Julian Assange

If the prosecution against DSK is dropped, the myth that women, not men, lie about rape will prevail once more

Katrin Axelsson
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 July 2011

Julian Assange should not become the target for expressions of fury over sexism

French     Swedish

Katrin Axelsson
The Guardian, Friday 21 January 2011

Séries: Réponse

Julian Assange ne devrait pas devenir la cible d’une fureur contre le sexisme.

Katrin Axelsson
The Guardian, Vendredi 21 janvier 2011.

On 16-17 January 2011, Women Against Rape was quoted in a number of papers as “criticising” Julian Assange’s legal team for including the names of the women making allegations against Mr Assange in their skeleton argument.

The articles gave a misleading impression of our views. We never criticised or even mentioned Mr Assange’s legal defence in our comment to the Press Association. Following our complaint, the PA apologised for their mistake by circulating the advisory below with our full quote. Can you please publish and/or circulate this correction.

Press Association wire 19 January at 1635:

Letters, Guardian 9 December 2010

Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations (Report, 8 December). Women in Sweden don't fare better than we do in Britain when it comes to rape. Though Sweden has the highest per capita number of reported rapes in Europe and these have quadrupled in the last 20 years, conviction rates have decreased. On 23 April 2010 Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs-Posten that "up to 90% of all reported rapes never get to court. In 2006 six people were convicted of rape though almost 4,000 people were reported". They endorsed Amnesty International's call for an independent inquiry to examine the rape cases that had been closed and the quality of the original investigations.

The rape allegations against Julian Assange have become entangled with the politics centred on Wikileaks. In the last few months this has led to the publication on the internet of the names of the women involved, and to a call for women who report rape to lose their anonymity. Rape victims’ right to anonymity and defendants’ right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, are both crucial. We oppose the use of rape for political agendas which undermine protection and justice for both rape victim and accused. We are appalled that rape allegations may be manipulated to facilitate Mr Assange’s extradition or even rendition to the US where elected officials have called for his execution for his Wikileaks activities. How can anyone ignore this threat? WAR cannot. We oppose the death penalty for any crime, let alone when no charges have been brought.

14 Jan 2011

The report is from 14 Dec 2010 and is 14 mins 50 sec into the program

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtl3

Following our complaint Gilligan’s Daily Telegraph blog has changed somewhat. But where is the apology for his slanderous misrepresentation of WAR?

Women who are fighting for justice for themselves or their children are astounded at the zeal with which Julian Assange has been pursued. Questions need to be asked about the authorities’ motivation when men who pose an obvious immediate danger to women and girls are treated more leniently.

In our 34 years of dealing with rape – including cases of extreme violence where women have suffered years of domestic violence and repeated rape sometimes at knife point – we have seen defendants let out on bail, and police and prosecutors biased against rape survivors. One of the women in our group has been fighting for justice for her daughter who was raped when she was under age; it took the police several months to arrest the man though they had his address. In those months he raped another young woman.

Julian Assange bör inte bli måltavla for uttryck av raseri över sexism

Katrin Axelsson, The Guardian, Fredag 21 Januari 2011