... Mr Assange regards himself as a victim of radicalism. "Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism,"

How Wikileaks lost the support of the free speech advocate Index on Censorship

... The embassy attache was adamant. It was only a matter of time before a human rights defender was exposed by WikiLeaks, and jailed or killed as a result. “Then in that case,” he said grimly, “you may ask Mr Assange exactly what he thinks he has done for ‘transparency and human rights’”.

Weirdly, almost on cue, Wikileaks released a cable that might have proven his point, in which the name of the source — a public critic of a particularly reprehensible head of state — was redacted by WikiLeaks. However the redactor, presumably unfamiliar with the dissident’s work, failed to recognise a giveaway clue cited in the cable’s title ...

Redaction of data was never meant to be WikiLeaks’ prime duty, so it should be no surprise that they do it unwillingly, and when they do, that they can do it badly or obscurely. Index on Censorship raised the issue of the giveaway clue in the title of the otherwise redacted leaked cable with WikiLeaks directly.

They replied sympathetically, but noted that the redacted name was already out there as author of a critical book about the head of state. “…(S)o we feel that too much redaction is futile,” said the reply. “However, we do feel it is better to be safe than sorry and so have redacted the title …” ...

As a political game, of course, it is entirely fascinating. Anyone, with any knowledge of the

history of the Americas, will understand why (say) Correa is sympathetic to Assange: the US has for decades run roughshod over its southern neighbors, often with no regard for human needs and rights. So when Assanger pokes a sharp stick in the eye of the US State Department, no one should be surprised that some people will naturally cheer: that natural reaction is, to reuse a famous phrase, "chickens coming home to roost"

Still, the constant bullshit, orchestrated by Assange and his supporters, does us all a real disservice, because it drowns out informed intelligent conversation. It seems to me quite likely that Assange could have cleared up the Swedish matter quickly a few years ago, had he not been so set on proving to everyone that he could get away with being a gigantic asshole

The most harmless telling of this story would be: Assange had unprotected sex with several woman who had consented to protected sex and who thereafter wanted him to undergo some STD testing; he was uncooperative in this regard, and the women took some of their dissatisfactions to the police; while the Swedish authorities were trying to schedule a follow-up interview with him, through his lawyer, he fled to the UK and refused to return to Sweden for the follow-up interview. But once outside Sweden, he made sure to be much in the press sneering about Sweden's "revolutionary feminism" and piously lamenting the tiresomeness of the various women he had recently been schtupping in Sweden -- behavior which, by any adult standard, should be regarded as thoroughly caddish. After several months, the Swedish authorities tired of the charades and took out an international warrant against him. At this point, Assange's surrogates began a full-fledged defamation campaign against the Swedish complainants (one of who alleges behavior considered to be rape in any modern jurisdiction, such as Australia, Sweden, the UK, or the US), claiming without evidence that the women were effectively US agents. Sweden successfully litigated its warrant through the UK courts, including Assange's appeals, and Assange thereupon dropped his appeals, refusing to appeal his case to Strasbourg

"Susan Benn of the Julian Assange Defense Fund" is certainly welcome to persist in her beliefs that the Swedish authorities should interview Assange in the UK, just as the Swedish authorities are welcome to persist in their beliefs that Assange should return to Sweden to be interviewed there; the difference between these views is that the view of the Swedish authorities has prevailed in the UK courts and that the loser, Assange, decided not to appeal his case further, to Strasbourg. All this is therefore irrelevant as res judicata

So, where are we now? The establishment in Ecuador is mocking the sexual crimes allegation, according to The Nation article linked in the prior post: perhaps finally chivalry really is dead. And, once again, we hear the constant claim that the Swedish warrant is a subterfuge, masking a planned US extradition, likely to lead to Assange's torture or death? That seems unlikely because the Swedish courts are constitutionally isolated from political influence, but let us examine what the UK courts said: