kravietz š¦No, I do believe the situation with Assangeās prosecution was quite embarrassing for both sides, but still more for Assange. He escaped sexual assault charges and spent seven years in voluntary imprisonment in Ecuadorian embassy only to avoid a fair trial on espionage charges, which Chelsea Manning went through, did her time in prison and is walking free again. My ācasual reminderā post was intended for people who did not follow Assange for years and could have a false impression that his plea deal with US is some kind of āfree speechā win. Since ~2010 Assangeās activity had nothing to do with free speech because you canāt claim free speech if you block release of incriminating documents for one party.
Simon Brooke@kravietz @grouchox @hajovonta It's also worth saying that the sexual assault claims against #Assange are consistent and plausible. They haven't been tested in court because he fled Sweden so that they could not be tested in court, but if we're going to say #IBelieveHer, that has to apply just as much to people we otherwise think of as heroes as to those we know are villains.
They absolutely were plausible - I wrote in another comment that people tend to mix the fact of these charges being filed (which was done by the victims, and they often spoke about it to the press later on), Assange escaping Sweden (which he himself did) and then how various media presented it - which obviously each media did their way, some presenting him as a victim, some as a dangerous sexual predator. But none of these last two items doesnāt disprove or cancel the original police report that started the whole chain of events that made Assange voluntarily locked up in Ecuadorian embassy for years.
Jennifer Moore š·I think believing women should remain the default. If we hold this accusation slightly differently from usual, for me the difference wouldn't be what I think of Assange himself (I don't find it inherently unbelievable of him), it would be keeping in mind that extremely well-resourced systems had an interest in discrediting him at the time. If he did what the women said, in a sense it's their bad luck that these other circumstances are in play to muddy the water.