WikiLeak’s Julian Assange, rape charges and the court of public opinion
Espionage! Government misconduct! Political intrigue! International notoriety! Rape, molestation and unlawful coercion – Wait, what?
Julian Assange has gained international notoriety for his role as editor-in-chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. People are torn on his website’s impact and his work – is he a threat to international security (like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contends) or a muckraking hero upholding freedom of knowledge by disclosing shocking misconduct?
One aspect of Assange’s fugitive status is relatively cut-and-dry: in September, a Swedish court reopened a sex crimes case against him, and he’s steered clear of Sweden ever since. Alas, it seems that Assange and his lawyer, Mark Stephens, have gone to great lengths to ensure that the rape charges are tried in the court of public opinion rather than a court of law.
Here’s a run-down of the case.
In August, Assange was accused of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion for his actions against two women in Sweden. Basically, both of the women had separate sexual encounters with Assange that started consensually and quickly become nonconsensual. From the New York Times:
“One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use.”
Performing a sexual act without the consent of your partner? Yep, that sounds like rape to me. Assange was initially indicted by a Swedish prosecutor, but the higher ranking Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne quickly dismissed the case for insufficient evidence. The woman alleging rape appealed the decision and, a week later, the case was reopened with new evidence. For those of you fortunate enough to have never gone through the legal process for a rape charge, it’s common for a case to be closed and reopened like this.
Swedish prosecutors have been trying to get Assange back to the country for questioning for three months, but he has refused. On November 18th, Sweden issued an international warrant for his arrest because he was wanted for questioning. Assange’s lawyer appealed the arrest; the Svea Court of Appeals in Sweden refused. On November 20th, Interpol issued a Red Notice (essentially an international “wanted person” notice) requesting that its member countries please arrest Assange in order to extradite him to Sweden. Again, this isn’t uncommon – Interpol issued more than 5,000 red notices last year, and they’ve been used for people wanted in connection with alleged sex crimes before. Then on December 1st, Sweden authorized Interpol to make the Red Notice public, Interpol issued a press release, and it’s been media circus ever since.
Assange has called the charges “a dirty trick” and flat-out declared that the case was politically motivated, while his lawyer maintains that the charges are part of “a smear campaign,” adding ominously, “the only question is: Who’s behind it?” In fact, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most of the rape charge naysaying in the news has been sourced directly from Assange or his lawyer. After all, those are the two people with the most significant interest in making the charges go away. And if these statements sound familiar, it’s because they are. We hear them every time a high-profile public figure is brought up on rape charges. (Roman Polanski, anyone?)
The trouble with the media coverage on Assange is that no one can seem to separate the man charged with rape, molestation and unlawful coercion from the whimsical image of the internationally coveted spy ducking into dark alleyways and hiding in basements in order to evade capture. Yes, Assange’s life is very exciting, but in comparison, the reality of these rape charges may actually be pretty ordinary.
While Assange has made dogged efforts to contact the media and cast doubt on the legal proceedings , it’s unclear why he’s not participating with prosecution. Meanwhile, it would seem that all the time afforded to make media statements has been well won in the court of public opinion – a venue that’s notoriously hostile toward rape victims. The internet is flooded with bizarre, unhinged conspiracy theories winking knowingly at the “suspicious timing” of Interpol’s red notice issue and, of course, victim-blaming. His sympathizers are crying “false accusation” and whipping revenge theories out of thin air. There’s this gem from Gizmodo, courtesy of AOL News (again, from Assange’s lawyer), in which forcing a sexual act on your partner without their full, enthusiastic consent is not called rape (even though that’s what Sweden’s calling it) but instead “Sex By Surprise.”
A more accurate translation from the Swedish to English for “sex by surprise” is the word “bullshit.” Feministe got it right when Jill wrote:
Withdrawal of consent should be grounds for a rape charge — if you consent to having sex with someone and part of the way through you say to stop and the person you’re having sex with doesn’t stop and continues to have sex with you against your wishes, that’s rape.
People are even speculating that the Pentagon and CIA are behind the charges pending in Sweden. Indeed, it is truly an espionage mastermind who brings a meddlesome public figure up on rape charges in a world that takes the crime of rape soooo seriously. Because there’s such an enormous percentage of accused rapists who spend substantial time in prison. Yes, he will surely be met with swift and decisive ruin. Ruin, I say! Huzzah!
While these conspiracy theories are exciting to read and make great water-cooler talk, few people seem to be entertaining the possibility that, as one of his alleged victims stated,
“The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl are with a man with a disturbed view of women and problems accepting a no.”
Obviously, no one should assume Julian Assange is guilty of the charges until the Swedish courts find him guilty. But the media coverage surrounding his rape charges has enthusiastically jumped to his side, defending him tooth-and-nail against… well, against whom? Against the Swedish Prosecution Authority? Against the women he allegedly assaulted?
Call me old-fashioned, but isn’t a criminal defense supposed to take place in a court room… instead of on Twitter?
Whether you think the man is a terrorist or a hero, the fact remains that fleeing prosecution is illegal, and breaking the law is wrong, no matter how important you are. If the allegations are false, than it would seem that Assange has nothing to lose by going to trial and clearing his name. And if they aren’t, it is time for justice to be served.
You know me, I’m an ardent supporter of justice for rape victims, which is why his choice to turn himself in was certainly the right one (perhaps he read your blog?) If Assange is guilty, he deserves an appropriate sentence for committing non-forcible rape.
But in the spirit of justice, one must still remember that Julian Assange is innocent until he is proven guilty.
In addition, his case obviously presents some wrinkles in the pursuit of justice–first, it is pretty unusual for one prosecutor to drop charges against a suspect, and then for another prosecutor to pick them up. Secondly, in a time where the president has ordered a targeted killing of an American citizen living abroad (Anwar al-Awlaki, a terrorist/cleric in Yemen), I don’t find it completely unreasonable to wonder if the charges could be false–if the charges (which seem particularly hard to defend oneself against, unlike forcible rape) were coerced or bribed into being revived. Obviously, this seems really unlikely, but its certainly not absurd to suggest that the American government benefits from him being prosecuted as a rapist, imprisoned, and extraditable. It certainly would serve (and perhaps even does, now) as a warning to anyone who might being in Assange’s position in the future.
Does all of this amount to reasonable doubt? I don’t know, but I suppose we’ll find out (not that I’m that familiar on how Swedish criminal justice works).
Nate, thank you for the comment and your insights! If I implied anywhere in this article that Assange was guilty of the charges, I apologize sincerely as that was not my intention. My point was that no one should make assumptions about the validity of the allegations against him until Assange appears in court and the Swedish courts rule on the case. My point is that he should defend himself in court, not in the media.
Today (Tuesday), he met with British authorities to discuss the international arrest warrant issued by Sweden. He did not turn himself in, he’s fighting the extradition. A London court is currently holding him in custody because they believe he’s a flight risk. I’m anxious to see how this plays out.
I appreciate his unique position as a fugitive in the international community, but he had three whole months to return to Sweden before they issued the arrest warrant. I don’t know how Swedish criminal justice works either, but I know that Marianne Ny, the prosecutor, has said that there was nothing unusual about the reopening of the case against Assange. I’m definitely concerned about the case being thrown out on a procedural error, which is probably likely at this point. Given the fact that Sweden prohibits the prosecution from speaking to the media, and given the defense’s numerous interviews with the media, I expect that the prosecution will be hard-pressed to find an impartial jury.
I have to disagree with your point that rape is a hard charge to defend oneself against. The burden of proof might be different in Sweden, though. Also, if you’re going to frame someone for a sex crime, these are some pretty paltry charges. One of the charges is minor in Sweden and punishable for up to a $700 fine. Check out the Feministe article linked in the body for more info.
Those are valid counterpoints, but for a few things I’d like to mention in defense of what I said originally:
1. He did, in fact, turn himself in–even if he is fighting the extradition (which, given the Interpol red notice, is probably bound to fail) he cannot simply walk away–meeting with the authorities in Britain means he has been apprehended, so to speak, and faces the very significant likelihood of extradition, to face charges in a court in which he is an foreign national.
By the nature of the work he engages in (which I believe is neither good nor evil, in the abstract at least) authorities in many countries view him as a threat to their power and prestige–which is a point worth noting.
Lastly on this point, he must’ve been pretty aware that, as the court did, it would deny him bail.
2. On the point about the reopening of the case and prosecutorial advantages and disadvantages: First, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few weeks at law school, it’s that prosecutors, for many reasons, may stretch the truth to its very breaking point.
I was fortunate to get a chance to hear the stories of two people, one who spent two years on death row and six more in prison for a brutal rape and murder of a child that he was completely innocent of, and another who spent five years in jail awaiting trial for the rape and killing of two children, one his own daughter. In both cases, the charges were dropped after DNA evidence showed that they were not the killers–but in the latter case, even after all this, the prosecutor refused to say the father was innocent of the crime.
The point here is that prosecutors are not immune to pressures–public, personal, or diplomatic–to find and convict people for crimes committed. And though the prosecutor in Sweden may be prohibited from speaking to the press, the very power of the office and its conduct speaks for itself. People tend to believe that once a suspect has been arrested and brought to trial, they are already guilty (I can’t imagine what effect an Interpol warrant would have, but I imagine its not good for a suspect), and this tends to weigh heavily against a suspect in a trial. I, myself, remember that when the prosecutor was investigating the Duke lacrosse players a few years ago, I already thought they were guilty of the crimes, and awful people, and I found it hard to shake these feelings even after the charges were dropped.
3. These might be “paltry” charges, but they’re certainly crimes for which I would find a perpetrator morally culpable–the kind of person I wouldn’t want to associate with. It’s the kind of charge that would–and generally should!–weigh against a person’s worth and credibility.
Finally, in this case, and problematically in a lot of rape cases, the evidence comes down to whether you believing the accuser or the accused. It’s not clear what Julian Assange can do here to exonerate himself (if he is innocent) than to deny the accuser’s accounts. Personally, in cases like these, I tend to believe that the defendant is guilty, and usually that makes some sense (there’s usually little reason to bring charges against someone without good reason) but I honestly can’t say whether this particular attitude bodes well for the cause of justice or not: is it actually true, what William Blackstone said centuries ago, that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be punished?
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As awful as this may sound this case is going to revolve around a lot of details involving a sex act that occured some time ago. It’s common to hear people say, especially women, “She said stop he didn’t. That’s rape”. Well no, not always. A jury will be asked to put themselves into the heads of the accuser and the defendant. Intent matters. Anyone who has had a normal sex life understands no doesn’t always mean stop. It can mean no not that spot. No I’m finishing to early. No slow down. On and on and on. I have no clue what was in the advisers head or the, well we can’t call him the defenda
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