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British Government, Julian Assange, and an international precedent...
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Post by
Squishalot
So, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the ongoing saga of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, but in the latest developments (as far as I can tell):
1) Assange sought asylum with Ecuador, and has been holed up at Ecuador's embassy in London for the last two months.
2) Britain has stated that it intends to comply with an extradition request issued by Sweden to deport Assange back to Sweden to meet several criminal charges, even if it means exercising a law that allows them to revoke the embassy's diplomatic status.
3) Ecuador has subsequently granted diplomatic asylum to Assange.
So if the British Government decide to revoke the embassy's status, commentators are suggesting that it will set an international precedent that a ruling government can basically ignore political asylum seekers at foreign embassies on their soil. Which might be bad, if the ruling government happens to be a dictatorship.
What are people's thoughts?
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
I know its probably way more complicated than this, but....
I realize that embassy's are considered to be "soil" of the country that that they represent, so fine, the embassy is considered "soil" of Ecuador.
But, the airsapce above, and all other means of "escape" from London would require, at least for some brief moment, for him to be on British soil....so arrest him as soon as he steps on foot off protected ground.
His choices at that point would be to live out the rest of his life inside the walls of the embassy, or face the justice that he deserves.
Lock down the airspace so he could not be flown out by helicopter, and, even though I believe vehicles have the same immunity as the embassy grounds, if he exits the vehicle, arrest him then.
There has to be, or at least there "should" be, some way to be abe to arrest a criminal that is physically in your country, but "technially" not, due to embassy status.
Embassy's should be there to provide protection to innocent people, not as a way to harbor fugitives.
Post by
gamerunknown
Since when has Assange been tried by a jury of his peers?
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Izichial
Swedish law and the European Convention obliges Sweden not to extradite Assange to the USA because of the death penalty. Besides, it's not even up to Sweden - the request to have him handed over has been made to the UK. If he is moved to Sweden the only thing that Sweden can legally do with him is to have him stand trial for the sexual assault charges against him here. Once that is done he will have to be handed back to the UK to face charges for breaking his bail conditions (which as pikeyboy pointed out is a crime).
William Hague (the British foreign minister) said at a press conference this Thursday that there were no plans to storm the embassy. I'd interpret that as they're no longer considering revoking the embassy status as previously threatened precisely because of the dangerous precedent it would set. If anyone has an English language article on the press conference I'd appreciate a link as I've only been able to find the quotes in translation.
That said the
law in question
that would potentially allow the UK to revoke the embassy status is a
British
law. The precedent it would set to use it to revoke the embassy would not necessarily be a legal one for other countries - but then again it doesn't really need to be. For countries that treat laws as means to an end when they feel like it it would certainly not make much of a difference. Just thought I'd point it out. Also, I've not seen anyone consider this part of the same law:
(4)The Secretary of State shall only give or withdraw consent or withdraw acceptance if he is satisfied that to do so is permissible under international law.
Embassy's should be there to provide protection to innocent people, not as a way to harbor fugitives.
A sentiment that can not be made to work in practice. The law can not differentiate between the two in regards to how embassies can be treated, nor should it be allowed to even if it could. Someone accused of destabilising the state (they probably have more than a few of these in law but let's say it's something particularly arbitrary with severe penalties) in China is as much a fugitive if he or she flees to another country's embassy there as someone who litters in front of a cop in Denmark and flees to the Chinese embassy there.
Ecuador is hardly a shining torch of human rights and free speech so it's rather ironic they refer to human rights as a reason to grant Assange asylum. Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, has been called "openly hostile to media" by Freedom House and is ideologically rather close to Hugo Chavéz - with that in mind chances are the only reason Assange was granted asylum is so that Ecuador could annoy western nations in general and the US in particular. Correa's ramblings about "colonial thought processes" when making statements on this matter doesn't exactly discourage that conclusion. A number worthy of mention here is also that Transparency International ranks the independence of courts in Ecuador at 130 out of 142 investigated countries. So much for making a fuss about the legal basis of things, eh.
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