whether Assange coerced and sexually molested Anna Ardin.
PER E. SAMUELSON: Well, if you send text messages like that, “I’ve just spent some time with the coolest people in the world”, the night after you then say you were raped – I mean you shouldn’t write such text messages if you had been raped by that person the night before.
ANDREW FOWLER: Your client described Julian Assange as a “cool man”. I think, one of the “coolest men in the world” that she’d had in her bed.
CLAES BORGSTROM: I will argue in court. I have of course arguments concerning exactly what you’re talking about now, but I will not tell any media of how I am going to represent the women in in court. I’m sorry.
ANDREW FOWLER: But can you see how that looks as though…
CLAES BORGSTROM: Yes, of course I can.
ANDREW FOWLER: …it’s a fit up. It looks as though they are in fact setting him up.
CLAES BORGSTROM: I’m quite aware of that.
ANDREW FOWLER: Sunday August 15th – the next day. Assange attended a dinner party at Stockholm’s Glenfiddich restaurant, organised by pirate party founder Rick Falkvinge.
RICK FALKVINGE: I think a lot of people at the… at the table had meatballs. I think Julian might have been one of them. Now, Swedish meatballs that, that’s a little bit like mum’s apple pie in Sweden – as in, you can call my wife ugly, you can kick my dog, but the instant you say something bad about my mother’s meatballs I’m going to take it personal.
ANDREW FOWLER: Also at the dinner was Anna Ardin.
(to Rick Falkvinge) So, just to get this straight: Julian Assange arrived with Anna Ardin and he left with Anna Ardin.
RICK FALKVINGE: Yep.
ANDREW FOWLER: What was their behaviour like towards each other?
RICK FALKVINGE: Well, I was discussing mainly with Julian and the… again I can’t go into too much detail here, but it was at least a very professional dinner. There were two high level organisations, both intent on changing the world behaving professionally.
ANDREW FOWLER: The fact that Anna Ardin accompanied Julian Assange through this dinner and left with him – what does that say to you?
RICK FALKVINGE: Well that’s going into speculating on merits of extradition, and I can’t really do that. I think that be… you’re presenting an objective fact, as did I, and if people want to read something into that that’s obviously ripe for doing so, but I can’t spell it out.
ANDREW FOWLER: Four Corners has obtained a photograph, lodged with police investigators, from that evening. Anna Ardin is on the left. Afterwards, Assange would again spend the night at her apartment.
The following day, August the 16th, Assange had sex with Sophia Wilen at her apartment. According to police records, Ardin was aware that he had slept with Sophia. A witness told police he contacted Anna Ardin looking for Assange. She texted back: “He’s not here. He’s planned to have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he finally found time yesterday?” That same day, the witness asked Ardin, “Is it cool he’s living there? Do you want, like, for me to fix something else?” According to the witness she replied: “He doesn’t, like, sleep at nights so that’s a bit difficult. So he has a bit of difficulty taking care of his hygiene. But it’s ok if he lives with me, it’s no problem.”
Three days later on August 20th, Wilen, accompanied by Ardin went to the Klara police station in central Stockholm to seek advice about whether Assange could be forced to take an STD test. Ardin had gone along primarily to support Wilen. Sometime during Wilen’s questioning the police announced to Ardin and Wilen that Assange was to be arrested and questioned about possible rape and molestation. Wilen became so distraught she refused to give any more testimony and refused to sign what had been taken down.
JENNIFER ROBINSON: The circumstances leading up to the issue of the arrest warrant gave cause for grave concern for Julian about the procedures that were adopted in the investigation. We have to remember that when the announcement was put out that he would be subject to a warrant, one of the complainants was upset by that, and later said that she felt railroaded by the police.
KARIN ROSANDER, SWEDISH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE: Well what happened is what was that the duty prosecutor got a phone call from the police and the duty prosecutor decided that he should be arrested.
ANDREW FOWLER: And what happened?
KARIN ROSANDER: He was arrested in his absence, but he… they never got in… got in contact with him so, but he was arrested in his absence. It’s a technical… technical thing in Sweden, Swedish law, yeah.
ANDREW FOWLER: The Prosecutor’s Office might not have contacted Assange but within hours they let the whole of Sweden know what was going on – leaking to the Expressen Tabloid the statements of Ardin and Wilen. The newspaper front page read: “Assange hunted for rape in Sweden”.
JENNIFER ROBINSON: Julian wakes up the following morning to read the newspapers to hear that he’s wanted for double rape and he’s absolutely shocked.
THOMAS MATTSSON: Two of our reporters had information about Julian Assange, and we also had a confirmation from the prosecutor which confirmed on record that there was a police investigation against Julian Assange.
ANDREW FOWLER: It was now the case took a strange twist. Within 24 hours, a more senior prosecutor dismissed the rape allegations, leaving only the lesser accusation of molestation. Assange willingly went to the police on August 30th and made a statement.
During the interview he expressed his fears that anything he said would end up in the tabloid newspaper Expressen. The interviewing police officer said: “I’m not going to leak anything.” The interview was leaked.
PER E. SAMUELSON: Why did you leak his name to a tabloid paper? How… how can you drop the case and reopen the case and how can you… how can you not say that he waited for five weeks in Sweden voluntarily to participate in the investigation? Why do you have to arrest him? Why do you have to keep him in handcuffs? Why can’t you conduct this in a proper manner? The rest of the world sees it, but Sweden unfortunately doesn’t.
ANDREW FOWLER: It is perhaps understandable that Assange had doubts he would receive fair treatment from the Swedish authorities. On September 15th, the prosecutor told Assange he was permitted to leave Sweden. Assange, back in England, would later offer to return within a month. The Swedish Authorities said too late – a second warrant had already been issued for his arrest.
ANDREW FOWLER: He says that he left the country and then was prepared to come back at any time. Is that your understanding?
CLAES BORGSTROM: I don’t believe that.
ANDREW FOWLER: He says that he was prepared to come back in October but the prosecutor wanted him back earlier.
CLAES BORGSTROM: I don’t know. I don’t believe he wanted to he was he wanted to come freely back to Sweden. I don’t think so.
ANDREW FOWLER: Can you understand that the Australian people may not understand how somebody can be accused in their absence when they haven’t even been interviewed, then have that rape case dropped, the arrest warrant removed and then have it re-instituted, all in the space of a few days?
KARIN ROSANDER: Yeah I can very well understand the confusion and, and, I… that is very difficult to understand, well, exactly how it works.
ANDREW FOWLER: Well you call it confusing, it’s… it may be slightly more than that.
KARIN ROSANDER: Well that’s the way it works here in Sweden so, well… but I can understand the confusion, definitely
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@ Ken, 11:35 am
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I thought Craig’s defence was okay, but this mainly showed up the limitations of tv debates.
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That her name is all over the internet is a little beside the point, the absolutely key fact is that she has given on-the-record comments to newspapers. She voluntarily gave up her anonymity. Simple as.
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Had Craig been able to pull up the NY Times article – impossible in the TV debate format – which he referred to, Esler would have looked like a complete plonker… though if the BBC wants to show a bit of decency, Newsnight will apologise to Craig today.
So, we’re NOT allowed to utter the name of a victim who publicised HERSELF in her blog posts about being with her “attacker” (AFTER the “attack”), who’s name has been public domain for nearly 2 years, BUT we’re OK saying the name of the man who’s not even been charged with a crime ???
Can the BBC even fucking SPELL “hypocrisy” ????
Also, does anyone else think “Stockholm syndrome” is perhaps the most ironic phrase in the world at this present moment ???
Let’s face it, a CHIMP could successfully defend this case within about 15 seconds…
“Ms A, did you or did you not brag about your relationship with the accused, on the day AFTER your ‘ordeal’, tweeting and blogging about getting breakfast, arranging a party for the accused, your ‘attacker’ and tweeting and blogging about said party, before inviting the accused, your ‘attacker’ to remain at your home, before deleting these posts a few days later, after you had become aware of the accused’s sexual relationship with Ms W???”
“Ms W, did you or did you not, upon learning that the accused was to be prosecuted for rape, refuse to sign your statement, and subsequently leave the police interview in a state of distress, saying that you had been coerced by the police and ‘those around me’..????”
Exhibit A: iPad, with google cached page of Ms A’s blog/twitter feed
Exhibit B: Unsigned statement from Ms W, from an interview taken by a police officer who was a personal friend of Ms A.
Hardly “12 angry men”, is it ???
Craig, another demonstration of how far the BBC have descended in to the inner workings of a sophisticated propaganda machine, every Newsnight/BBC presenter has laying down in front of the establishment alter. I see the same is happening at every other UK based TV station/News outlet, it has all descended in to an never ending torrent of abuse on anyone that disagrees with war, making money and the many lives being sacrificed in the pursuit of such. We live in such sad times, what happened last night was all so predictable.
The monstrous Tartuffe in the debate were quiet happy to bandy the name of the accused NB not the convicted rapist, however soon as the name of the saint of confused whores, and flighty spooks was mentioned, the female looking to take a chunk out of Craig first drivels on interrupting Craig, and then the second time around as Craig mentions it, you can see the glee in her face, she takes up the role of the saint protector and in tag with Essler proceed to shout down Craig.
Do these wankers know that we the peopel are on to them, or are they blissfully ignorant of the fact that we know these for the sacks of manure they are.
The question that I have about all this is what compels certain individuals/groups (which might otherwise have sympathy with Wikileaks) to be going for Assange’s jugular in the way that they are.
It seems that these individuals/groups (which tend to be made up largely of the same women – and men – who don’t think fathers should have any role in the lives of their children after separation) have been forced into a corner here, and will refuse to acknowledge that an innocent man is having his name thoroughly blackened, because to do so simply amounts to a betrayal of the otherwise laudable campaign against violence toward women. It seems that these individuals/groups cannot back down, simply because they cannot be seen (in the media) to be backing down, on issues that are otherwise very important.
For anyone with open eyes, there is no question that allegations of sexual misconduct or sex crimes have become the most powerful weapon in the west against political dissidents or those who rock the boat and expose things.
It just baffles me and makes me wonder why certain individuals/groups who surely should know this, are still being so gung ho with their witch hunt.
Eddie-G,
Sure, but what he needed was a zinger of a reply and “Swedish law does not apply in this country – we’re an American colony,” would have been great.
I can’t work out if George Galloway’s comments have helped or not. All the talk radio phone-ins are discussing them but are they a distraction? Should Galloway have known better?
Esler’s always been as weak as piss anyway i wouldn’t worry about his bought and paid for “reactions”
The Guardian and Newsnight both scoring delightful own goals yesterday.Ah,bliss…
It is sad that we can no longer expect quality, probing journalism from Newsnight and to see Craig treated in such a hostile manner. Perhaps I am more naive than I thought myself to be.
Why does the worlds media think that is perfectly acceptable for an accused persons name to be leaked to the press, but unacceptable for the accuser to receive any exposure at all? The world has seen the accusations against Assange in all their prurient detail. His life, both public and private, has been held up for public examination resulting in permanent damage to character. Given that this has become a media trial, with little hope of impartial decision making, I fail to see why the characters and backgrounds of the accusers should not also be publicly tested.
Too many people read a striking headline and accept it as truth. That headline becomes their opinion and therefore Assange, is to them, a rapist. I have even read articles, by people who I have had some respect for, who have fallen into the same easy acceptance of the guilt or misconduct of Assange. The Third State is failing miserably in it’s duty to inform by chasing sales figures and popularity at the expense of actual facts.
I have no sympathy for any person guilty of rape. I also have no sympathy for any person who falsely alleges rape. I believe that Assange wants the opportunity to clear his name and face his accusers, however, I cannot see, in the current climate, how that can ever happen.
I know how the French felt before the revolution. I feel so angry about this and the crap that is coming out of the mouths of the right wing and on their vile little Twitters. I think of Bradley Manning undergoing torture and Julian Assange who has no real freedom at the moment. Imagine if we were incarcerated in a London flat hour on end for two months.
I do not want to belong to this set up and when I heard this morning that Group4S carry out the monitoring on my burglar alarm, I immediately cancelled it even though I live alone and might rue the day I made this decision. If we all rise up as one, that would be telling the gangsters-in-charge and the banksters who have ripped us all off. I expect you are all hearing the latter and their stooges in the media chiming for bank charges for current accounts?
I’ve blogged on Komodo’s link to Expressen, thanks for that, on Assange’s chance of a fair trial and Craig’s Newsnight appearance, most references picked up on this blog. Thanks again.
http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/breaking-news.html
I agree Craig, I too feel sorry for Sofia Wilen who became entangled with Julian as an innocent admirer, groopie if you like, even lover. I too would not have named her. Most know here I am cynical even scornful of the incidence believing the molestation accusations against Assange is/was a classic ‘honeytrap’ manipulated by outside influences including Rove. I do hope details will emerge that prove this.
Mary,
I am so glad you picked up on the Syria chemical/biological weapons statement. This has been picked up again(I have warned here already) by the main media who I believe are now running with the story in front of a frenetic, convulsive Julian Assange backdrop.
I warn again from I believe valid sources I cannot name here of a chemical weapons catalyst that will enable the US and Britain to force further action against Syria.
So, friendly with the Man of Straw too.
Joan Smith
Joan Smith is a novelist, columnist, critic and human rights activist. Her most recent novel, What Will Survive, is set in Westminster and Lebanon. She is the author of Misogynies, Moralities and the Loretta Lawson series of crime novels, two of which were filmed by the BBC.
She is President of the Creators’ Rights Alliance and a board member of ALCS. She chaired the English PEN Writers in Prison Committee from 2000 to 2004, and was a member of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office free expression panel from 2002 to 2004. She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and a regular contributor to BBC radio. She blogs at http://www.politicalblonde.com and is Political Blonde on twitter.
There are also very sinister things going on when the BBC consciously puts a story of the rape of a boy in a store lift right next to a story about Assange.
Rape is a disgusting crime, but that has nothing to do with what someone sleeping with another person in bed might retrospectively interpret as poor bedtime manners.
In free countries, a person ought to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, but what we’ve got in Britain right now is a mob made up of the media, political elites, and certain organizations that are unwittingly plunging us back into the ages of the crusades.
What about the disgusting crime that is the protracted persecution of a single innocent individual, carried out over months if not years with the express purpose of breaking him to the point where his brokenness will then be held up by the lynch mob as proof of his guilt.
Bonkers.
She (Anna Ardin) was on the front cover of Time Magazine December 2010 entitled Slut of the Year! The photo at the bottom.
Sweet Jesus, that’s a crap Photoshop job. Is somebody meant to take that seriously?
I stand second to nobody in my defence of Assange, and in my suspicions of this entire thing being a massive stitch-up. But the levels of misogyny and anti-feminist bullshit spewing out from various quarters is making me ill. The same kind of crap is being excreted in the sceptic, atheist, gaming, comic-book, and other communities historically dominated by repressed, fearful, ‘men’ who are unable to deal with the fact that women are human beings, not property, and aren’t there to service males. And there appear to be no shortage of female enablers who have been so brainwashed by the patriarchy that, like working class individuals voting Tory, they work against their own interests.
In fact, the fact that rape and sexual abuse brings these people out of the woodwork (or out from under the rock) shows how effective a ploy it can be: by choosing this method of discrediting Assange, those in power have very effectively divided the opposition. Those wondering why the US didn’t simply extradite him from the UK should look no further than that: this has been far more effective at destroying both him and Wikileaks as serious threats to the imperium.
Nomad_UK, Mary made a mistake. The photo is labelled above it; it says “Artwork from [such and such]”
NomadUK:
Hear! Hear!
Smith speaking to Jenny Jones who had had a hard time before Craig’s appearance. She was critizing the Policy Exchange suggestion to get all the plebs out of social (council) housing and move them to the outer suburbs so that the developers can make a killing redeveloping the sites. Ghettos for the rich in other words. She was up against a smug Tory type London councillor, from Hammersmith and Fulham I think it was.
2h Joan Smith @polblonde
@GreenJennyJones Great to meet you. Wish you’d been there for the rest of the programme when Craig Murray named an alleged rape victim!
The episode is not up on the iPlayer yet.
~~~~~
And the slimy Aa amongst the little chats with Joan Smith, Rifkind’s son Hugo, also a Murdoch type and others.
d Aaronovitch @DAaronovitch
@polblonde @kmflett Murray is a very unpleasant and angry man who could as easily have ended up on the far right as the left.
~~~~~
You can see that they are all in IT together.
Mary – you quote a twit:
@polblonde @kmflett Murray is a very unpleasant and angry man who could as easily have ended up on the far right as the left.
I think she/he must be thinking of someone called David Aaronovitch, whose leftwing youth –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/21/university-challenge-rules-television
In 1975, a team from the University of Manchester, which included the journalist David Aaronovitch, answered every question with “Che Guevara”, “Marx”, “Trotsky” or “Lenin”, hoping to make the recording unusable.
(he was also a contributor to Marxism Today)
belied the brilliance of his current career working for Murdoch in a style pioneered by Goebbels.
Unles, of course, he/she IS David Aaronovitch.
Quite why Craig gave Joan Smith the benefit of the doubt is beyond me. Unlike the Great Germaine, or Naomi Wolf, I’ve never found her convincing, or even especially intelligent.
She & her ex- Denis MacShane (who shamefully escaped being charged for his inflated expenses claims) have been very active in peddling false statistics about the number of foreign women being forced into prostitution in the UK.
Nick Davies (in the days when the Graun had a few decent journalists) exposes their distortions here-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated
Craig ” Was it, incidentally, the first time you yourself had seen the name? I should be most surprised – please answer that, I am not being rhetorical.”
Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. Being UK based I don’t watch the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
I knew her name ages ago. It’s all tosh, as anyone with an ounce of objectivity would conclude.
Imagine a man having sex with a woman, bragging about his conquest to his mates, continuing to sleep with her for days, and only later complaining to the police about it because it turns out the woman also had sex with someone else. He wasn’t raped, he says, but she doesn’t really like condoms and persuaded him to go along: heat of the moment, etc. Our hero would struggle to be heard over the laughter. So much for equality.
So he’s an arrogant git who sleeps with his groupies. So what? They wanted it, and bragged about it. Whether you like Assange or not, or Wikileaks, if you prefer trumped up accusations over a real case to answer, how are you different from Stalin and his show trials?
The victim in a case of rape or one of the sexual offences listed in the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 is entitled to anonymity in the press.
Once an allegation of one of the relevant offences has been made, nothing can be published which is likely to lead members of the public to identify the victim.
Link: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/34/contents
Everyone making hay with juvenile ‘humour’. Eg:
http://newsthump.com/2012/08/21/uk-to-take-assange-by-forcing-itself-inside-ecuadors-embassy-while-its-asleep/
but nobody is talking about collateral murder.
QED. Their strategy worked.
@Andy:
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. Being UK based I don’t watch the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.”
Well that makes you look like an ignoramus as her name has been splashed all over the papers and internet media everywhere for the last 2 years.
50 Shades of Grey…
50 ways to feel about sexual misconduct allegations.
I thought it well put “are these RAPE allegations, or rape ALLEGATIONS?”
What they really are is off limits to protect the alleged victims.
So, Obama recently said: “Rape is rape. The idea that we should be parsing types of rape doesn’t make sense to the American people or to me.”
We have to protect the alleged victims, so that is all we can do.
Also get around to parsing “military sexual trauma”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_States_military
Sexual assault in the United States military
“There is an ongoing problem with sexual assault in the U.S. military which has resulted in a series of scandals that have received extensive media coverage. According to a 2011 Newsweek report, 1 in 5 females and 1 in 15 males in the United States military reported having been sexually assaulted by servicemembers …. experience in the Iraq War showing significant incidence of post traumatic stress syndrome resulting from the combination of combat stress and sexual assault.[2] 15% of female veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have visited a VA facility have screened positively for military sexual trauma.[3]”
@NomadUK – yes indeed, great points. If you’ve time, we’ve discussed feminism several times here before, and the comment debates have been very interesting – see the search widget on the right. We have a few contributors who might be said to be coming from a Men’s Rights Activist approach on that topic, which usually makes for a lively argument!
My interest in feminism as a man was sparked here, I think, as a result.
@Sarah
“Every woman who comes forward about a sexual assult deserves to be taken seriously at least until it’s proven otherwise. ”
Every man who is accused of a sexual assault deserved to be treated as innocent at least until it’s proven otherwise. ‘At least’ because of history’s many miscarriages of justice.
Arden made Assange a crayfish meal on a Swedish balcony to win back his affection from that cashmere women, but he was ungrateful! Now the whole world will pay. He should have gone back with her to her condo and handled things with more care. Moreover, he should have remembered her.
Majority of people do not know who Anna Ardin is, even in Sweden. She did her PhD at Uppsala university and has a blogg and is part of the social democrats. Besides that there is hardly any stories about her and Assange in the Swedish media. I believe her lawyer have instructed her not the say anything at the moment.