No exception for Assange: Rape apologetics and the left

[struggle4progress]

2. The UK courts have dealt exhaustively with procedural questions, raised by Assange's lawyers

during a year and a half before the judges, and some of those questions were directed against the differences between legal processes in the UK and in Sweden

I suppose it would greatly simplify such matters, if all countries followed exactly the same process, but in fact the various processes evolved at differing times and in differing cultures speaking differing languages, with the result that one cannot map the notions of proper UK legal procedure one-to-one upon the notions of proper Swedish legal procedure, nor can one blindly translate translate Swedish legal terminology into English

The judges in the UK grappled with these issues, and they ultimately concluded that Assange was wanted by Sweden so that he could be prosecuted for rape

You are, of course, free to hold the view that the Swedes are not entitled to their own prosecutorial process, and that the Swedish system is illegitimate, insofar as it does not entirely coincide with the system used by the UK, and you are free (if you insist on so doing) to hold that view that Swedish legal terminology is suspect, whenever its ideas do not translate instantly into recognizable phrases from the English common law; but if you hold such views, I will think you harbor gross nativist biases that render you unfit to comment on international matters, because you will be unable to understand any culture but your own