06 September 2012

Julian Assange

Recent conversations remind me to observe that I find that I have no difficulty at all holding all of these ideas simultaneously:

  • Julian Assange is a hero for his work with Wikileaks
  • The vigorous pursuit of Assange to face trial for accusations of rape is unmistakably a political attack
  • The crime which Assange has been accused of committing is really rape, and really serious
  • It is right that he should stand trial because ...
    • The accusations are plausible
    • The accusations are plausibly false
  • If convicted, he should be punished under the law

If you remain unclear on what the accusation is and why it merits criminal prosecution, Alas, A Blog has a list of resources.

2 comments:

Al said...

If he stood trial, what assurances do we have that we could ever trust the verdict to be based on the truth and facts?

Jonathan Korman said...

The same assurances we always have. Which is admittedly not as much as one would want, but I'm not prepared to declare the Swedish government illegitimate on the basis of the Assange question.