The further political exploitation of the "Case Assange"

Even if the Swedish legal system would not be politically minded, the Swedish case VS. Assange is still political, and so are the government interferences in the legal case as well as the political exploitation of the "case" in Sweden and internationally. Further, does the Swedish legal system meet the commonly human-rights standards prevalent in countries such as Australia, the U.S. or GB? Certainly we have "Rättstat" - as PM Reinfelt stated - meaning fine State machinery and highly developed operative resources to enforce the promulgated laws on sexual offences. But the discussion is whether such laws - inclusive process regulations - are adequate; if the human-rights principle of equality in the administration of justice is preserved. Or whether this legislation can be used yet as another instrument for some hysterical and often delusional persecution of "crimes" State-feminist ideology ascribes structurally to the nature of men-gender.

Analysis

by Marcello Ferrada-Noli

In strict sense, my opinion is that, generally speaking, the Swedish legal system - including prosecution officials - is professionally-ethic minded and thus NOT adjustable to external political pressures. With this said, my opinion is also - and with facts grounding it - that, sectors from the government as well as from the political opposition, have indeed exercised political pressures through the media and interfered in the legal process against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Moreover, they have given the impression this is, or it should be, a national ideological crusade.

 Julian Assange portraits by great Australian artist Ingrid Skirka

The above means that we have to distinguish between: A) The political motives and actions behind the instigation/initiation of the legal process; B) The legal process it self ; and C) The critical characterization of the Swedish legal system as such.

A. The political motives and actions behind the initiation of the legal process

On the one hand we have the political motives and political actions behind the instigation/initiation of the legal process against the WikiLeaks founder J. Assange. 

I have already stated my opinion in this regard: I have got succesively the impression, later sustained by facts, that a chain of political events - including the active participation of politicians in the re-initiation of the case - have designed the case long before the dossier was actually opened by the new prosecutor. 

These politicians, such as co-propietors of the Law firm Bodström & Borgström, were directly or indirectly touched by the WikiLeaks disclosures on Sweden during the G. Persons's era (the "Egyptians" episode is one of such references insofar such operations were under the secret agreements sequence later disclosed by WikiLeaks cables).


A detailed description of the political motives either behind the legal process, or explaining the voracity of the ad-hominem campaigns in Sweden against "the person Julian Assange" - in fact WikiLeaks founder and front figure - are given in the analysis "This is Why". This document has received already over 350 twitter responses, for which I would dare say its arguments may be sufficiently explicative.


B. The legal process it self and the further political exploitation of the "Assange case"

On the other hand, as I have already expressed, once this legal process started, its juridical machinery has made impossible main modifications at the free initiative of the actors in this drama. The process has in the main only followed its legally predictable course.

However, a confounding factor brought about during the protracted legal process, has been the further political or ideological exploitation of it by a variety of political interests or organizations.

In Sweden,

This political utilization of the case Assange has been the case of lobby organizations pursuing a further radicalization of the Swedish rape legislation. They have said it crystal-clear: “The Assange case is a symbol” [See details in http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/201...issue-for.html].

Internationally,

The artificially prolonged process has made possible the "disarmament" of WikiLeaks, for instance through deprivation of funding. The procrastinated period has also served U.S. to prepare the Grand Jury case against Julian Assange and aimed to make it coincide with the Bradley Manning trial. I have previously developed on this subject, what I named the "protracted hypothesis" or "Operation Stalling":  
 

“Operation stalling”

The external-caused, protracted asphyxiation process of Wikileaks (economically, politically, and in the organization structure) apparently corresponds to a psychological-warfare design. I called it “Operation stalling" [See "Swedish psychological warfare against Wikileaks and Assange"], as it aims appears to be the procrastination of the "legal" process and corresponding verdicts of extradition and the like. 
 

While the Swedish part had ample possibilities of arrange the interrogation of Julian Assange already in Sweden, or even later while Assange was under police custody or arrest in London, what we could witnessed is instead an unnecessary or "constructed" delay. This procrastination seemingly was a sine-qua-non element in the strategy of asphyxiate Wikileaks economically; for the longer the process went on, the more aggravating turned the funding situation cause by the Visa/Mastercard transaction stop.

The strategically political damage to WikiLeaks was in this -design a) partly to immobilize, delay or obstruct the analyses of materials and editing, of for instance the so called cables-production, b) partly to discourage the collaborative material would to be send from the part of the public to Wikileaks, based in the notion that these individuals would wait until Wikileaks founder would be  “clear” of any wrongdoing. 
 

The economic blockade aimed concomitantly to asphyxiate Wikileaks also politically, as its political base and collaborative cadres, all of them engaged only altruistically and ad-honorem, neither could endure such long period, almost a year now. This situation also affects WikiLeaks organizational functioning, as the longer the time the undefined process persists, the more expensive the costs, and ultimately the totally draining of such funds. Actually, this was pointed out by Julian Assange long time ago, when in one of his appearance’s outside the court in the previous hearings compared the enormous resources put up in this legal process by Sweden, Britain or elsewhere, in contrast with the hyper limited resources at his disposal.
 

Further, on the specific battle front "Visa and Mastercard retaliated against Wikileaks" [See EC to stop Facebook's harvesting of personal information. But Swedish connection could be worse than ad-targeting operations] I postulated: 
 

"The rage of USA and Sweden against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.org is motivated far beyond the disclosures on "political" behaviours of government officials. It is because these political behaviours are in fact mainly concerned with the defence or promoting of the big corporate industry and business. In these regards, there is a total convergence between the ruling classes in USA and Sweden. We saw this distinctly in the WikiLeaks cable exposing the instruction of the US Embassy to the Swedish government in order to concrete legislate and crackdown on  "file-downloading" in detriment of US corporate business interests. That is also the real background of the Swedish trial against the Pirate Bay. Of course Visa and Mastercard would sooner or later retaliate against WikiLeaks. They are retaliating against transparency. Against the interest of the simple, humble customers. WikiLeaks has become in this regard an international spokes organization representing the interest of all, even isolated individuals, which all together form the deceived masses of a world governed by greed. Governments are only servants of such design."
 

Abandonment of Neutrality, warmongers and greed  upset Sweden genuine interests

 

Also, it is hardly a secret that the corporate world most hurt by the WikiLeaks disclosures has been the military industry as well as warmongers behind a variety of contemporary occupation wars. Including those in which Sweden participates under a foreign-power lead. 
 

Is the above patriotic? I do not think so. I deeply believe that Sweden’s best interest would be served by a foreign policy of Neutrality. And I do not mean “neutrality” in the sense of opportunistically avoiding taking sides in international conflicts. I mean, for example, the actively pursue of mediating in such conflicts for the cause of human rights and world peace. As it was in Sweden once upon a time.

In a previous post - comenting the Call-in program with PM Fredrik Reinfeldt at the National Swedish Radio 25/1 2012 -  I mentioned that the Prime Minister was finally given the following question by the program leader, journalist Andres Holmberg:  
 

- “Is it a problem for you Fredrik Reinfeldt, or for Sweden, that this type of descriptions emerges about Sweden, in the international press: A judicial banana republic?”
 

The Prime Minister of Sweden stated in his reply, among other:
 

- “We have naturally to stand up for we have a functioning legal state and also we take very seriously prosecutions that have to do with rape because there are also ingredients aiming to diminish how we have developed, and stand for, a good legislation in this case.”   
 

Later, a comment to one of my posts said on the above:
 

“Our prime minister has only stated that JA will get a fair trial and that rape is a severe crime, which is of course correct.”
 

Well, I say, I would understand that our Prime Minister, regardless what his personal reflections may be around this sad case, has to stand up for the defence of Sweden when sensing such harsh criticism by the international media. Anyone can easily understand that is his role. But this does not mean that for that aim he is necessarily factual or accurate in what he is defending. Besides, the main blunder – the so called “Egyptians case”, for which Sweden has been condemned by the very United Nations for violations of the Absolute Ban on Torture - has the present government inherited from the past social pro-Bush democratic government of Göran Persson and former Justice Minister Thomas Bodström (indirectly also a part in the Assange case). Nevertheless, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has indeed interfered through the media in the case. And this inervention is legally unproper and in itself damaging Sweden further. This information is fact-based (Please see “Swedish government using media to interfere in the legal process against Julian Assange” http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/201...interfere.html).
 

The same commenter contended that the feminists cohorts implementing the smear campaign ad-hominem against Julian Assange would be primarily rigth-wing (as I maintained) and he said they would be instead “a left radical feminist cohort.”  
 

[The comment refered to my statement: “This, mainly a right-wing radical-feminist cohort, includes notorious former gender-ombudsman Claes Borgström and several other politicians from the Social democratic party such as one of the Assange accusers, at the time the Political Secretary of the social democratic “Brotherhood” – as well as from State-feminists appointed also by the current government. This so called "radical" feminist campaign - which hardly represents the progressive, pro Human-Rights Swedish feminism - has declared openly and publicly that the case Assange is 'a symbol' in such struggle”] .
 

I would disagree, because the paramount notion of equality – which to the highest extent includes gender equality - it is among the fundamentals of leftists (socialist) as well as genuine liberal ideologies. 
 

Instead, the anti Human-Rights theses put forward in that regard by the sort “radical” feminism I criticize, aim to privilege one gender in their possibilities upon court. The notion that one gender should be given by law supremacy against the other is for me medieval and inquisitorial, and advocated during the past as well in present times only by ugly injustice worshipers, or worse: their fascist ideological counterparts.  
 

C. The critical characterization of the Swedish legal system as such - independent of the Assange case
 

Yet a different matter is the critical characterization of the Swedish legal system as such - independent of the Assange case -, as to whether the system meets the commonly human-rights standards as in for instance the mentioned countries U.S. and GB. In this item are to be listed the discussions about non-professional "judges" (the "nämndeman") appointed by the political parties, or the absence of bail, the one-week incommunicado, the trial behind close doors, the ostensible practice of passing guilty-verdicts without substantial evidence, the uneven credibility granted by the courts to women's testimony outweighing per definition men's credibility; or even the extent of the habeas corpus applicability. This being a principle regarding "juridical safety" which, quite remarkably, has not been examined in such discussions around the possible flaws in the Swedish legal system. In these regards, the declarations done by Prime Minister Reinfeldt the 25 of January 2012 in the Swedish Radio on that "we have a functioning legal system" little says about guaranteeing human-rights at the level developed in other democracies.
 

It is outmost important to recall that PM Reinfeldt has also said in 2011, referring to this subject, that in Sweden "we have a functioning Rättstat ('Law-State')". 

Certainly we have fine State machinery and highly developed operative resources to enforce the promulgated laws on sexual offences. But the discussion is whether such laws - inclusive process regulations - are adequate, if the human-rights principle of equality in the administration of justice is preserved. Or whether this legislation can be used yet as another instrument for some hysterical and often delusional persecution of "crimes" State-feminist ideology ascribes structurally to the nature of men-gender.

  

Wikileaks, J Assange, Assange,  media, yttrandehefrihet, transperans, wikileaks,  intressant? 

Media links. 1, 2, 3, 4