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WIKILEAKS

MARCELLO FERRADA-NOLI OM WIKILEAKS

Professor: Assangefallet visar att Karl Marx hade rätt

Publicerad: 2011-02-28, Uppdaterad: 2011-02-28

Predictably, the London courts ruled no-extradition in favour of mass murderer Augusto Pinochet while assisted by his lawyer Clare Montgomery. The USA friendly dictator could return to Chile where he remained free and unpunished. Predictably again, the same courts rules the opposite – yes to extradition - in the case of libertarian publisher and USA enemy Number One Julian Assange, after the request from Sweden which is represented by the very same Pinochet’s attorney, Clare Montgomery.

OM FÖRFATTAREN

Publishes in Sweden Professors blogg, which has extensively treated the case Assange, including guest-contributions by Noemi Wolf and Andrew Kreig. Marcello Ferrada-Noli is PhD in Psychiatry (Karolinska Institutet) and Professor Emeritus in Public Health Sciences. Formerly Research Fellow in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. At present Senior Advisor at the Department of Immunology, Stockholm University.

The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), originally an erudite on Epicurean Greek philosophy, left also to posterity a prolific amount of political-philosophical writings and theses. Some among of those have history neglected as unfeasible and were sentenced to collect dust in the Utopia-shelve of our libraries. Yet, some of those analyses have remained amazingly prevalent regardless epochs or latitudes. One among these is the description of social superstructure, i.e. juridical institutions, laws, moral, religion, and all what form the cultural sphere of societies, that, according to the philosopher, will always follow the direction given by the economic and thus political interests governing theinfrastructure of those societies (The German Ideology, 1846).

No one has ever been able to refute the Supersestructure Theory. Instead, we daily receive a confirmation of its postulates. With regard to the juridical sphere, a conclusion derived from such theory is that there is no such a thing as “objective” law, in the sense of objective, non-biased distribution of justice.

As expected, when I filed in 1998 an extradition case against mass murderer Augusto Pinochet   - being the former dictator at that time in London (see my article in Bränpunkt, SvD, 6 November 1998) -  the London courts with the intervention of the British government ruled no-extradition in favour of the request put forward by the dictator’s lawyer Clare Montgomery. The once CIA-appointed dictator could then return to Chile where he remained free and unpunished. My request to get Pinochet extradited to Sweden or Norway was filed in support of a similar process lead by Spanish magistrate Baltazar Garzón.  Pinochet had been accused among other of being the responsible for ordering the killing under torture (so called disappearance-cases) of my personal friends Dr. Bautista Van Schowen and Edgardo Enríquez.

Unsurprisingly again, when Sweden requested upon the London courts the extradition of USA’s enemy number one, the libertarian Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks – and for the task they asked Pinochet’s lawyer Clare Montgomery –  the London Court ruled the opposite: Yes to extradition.

Claire Montgomery, the lawyer representing Sweden, had received a world reputation of her own when she declared publicly that “Torture is not international crime” (AP).  Her statement echoes still strong in circles of political refugees and torture survivors of the Pinochet regime. I am personally quite sensitive to such stands, and, as a Swedish citizen by political adoption, I deeply regret such choice made by Swedish authorities in selecting the attorney that would defend Sweden’s case.

 Torture IS indeed a crime. At least a ten percent of the Swedish population is foreign-born, a group allocating considerable cohorts of political refugees. They would experience a deep concern on that high officials of the social democratic government still do not face trial for their alleged implication in the CIA rendition flights (political refugees under Swedish custody, that were transported from Swedish soil to brutal torture elsewhere).

In that respect, it is just odd that Judge Howard Riddle ruled out any possibility that Julian Assange could be subjected to rendition (imprisonment and or eventually torture elsewhere outside Sweden), referring that the ”only live evidence on the point came from the defence witness Mr Alhem”. The only “evidence” put forward by former prosecutor Alhem, to the best of my recall, was his opinion on that if so the case it would cause a “media storm” in Sweden!

What “media storm” have we ever witnessed in Sweden every time it has been known that Swedish authorities have collaborated in the CIA rendition flights, which ended in the torture of a number of political prisoners taken illegally from Sweden?

What “media storm” ensued the revelations 2004 in the resarch-journalism program Kalla Fakta (TV4) containing an interview with the former head of the Swedish Security Police (SÄPO), Jan Danielsson, who affirmed he unequivocally remembers SÄPO took contact with the Ministry of Justice on the “sensitive issue” of the approved extraordinary renditions of political prisoners to the USA?

I would not say, however, that former prosecutor Alhem’s statement would have “mislead” Judge Riddle to a wrong conclusion, to the naive notion that every foreign-born political activist signaled by the USA of being a terrorist – like in the case of Julian Assange - is at good safe in Sweden. In my opinion, the verdict to extradite Assange to phase-Sweden it was already written in the superestructure’s Bible.

The Swedish Minister of Justice at the time of the CIA-renditions referred above was Thomas Bodström, who was reported on those grounds to the Swedish Constitutional Committee. His connection in the case Assange is something I have trace to statements documented by Thomas Bodström himself. As I have previously mentioned here in Newsmill, he stated  in his blog “Bodströmsamhället” the 3 December 2010 that “it isour law firm that represent the plaintiff (the nominally accuser-women in the Assange case) through Claes Borgström” ["Det är vår advokatbyrå genom Claes Borgström som är målsägandebiträde"].

All these facts, I repeat facts, such as Bodström being an influent member in a social democratic group, in which one of the accusers of Assange was at the time of the complaint a paid employee of such organization. Or the fact revealed by Claes Bogström in his Guardian interview that the case against Assange was reopened on the cause of his initiative (read Bodström & Borgström law-firm, according to Tomas Bodström) and not by initiative of the young women appearing nominally as the complainers, etc. All this chain of facts is far from being non-sourced “speculations” or “rumours”.

Certainly there are many journalists and articles from Sweden which are serious and objective-report abiding.  They are however, as I have said previously, few against the mainstream.

Instead, the standard design in most of the Swedish press – apart of what I described in the  Swedish Trial by the Media of Julian Assange – seems to be very simple: a) ignoring to publish or comment relevant facts, b) as an alternative focus, to indulge in publishing and ridicule the numerous rumours and conspiracy-thesis  circulating  around the Assange case – and that nothing have to do with what Julian Assange himself have really said, as he has recently clearly explained and c) just lye bluntly when reporting on news that absolutely it would not  be possible to leave unreported. This is for instance the case of the verdict of Judge Howard Riddle on the Assange extradition-request defended by Clare Montgomery on Sweden’s behalf.

Dagens Nyheter, in the article by Dan Lucas “Assange utlämnas till Svensk domstol” (25 February 2011, page 13. Not on-line, why?) states:

“Articles in the Swedish press would have attacked Assange so hard, as he cannot expect a fair trial (in Sweden) according to (Assange’s) defence”. . .”But those arguments were dismissed away by Riddle ” (in “those” included the DN-article Assange’s lawyers critical stand on PM Reinfeldt’s declarations on the case).

That is utterly untrue.

I have monitored particularly this issue since it was me who authored the witness-statement in that regard (the Swedish media hostile treatment of Assange) presented by the lawyers upon the London Court.

One thing is that such witness statement was “not referred to in open court”, because the judge did not consider the additional material submitted by the lawyers 22 February on the formal ground it was such close date to the verdict. But a completely another thing is to expressly manifest, as the referred DN article does, that Riddle disregarded this and/or other reports giving a panorama on the unfair media hostility against Assange. Otherwise is not comprehensible that Judge Riddle referred particularly to this issue in his “Summary of the facts found” (see below).

In fact, the Swedish main newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, in an article authored by journalist Karin Thurfjell 24 February 2011 reports that Judge Riddle concluded on the verdict issued today that “there is a significant negative publicity about Assange in Sweden“.

In the chapter “Summary of the facts found” of the Court verdict, Judge Howard Riddle concludes unequivocally in item 19 (page 10), among other: “There has been considerable adverse publicity in Sweden for Mr Assange, in the popular press,”

In my witness statement I had written concretely that my analysis pointed “to a significant over-representation of negative assessments” about Assange in Swedish media articles.

The establishment’s popular media has indeed its impact in Sweden’s morning paper-readers. Their on-line editions have however to compete with new, more advanced debate and news-media. This would explain why certain articles, such as the mentioned above from Dagens Nyheter, cannot afford a scrutiny of its uncertain content.

Swedish authorities and rulers in diverse spheres take for granted that what it is said in their media are what the Swedes as a whole would digest. Let me remind the following to these authorities and rulers, while still they might ponder to decide the extradition of Assange to the USA.

Sweden has one of the highest computer-use per capita, world-wide. Just one of these on-line forums devoting numerous threads on the Assange case is for instance Flashback. Flashback have on Julian Assange alone two and a half million views visiting over 25 000 posts. That forum alone have a membership of over half million users, in a country with a total population of only nine million.

A further analysis demonstrating the ostensibly lack of objectivity in Judge Riddle verdict, particularly on his unfair and inexact comment on witnesses Brita Sundberg-Weiman and Björn Hurtig, can be found in this recent post at Professors blog .

A main point of the Superstructure theory referred above, in regard to the judges and politicians’ privileges in the administration of a law, in a juridical system constructed by themselves, to protect themselves, can be summarized in the Assange case with help of a telegraphic-wise reflection I seized from the twittering ensuing Riddle’s verdict:

“Spain could not extradite Pinochet on war crimes, #wikileaks #assange extradited on broken condom? UK legal system a joke! “.

Marx was right in this one. He was buried in London.

Marcello Ferrada-Noli)

 

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Why are Swedish political parties and MSM altogether hostile against WikiLeaks and Assange?

As far the “accusations-item” is concerned, Sweden has at-large demonstrated it is NOT interested in ending the legal case. The only interest Sweden has demonstrated is in trying to obtain the extradition  – by any means possible – of Assange to Sweden, where Assange would be kept incommunicado-status behind bars as per standard legal procedure in Sweden.  The extradited-prisoner status of Assange (the status he would have if taken prisoner to Sweden) enables other “juridical” possibilities for Sweden, respective to USA, that were not accessible at the time he would have been interrogated by the Swedish prosecutor when he was free in Sweden. This situation may be one explanation why Assange was led to understand he was “free to travel”.

The Swedish legal extradition process against Assange, and the Swedish legal process regarding the accusation “by the two women” against Assange, are in the main two different things – and only euphemistically connected. Those two different things have wrongly been mixed up in the discussions around the “juridical case”. The synthesis of this dialectics confirms conclusively that the Swedish “legal” case against Assange is solely the political case of USA against WikiLeaks.

The known homogeneity or “consensus” between the Swedish political parties appears most visible in a) matters of foreign policy, b) issues of  “National security”, or c) any topic that might compromise the prestige or trademarks of Sweden abroad. And we find the Assange case implicated by the Swedish authorities in those three items altogether.

“In the case of Assange (among others) Sweden has time and again violated its own procedures and laws. The Swedish State is both persecuting Assange and failing in its responsibilities to the Swedish women involved in the case. A hard analytical look at what (and who) has brought us to this point is fully justified.” Recent comment by Treisiroon in Professors blogg

By Marcello  Ferrada de Noli, Bergamo, Italy

In the Swedish forum Flashback, two commentators – “Wtfuk” and “GoodwinStrawman” – posted today interesting reflections about the apparently consensual activities by the Swedish political parties, meaning that irrespective of any right-wing or left-wing ideologies, no essential differences exist between them, irrespectively if they were right-wing or left-wing. “GoodwinStrawman” gives as an explanation that both political cohorts (the right-wing and left-wing) would be serving “the one and same master”, namely “the few big finance families”. Although the commentator is apologetic on whether his thesis would sound conspiracy-minded.

This is what I have to say on this topic, in reference to the Swedish case against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange:

Serving the few big families’ financial interests – the “de få stora finansfamiljerna” as mentioned by GoodwinStrawman – may be a plausible explanation (and not so conspiracy-minded, but factual). However, there are yet other paramount factors behind this political behaviour of consensus (see below). Also, in regard to corporative interests, the “Swedish” financial panorama has to be understood in a global basis, not only in domestic terms, namely an increasing phenomena of international concentration of economic power: The originally Swedish private ownership of domestic-based companies, institutions or corporations is increasingly tied with international capital. This arrangement, in turn is staunchly protected by global political alliances (such as the Bildergerg Group, which is a very good illustration of these endeavours), and of course their corresponding military shield (NATO). No wonder Carl von Clausewitz defined war as “the continuation of politics by other means”.

The “consensus” between the Swedish political parties mentioned by GoodwinStrawman appears – in my opinion – most visible in a) matters of foreign policy, b) issues of “National security”, and c) any topic that might compromise the prestige or trademarks of Sweden abroad. And we find the Assange case implicated in those three items.

In “The Seven Pillars Of Deception”, Part I, we asked,  Is Sweden Motivated by Revenge? And I referred among others to these facts, summarizing:

The WikiLeaks cables have disclosed several democracy-corruption episodes regarding Swedish rulers, exposure that has ostensibly damaged the Sweden trademark. Further, Wikileaks cables have lead recent investigations into huge economic corruption scandals as enacted by the Swedish state-owned Telia Sonera – discussed in the above mentioned.

But in spite the WikiLeaks cables were NOT specifically directed to target just Sweden, neither authored by WikiLeaks. And although he cables are instead untouched transcriptions of reports from the US embassies all over the world:

The Swedish establishment – i.e. the government, the military complex, the mainstream media, the “cultural elite”, and the established political parties – have a) partly reacted with vengeful and draconian measures against WikiLeaks – the messenger, and b) as the international forum world has witnessed, also with the use of vilifying attacks on the person Julian Assange.

Not all the WikiLeaks cables on Sweden are connected with what it is advertised as “National security“ interests, but some are. However, about this item it is important to bear in mind that Sweden does no longer exercises an independent national-interests minded foreign policy, but one strictly subordinated to a “främmande makt”, namely to USA/NATO interests. The Swedish military occupation of Afghanistan territories, done under USA-command, is one practical military example. A political doctrinal example is found in the appointment by NATO of the Swedish Ministry of Defence as the main megaphone of the new NATO economic-programme towards EU countries. For more on this, see Tolgfors’ own declarations in his SvD debate article of 15 Jan 2012 or in The NATO factor. The Extradition process initiated in Sweden against the WikiLeaks founder is to the uppermost extent POLITICAL.

In the new Swedish pro-NATO defence order, it is entirely possible for Swedish troops to remain in combat in USA wars – as in Afghanistan – for years; while in defending Swedish territory these troops would not stand “more than seven days” (this last, according to recent declarations by the Commander in Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces – ÖB).

Another example was the abolition of the Varnplikt system, which in actual fact served admirably, for years in maintaining and reproducing a genuine National-Security spirit of cohesion among old and new generations of Swedes. Amid this “både rött och blått a lá sverige”, as Wtfuk put it explicitlly, not a single political party in Sweden has protested against this new, in fact “anti-Sweden” kamikaze order in defence affairs.

Perhaps a clearer illustration of the above mentioned Swedish identification with USA’s corporative interests, which is in fact consensually implemented by all the Swedish traditional political parties, was given at the deliberations at the Swedish Parliament on 1 April 2011. There all the traditional parties, including the so-called Vänster Partiet led by “communist” Lars Ohly (and formerly by “international feminist” Gudrun Schyman) voted in accordance to the Reindfelt-Bildt proposition of sending the Swedish Air Force to surveillance-assist the bombardment of Libyans in order to retake the oil in favour of the companies represented in the Bilderberg consortium [I commented the event in Om Sverigedemokraternas utrikes politik är ”osvensk” vad är då Socialdemokraternas? Och kampen för Assange och Mannings frihet fortsätter.

The collaboration of Sweden in giving USA time for the preparations of the Grand Jury against Assange - including the possibilities of connecting it with the Manning trial [see "Stalling hypothesis" in Timing The Process] – is another example. I found this is a plausible reason of the neglectful, artificial refusal on the part of Sweden to simply interrogate Assange (in Sweden 2010 and thereafter in London), or drop the case.

For details on the US Grand Jury preparations against the WIkiLeaks founder Julian Assange I refer here to this material, republished in Professors blogg after courtesy of Senator Scott Ludlam [See doc.  Senator Ludlam to Carr on Grand Jury-1].

In addition, and considering the context above, the Assange case has been converted (perhaps by design or perhaps by own dynamics) at the highest level to an issue of international prestige for Sweden. This explains involvement by both the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (See their website) and the Swedish Ministry of Defence (See FOI high-ranking official’s public declarations in SvT here) in the anti-WikiLeaks / anti-Assange campaign. Besides, I have in a variety of occasions referred to the Trial by Media exercised by the Swedish MSM and prominent Swedish journalists, and which point to exactly the same thing: Truth is concealed, or truth is even ridiculed by some Swedish journalists. The same thing happened during the (Thomas Bodström era) ferocious police repression in the Gothenburg anti-Bush protests: The International press attending the event was perplexed as to the Swedish journalists docile reporting, basically reproducing the government’s press releases. Another prominent example in which media served as a willing mouthpiece to the State was the role of the Swedish MSM under the Carl Bildt’s agitated, or invented, “Soviet submarine activities in Swedish waters” during the 90′s.

Most recently, it was when Sweden lost with lowest number of country-votes their bid for a post in the United Nations body for Human Rights. While the event was reported abroad, it was almost completely ignored by the Swedish press. I believe the only exception was an article in SvD, which instead commented (after it was known on the catastrophic election results) how despicable and inefficient such UN Human Rights organizations are. Aesop in Swedish: surt sa räven om rönnbären (The Fox And The Grapes).

Would these “foreign-policy” or “Swedish international prestige” factors be enough to explain the astonishingly, consistent consensus of the Swedish political parties in categorizing both the Assange “process” and Julian Assange as a person? The characterizations of Assange by both functionaries of the Ministry of Defence and the Swedish National Television as an enemy of Sweden (“Assange blackmailing the entire Nation of Sweden” and “Assange, Sweden’s Number One enemy”, respectively) are of course echoed by several political personalities, from Prime Minister Reinfeldt himself to the Christian Democratic Party leader (see list of utterances in the letter by Senator Scott Ludlam to Foreign Minister Bob Carr [See doc. Carr prejudicial statements]  of the 24 of January 2013, recently translated into Swedish in Professorsblogg)

Or there is other idiosyncratic factors that would also contribute in explaining this very peculiar phenomena of “national” consensus of denial in front of obvious anomalies about the “Affair Assange”, that have strongly and objectively been denounced in the international arena – the most aggravating of all being the indications that Swedish authorities are in this case – but also in others – infringing Sweden’s own legal order, procedures and regulations in order to comply with their vassal  self-commitment to a foreign power [see in Professors blogg Swedish/U.S. Intelligence co-operation in the Bodström Society. THIS, and the spectacle provided by the complicity of known Swedish journalists in defaming or concealing truth, is what is definitely discrediting Sweden internationally.

Finally, further factors that would explain the Swedish “consensus” or uniformity in the journalistic reporting are described in previous articles, such as

MSM Journalists Trained by Swedish Military Intelligence,

On Torture. The Swedish-media paradox and the case against Assange,

Plan Z: the latest national chauvinist campaign anti-WIkiLeaks in the Swedish media,

or in the analysis Does Sweden Inflict Trial by Media against Assange?

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Continue to IV Part in this series

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WikiLeaks cables in the disclosing of further episodes of political corruption in Sweden. Further revenge expected

“Corruption”, independently if of political or economic nature, is a very sensitive thing among Swedes – a country that has ranked among the top least corrupted countries in the world – positioning that Swedes had all reason to feel proud of. Moreover, as referred in a BBC article quoted down below in the text, people in Sweden declare “We see ourselves as a model for other countries”, and they genuinely believe it. However, as statistics from Transparency International show, Sweden not only is not the No 1 country, but its position in the corruption-ranking is successively in the raising according to the statistics.

On the other hand, one aspect of “political corruption” in any democracy is the conspiracy behaviour that certain governments deploy against their own citizens.  Precisely because of the secret nature of those deeds, they have not been known by the Swedish public, some times neither by the Parliament. The WikiLeaks cables have disclosed several of those democracy-corruption episodes regarding Swedish rulers (see down below and previous post), exposure that has ostensibly damaged the Sweden trademark. Further, Wikileaks cables have lead investigation into huge economic corruption scandals as enacted by the Swedish state-owned Telia Sonera – discussed also in this article.

But WikiLeaks cables were NOT specifically directed to target just Sweden, neither authored by WikiLeaks. The cables are instead untouched transcriptions of reports from the US embassies all over the world. Is this revenge from the Swedish authorities justified at all?

The Swedish establishment – i.e. the government, the military complex, the mainstream media, the “cultural elite”, and the established political parties – have a) partly reacted with vengeful and draconian measures against WikiLeaks – the messenger. Therefore, among other ill-fated accusations, the world has also witnessed the vilifying attacks on the person Julian Assange by the Swedish Foreign Office and the Swedish press; and b) partly with a vigorous PR campaign towards a restatement of their uncorrupted-country status. This has eventually been done at times in an exaggerated or untruthful fashion, such as  in the chauvinistic Twitter-campaign “Sweden No. One uncorrupted country in the world” which is touched upon here, only by the side, with a minor statistical rectification.

A remarkable aspect in the sample of political corruption scandals here reviewed, is that at the end the corrupted deeds were covered up and the responsible politicians NEVER taken to justice. This, and that the Media or the elected Parliament do not properly exercise their democratic role of control, is in my opinion the most peculiar of all.

This series

This new series against the backdrop of the Swedish case against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, deals with fallacious myths about correctness in some Swedish institutions, advertised cultural norms or legal praxis. Specifically, the series analyses known trademark delusions (i.e. “neutrality”, “rule of law”, etc) on which the government of Sweden has built upon the international offensive aimed at the decimation of WikiLeaks and their declared Number One Enemy Julian Assange. It is important to bear in mind that what is analysed is the political behaviour of Swedish establishment politicians, particularly in the context of Human Rights. It is NOT about the Swedish society as such or much less regarding the dignified and honest Swedish nationals – equally victims of a political deception. The series also examines the political and moral issues behind Sweden’s recent international collapse of 2012, when Sweden obtained the lowest preference among the voting delegates regarding Sweden’s own candidacy for becoming a member of the United Nations’ Human-Rights organization. And this is the Sweden that just some years ago was internationally acclaimed for its Olof Palme, and for a noble commitment for peace, fairness in justice and human rights for all. It is high time for the Swedish people to wake up from this political nightmare. 

The first part in the series questions the repeated assertion of Sweden as “the least corrupted country in the world” which often goes together with the official claim that instead Assange is “the cause of the international discredit of Sweden”. Others parts in the series analyse: 2. “Does the Swedish government obeys the legal system and courts in the rendition and extradition cases requested by the US”? 3.  What is behind the Swedish phenomenon of “political consensus”? 4. “What could end Sweden’s prestige-bound deadlock of the case Assange?” 5. “Is Sweden a modern monarchy strictly under the rule of law (Rättstat)?” 6. “Is Sweden an ethnic and gender-equal country?” [not a theme about immigration policy right/wrong or immigrants good/bad. It only examines the actual situation of ethnic and gender-equality in regard to government actions] 7. “Has Sweden a free press in contrast to Ecuador, and how professional are Swedish journalists?”

By Marcello Ferrada de Noli

A personal foreword about the title, and on Palme and Assange in MSM

The friendly proof-readers in my previous series (@TreisiRoon and @Li_Rex9) may be at this point familiar – if not fatigued – with my constant query: “what title should I be giving to the article?” For, sincerely, I am no good at heading articles. So, unwilling to bother them during this holiday-time, this time I tried to manage on my own. In the process (see here below) certain associations – even amid displeasure – drove me to nostalgia. If it was not vice-versa, that nostalgia was instead which led me to recollections of book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, by T.H. Lawrence. I explain here.

It was seen the SvT documentary on the great Swedish socialist, the late Olof Palme, aired on the 2 of January. The documentary – by Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander – showed also sequences of Palme’s visit to Cuba 1975 (I lived by then in Sweden).

Above video with a synopsis of the documentary

The Palme documentary had a vast audience. Of course it was to be used by the (needless to say, right wing) Swedish MSM for political propaganda. The day after the documentary, on the 3 of January, I faced with sorrow the ferocious attack against Palme’s memory in an editorial in the leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN). The vilifying editorial “Olof Palme. Politicians are rarely saints” signed by a journalist of name Erik Elmerson, falsely accused Palme – among other things – of nothing less than having personally bribed the Indian authorities to help sell (Bofors) weaponry purchased by India.  [(Palme) sålde krigsmateriel till diktaturer (Saudiarabien) och med hjälp av mutor (Indien).]

Of course this is an attempt by the plutocratic MSM to “balance” recent accusations by a team of honest journalists at SvT, which have recently exposed the international bribe-scandal of Swedish giant telecommunications company Telia Sonera (it will be also treated here in this article).

The “Bribe”-accusation on Palme was a particular vilifying and ad hominem lie in the editorial, and which forced DN to publish a retraction afterwards. A retraction – I thought – that it is not likely we will ever hear from the Swedish MSM regarding the lying and personal insulting (e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,) on the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – declared in Sweden No. One enemy of the state. For which political organizations or “cultural elite” defends Palme in Sweden? In fact no other political figure has been so smeared in Sweden after Palme – who eventually was assassinated – than Julian Assange. Why this solid, compact smearing? Some explanations here: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

To helping the establishment’s MSM smearing of Palme, the sate-sponsored Film Institute nominated for the most important Swedish award the anti Palme film “Call Girl”. This perfide alliance between the MSM and the so-called Swedish “Cultural Elite” occasioned a variety of twitters by professors blog – eventually with some replying by the American media Professor Christian Christensen, employed at the University of Uppsala.

Further, the DN editorial of 3 January pinched a very sensitive node in of my recollections on Cuba, memories re-enacted with the documentary just the day before. The said DN editorial runs a sub-headline in text directly related to the statement: “Among the most aggravating are the (documentary) sequences of Palme’s “Cuba trip” visit to Cuba where he (is seen) fairly creeping in front of Fidel Castro’s uniform”. [Till det mest graverande hör scenerna från Palmes Kubaresa 1975. Han mer eller mindre kryper innanför Fidel Castros uniform] (DN’s enphasis).

None of these things happened in the documentary. Instead, what is seen in the streets of Havana are the images of that dignified proletarian crowd, that, while waving Cuban and Swedish flags to Palme the hero mirrored on their faces the tragic struggle of David against Goliath: Cuban women and men, and children, seen wearing clean but impoverish clothing tailored by the US blockade; Cuban soldiers are seen parading with pride while holding their hope of survival in old Kalashnikovs. Etc, etc. Here in that editorial DN is simply being unfair, vulgar, and above all deceiving to the readers.

I can tell that also because all those scenes are taken only some years after I was in Havana myself – and not much had changed by then. And of course all those scenes showing the military reminded me of the time when I received combat training on guerrilla warfare in the very same Cuban capital in 1964. I was then 20 years old; but combat memories are for life, for the good or not.

The recollections by association continued. That guerrilla training was interesting in many ways but I had already received combat baptism. In fact, I have participated in the uprisings of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil December 1963, and in Panama City  – where I was ricochet-wounded on the 10 January 1964 while taking pictures of the event. I was later transported to Mexico for assistance at the Thorax Hospital in Mexico City. Excelsior published the pictures I took in Panama. My doctor in Mexico City was Carlos Noble, also the Hospital Director, and thus  he could also manage to provide me there shelter.

It was a long wait in Mexico for my Cubana de Aviación flight to Havana. Blockade, scarce flights, scarcity of seats and a long waiting list. My Cuban contact – the Cultural Attaché at the Embassy in Santiago of the name Payán (not originally from the Communist Party, but from the Directorio Revolucionario 13 de Marzo) suggested that I should – while waiting for my flight – occupy my time with a certain reading list.

In that list among other titles was “The seven pillars of wisdom”, for the book told also in detail about tactics of guerrilla warfare. It was the only book in the list that I managed to read and actually not even finished for the reading was interrupted by the Cuban embassy’s communication that my flight to Havana was due. The associations triggered by the infamous DN editorial of 3 January 2013 inspire the title of this new series, a following of  “Sweden Versus Assange – Insider analyses”:

The seven pillars of deception

Introduction to the series

Main characterization of the Swedish psyop strategy in tackling their blunder on the “Assange case”

First, the Swedish psyop strategy in tackling their blunder on the “Assange case” is devised by the authority to target both 1. The domestic public, and 2. International audiences. International audiences are targeted by the government agencies of Sweden and their collaboration with journalists in the MSM aiming both to counter arrest the decrease of the international prestige Sweden has suffered consecutively since the assassination of their Prime Minister Olof Palme, but in an avalanche-like fashion since Sweden’s initiation of hostilities against WikiLeaks through a fashion many consider unfair, if not preposterous, such as the phony legal process against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

I wish to make clear about this point above: There is not – to the best of my knowledge – a single article in the Swedish press, signed by a serious journalist, which would be of the opinion Assange will be ever charged, or if charged convicted, on the accusations put forward against him in the process reopened by Claes Borgström, of the Bodström & Borgström firm (both are high-ranking politicians within the Swedish establishment – Bodström was Justice Minister at the time his office authorized the secret rendition of political prisoners to CIA).

On the contrary, either this nodal issue is totally ignored or when taken up gives the assessment that there is no evidence as to make a case. And this is of course known by the Swedish prosecutor authority, and of course this is one of the reasons why they are not interested in concluding the interrogation of Assange using actual possibilities in Swedish legal praxis – which includes the interrogation abroad or by video conference!

Further, we have the international commitments of Sweden principally with US and NATO-governments, in accordance to Sweden’s current geopolitical design. In this regard, the commitment of Sweden with EU is to be considered secondary. An illustration of this is the campaign of the Swedish Ministry of Defence to convince EU countries for an enhanced support to NATO strategy specifically named US interests.

Article authored by Swedish Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors in Svenska Dagbladet 15 Jan 2012.

The primary commitment with the US has an enormous impact in the Assange “case”, particularly when considering that Assange has been partly signalled as “terrorist” or “cyber terrorist” by high-ranking US politicians – including Vice President Biden and the now open declarations around the US military process against Bradley Manning implicating him with Assange and WikiLeaks.

1. The domestic front

On the domestic front, the case has served a variety of purposes. In its turn, these purposes would serve both:

a) The ruling political establishment through direct political gains such as the re-election of the right-wing conservative government. Assange is first portrayed as Sweden’s No. 1 enemy and thereafter the government is portrayed as representing “all Sweden” contention or defence against the enemy.

In fact, most of Swedes are ignorant of this case in details. More over, the absolutely majority of “standard” Swedes replying about the case declares that even they do not know details, or are not interested, one strange thing is that an Interpol arrest order has been issued against a man accused by two women of sexual misconduct – “while thousands of worse  such cases in Sweden are not investigated at all” (“det är ju konstigt att medan man i Sverige inte ens undersöker anmälningar som är värre än sådana anklagelser, man till och med utfärdar en Interpol arrestering order för at ta Assange hit”. Conclusion expressed in a talk with author by a group of health-care female staff at a Swedish hospital).

b) The “opposition” through propagandistic claim for “radicalization” of legislation under a fascist feminist perspective. In this aspect the Assange “case” is used as “symbol” for such political campaign. This is described in Part I of this series.

2. The international front

In the International front, the strategy of the Swedish rulers has been twofold:

On the one part it is directed in compliance with secret agreements with USA/NATO. In this regard, WikiLeaks denounced the secret agreements in the Diplomatic Cables released 2010.

On the other part the aim is targeting other countries’ governments and international public advocating with a variety of expressions referring to “the Swedish model”. The ultimate aim is trying to regain the ostensible losses on international prestige. (See below). One simple indication about this sad phenomenon is the lowest-votes defeat Sweden obtained in the election at the United Nations for a seat in the Human Rights committee, recently in 2012.

The anti-Assange crusade is used to attract international attention towards the “modern Swedish legislation” which in its turn the Foreign Office tries to sell to Third World countries. (See professors blog article on the forgotten WL cable “. . . “)

The Swedish psyop strategy in tackling their blunder on the “Assange case” can be characterized with this main duplicity: The contrasting a purported trademark of a “good”, “clean”, “modern”, “geopolitically balanced” (neutral) country with  the “terrorist” “dirty” “paranoid” “Russian agent” Julian Assange – and by extension the free-information project directly associated with Assange, WikiLeaks.

The international disinformation campaign has been conducted for instance

• Directly through publications in the websites of for instance the Ministry of Justice or the Swedish Prosecutor Authority (I will come back with details on that);
• Through direct actions by stationed ambassadors (e.g. Sweden’s ambassador to Australia) according to instructions delivered for the occasion by the Swedish foreign office, and
• Through the use in social media by direct twitter accounts and anonymous troll accounts or so-called sockpuppets.

The tactical elements in the implementing of such campaign are organized around these seven items here called the “seven pillars of deception”:

1. Sweden is “the least corrupted country in the world”  ergo it cannot be assumed a bias action against Assange

2. “The Swedish government obeys the legal system and courts in the rendition and extradition cases requested by the US”

3. “Sweden is a modern democracy and strictly under the rule of law (Rättstat)”

4. “Sweden is a neutral country” ergo it cannot be assumed a cooperation with US in the issue of extradition on a geopolitical level

5. “Sweden is only abiding with United Nations resolutions”

6. “Sweden is a gender-equal country”

7. “Sweden has a free press in contrast to Ecuador”

Part I Is Sweden “the less corrupted country in the world?”

According to figures from Transparency International 2012, Sweden is definitely NOT the least corrupted country in the world (see statistic below). This may pose a huge social-psychology or idiosyncratic challenge to sectors of the Swedish society, which has been educated in the conviction that Sweden is “the model of the world”. For example, in an article by the English BBC “Extreme world: Is Sweden as clean as it seems?” it is quoted repeatedly an archetype impression from Swedes themselves, as declared by a woman from the street” “We see ourselves as a model for other countries”. Perhaps it says it all.

The second aspect is that corruption in Sweden is also seen as a growing problem. This is also aggravating because cases of company corruption have been associated with the political sphere or even directly with the Swedish government. Such was the case in 2012 of the Defence Ministry’s FOA deals with Saudi Arabia, or the current corruption scandal of Telia Sonera – a giant telecom whose main owner is the Swedish state both subjects treated below]. A most recent article in the Swedish Wire, “Swedish firms more worried about corruption” (7 January 2013), refers the result of survey indicating that “Swedish companies are more worried about corruption being a threat to business than their Nordic peers and also to a higher degree view graft as a growing risk.”

Another problem is that, unlike in many countries, both rich and poor, in Sweden does not exist an independent institution for the assessment of corruption. Which does not mean absence of concern about this problem.

Research on corruption – or comparative corruption indexes -  can be break-down for analyses in different spheres. According to the themes treated on this series,  the corruption categories relevant here are only a) political corruption, b) company or corporate corruption only insofar has to do with the political sphere, and c) corruption in the legal system – a main theme to be soon treated in these columns.

I have chosen to use here statistics from the highly reputed Transparency International – of which Sweden also is forming part with own chapter in Sweden, and own academic research  published in Swedish. In an upcoming article I will be treating specifically the Swedish legal/judicial system.

National-chauvinists and cultural racism

The equation comprising an exaggerated appraisal that nationals-chauvinist individuals have about their own countries, together with the notion that their cultural model should prevail as example for the rest of societies or cultures in the world, is a tragic social-psychiatric phenomenon that every democracy has to deal with in times of peace – for it has been quite too often a cause of war.

By giving a biased picture or exaggerated data of their country, and insisting to demand in a public forum as Internet that their bias is to be tenable as fact by everybody,  these individuals actually contribute to damage the international credit of the very country they  say to defend. This is not Munich 1938. This is the Internet forum of 2013 comprised by an educated international audience having instant cybernetic access to historical, epidemiological or statistical information.

Here below are examples of the biased portrait that propagandists of the Swedish government have launched in the international social media, in direct reference to the accusations against WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange

Above and below, Twitters by sockpupppets (anonymous Trolls with multiple accounts) implementing the Swedish government anti-WIkiLeaks psyop.

Let us first get clear that, generally, I would definitely not consider Sweden as a “corrupted country” in the traditional denotation. On the contrary, the average Swede is in comparison – I repeat here my opinion – remarkably honest, sincere and hard-working. However, Sweden is definitely NOT the country indexed as the least corrupted in the world. What the anti WikiLeaks campaigners declare over and over again in the social media is purely misleading. Besides, Sweden has worsened successively during the last few years its positioning in the ranking of less-corrupted / more-corrupted countries (see sources, details and illustrations below).

My second statement is that there is another sort of corruption, what I would call Democracy-related political corruption, and about which I regard Sweden as doing worse during recent years amidst the society of democratic countries. Here I refer to these three aspects:

a) The participation of the citizens in the political business and their trust of politicians;

b) The trust of the public on the journalists; Johanne Hildebrand wrote in Svenska dagbladet that “Among all professions practised in Sweden, journalists have the least credibility among the Swedish people”

c) The “conspiracy” style kept by the government towards both the public and the democratically elected Parliament, for instance by – against the law – keeping secret from the Swedish Parliament agreements with foreign powers. In this article is reviewed also one of this episodes in which the Swedish government deliberately keep illegal transaction with foreign powers hide from the Parliament. This is the case of the missile-factory deal with Saudi Arabia, seen far down below in this text.

Is this not corruption in the highest degree?

Well, that the government kept – illegally – things secret from the Parliament,  is only a part of this political corruption scandal. The other parts, equally scandalous are that the Parliament never really accomplished any measure to take the responsible to court; and that the Swedish media left the issue shortly thereafter or straight cover it up.One of the few exceptions was, for example, the team at SvT’s Dokument Inifrån (see further below).

Also, one minor political party presented allegations upon the “Constitutional Committee”. However, as the same fashion as it did happen with the accusations against Thomas Bodström and Göran Persson for the Egyptians rendition-torture scandal (also in secret agreement with CIA), things were left without any action at all. And what then the rest of political parties did? nothing. Is this not corruption in the highest degree?

The position of docility that characterizes the Mainstream media and journalists in general in their relationships with authorities, is also another aspect that would denote corruption of the democratic proceedings, which are vital for democratic health and survival. For this element, the so-called “Fourth power” – added in modern times to Montesquieu’s democratic trilogy  – is suppose to exercise control over the other “powers” (executive, judicial, and legislative), which in Sweden is particularly not the case among journalists in general. Principally, this docility is most noticeable in themes of foreign policy or that may compromise the international prestige of Sweden. I have devoted a full article on this issue, “On Torture. The Swedish-media paradox and the case against Assange“.

I have in different passages in these columns placed the above “in general” observandum, for in fact there are quite honourable exceptions to that docility rule among Swedish journalists. It is much thanks to these exceptional reporting and journalist research  that I and other authors writing from Sweden (or from abroad using Swedish materials) have been able to source several analyses or articles. One of these reportage was the exposure of the arms dealings with Saudi Arabia here commented down below.

Not to mention the political corruption denounced by the program Dokument Inifrån in the reportage “The secret cables” [De hemliga telegrammen], and which partly sourced my article “Swedish/U.S. Intelligence co-operation in the Bodström Society. Part IV of the series “Sweden VS Assange” – Insider Analyses

Another formidable reporting of corruption at high level in the Swedish corridors of power is the disclosures done by a team at SvT on the bribes scandal in Telia Sonera – a giant telecom mainly owned by the Swedish state. It is described in more detail down below.

These are some sources the reader can visit in order to get a direct appraisal about the true positioning if Sweden in the “corruption” ranking, and which invalidate the Troll statement “Sweden is the less corrupted country in the world”

Sample of statistics on corruption perception referred to Sweden’s ranking according to the most recent data published in Transparency International

A. The actual position of Sweden in the 2012 Ranking

From: “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012″: Sweden is No. 4 (and Not No. 1)

Source: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/

B. The actual position of Sweden in the last published Ranking (2007) by TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL on specifically  “Corruption in the Judicial Systems“:

The deception campaign in social media on these items have also referred – specifically against the backdrop of the judicial case against Assange – that  Sweden would have the less corrupted legal system in the world.

However, according to the last available special report from Transparency International with specific reference to “corruption in the judicial systems”, Sweden does not either occupy the first position, but the 6th (!) one among the following European countries:

It should be added that Sweden has a rate of 8.9 Prosecutors per 100,000 population (compared to Italy 3.8 ; Germany 6.1; England & Wales 5.8). Source: International Statistics on Crime & Criminal Justice, 2006.

Further, the rate for professional judges is 16.8 in Sweden (compared with Italy 10.9; Germany 17.8; England & Wales 7.0). Source: International Statistics on Crime & Criminal Justice, 2006.

The most recent political and bribe corruption scandal in Sweden: The Telia Sonera Affair – exposed after a lead provided by the WikiLeaks cables

As the professors blogg anticipated on Twitter on the 16 of December 2012, a team of reporters at SvT’s Uppdrag granskning revealed that information they found in a diplomatic cable published by  WikiLeaks led to the formidable disclosure which can be better seen in the original publications. Here below follows a Goggle translation that can be accessed by clicking on the clip. The original in English can be found here.

Click on clip above for the full SvT article

In the clip below it can be seen a Google translation of a related article published in the SvT site. I here transcribe a complementary translation:

“- Two top executives at (mainly state-owned) Telia Sonera are suspected of bribery in the investigation that is currently under way (at the Prosecutor Authority), while Telia Sonera has ordered its own (internal) investigation. But the Question is: Would the Swedish telecom giant allow the truth mes out? “

Above, Gooogle translation of the original article in SvT [Mutrapport = Bribe Report, report on bribes]. It should read:

Other political corruption scandals of 2012: The missile-factory illegal deals with Saudi Arabia. The Swedish government responds by accusing WikiLeaks of blackmailing Sweden

I have addressed this issue previously in Professors blogg:

Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors (at right), politician of the Moderate Party (right-wing conservative), most known for his vehement advocacy for a further military collaboration with the U.S., said yesterday on the 6 of March 2012) to SvT [picture at right]:

“I cannot totally confirm the picture as given by the media today”.

Tolgfors – which at the end resigned voluntarily, never accused or taken to any court – had the supreme institutional command over FOI (the Swedish Defence Research Agency) agency which – as known in the news – established a fake company in order to implement the secret agreements with Saudi Arabia; The name of the company is Swedish Security Technology and Innovation, SSTI. In this way FOI thought the operation it could not be traced by the Swedish Parliament. Namely, “none of the committees of the Swedish Parliament was never informed och such operation” (statement of the Vänster Party’s chairman in the SvT evening news 6 March).

On the other hand, as Dagens Nyheter informs 7 March, the said fake company “Swedish Defence Research Agency” given the same address and telephone number as the Swedish Defence Research Agency”.

It is highest unlikely that the Intelligence services at disposal of Defence would not have alerted Tolgfors of the upcoming disclosure. In this scenario, it is likely that Tolgfors’ subordinate, FOI’s Vice Research Director Mike Winnerstig (below) had the assignment of sending a chauvinistic smoke courting to the public, by spuriously accusing Assange and WikiLeaks of non-existent criminal behaviours, such as blackmailing the Nation of Sweden.

This measure was one among the variety of articles and aired programs aiming to discredit WikiLeaks and presenting Sweden under an attack from “Sweden’s Number One Enemy” Julian Assange, as he has previously been named in Sweden’s mainstream media both by the pro-government press and the “opposition” press.

Former PM Göran Persson and his Justice Minister Thomas Bodström

The Swedish military collaboration with the Saudi Arabia dictatorship commenced under the previous social democratic government of the pro-Bush PM Göran Persson and his Justice Minister Thomas Bodström — the main partner in the firm Bordström & Borgström which instigated the reopening of a process against the WikiLeaks founder.

The Swedish mainstream media – State or corporate owned -  will in these days give the impression that they, or the political establishment, is “reacting” to the disclosures. For instance, it is announced that the Green Party have reported Minister Tolgfors to the Parliament’s Constitutional Committee. It will not happen a thing. Professors blogg can absolutely promise: Nothing it will happen at the end, unfortunately.

Another way from the Swedish political establishment of faking a reaction is  calling for a modification of the current legislation on arms/weaponry export. With this they let people “understand” that in the agreements with Saudi Arabia dictatorship were nothing illegal, that the law permitted such things even if “one could think it would be inappropriate”. Such is the posture for example of Folkpartiet (a party of the government coalition), in declarations made today by chairman Jan Björklund.

According to TV4 News 6 March (19.00) The chairman of such Constitutional Committee has already declared that the above it will not be considered in any case before year 2013. This because their agenda is fully booked for this year!

The King of Sweden recently bestowed Saudi Arabian dictator with a Swedish medal

In October 2011, the Swedish monarch bestowed his Saudi Arabia counterpart with a Swedish medal, the Wolf Bronze Award. This caused just a minor “storm bubble” in Sweden, almost unnoticed in the country but known abroad thanks to a reportage by The Local of 4 October 2011.

In spite of the documentation gathered by Ekot, officlas at the FOI still denies. And PM Reinfeldt appeals to a “secrecy matter”, according to SvD.

Jan-Olof Lind, FOI’s General Director: “No. And I do not wish to comment on discussions that may or may not have occurred between Sweden and Saudi Arabia. These discussions are classified.” [1]

Anna Troberg, Sweden’s Pirate Party chairman comments “Sweden’s secret arms assistance is not an accident, it is a symptom” (“Sveriges hemliga vapenhjälp är ingen slump, den är ett symptom”).

The Swedish governmental initiative of military collaboration with the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia (cristalized in the construction of a misile and arms factory) was in fact implemented by the very same agency which few days ago – possibly in a “preventive strike” fearing cables revelations ? – accused in the State Television WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of, among other, blackmailing the entire nation of Sweden.

Mike Winnerstig [above], is a high-ranked official (Deputy Director of Research) at the Swedish Defence Research Agency – institution under the Swedish Ministry of Defence. He also holds  a PhD in Political Sciences and he is member of the Royal Swedish  Academy of War Sciences. He has been Research Fellow in the International Security Program at Harvard University (Belfer Center, J Kennedy School of Government), Boston – USA. Winnerstig’s formulations on WikiLeaks in the SvT main program Aktuellt are to be considered as highly interpreting the Swedish political/military establishment; For instance, he recently (8 February 2012) addressed the seminar on US/Europe military partnership organized by Society and Defence ”in collaboration with the US Embassy in Stockholm”. 

Mike Winnerstig declared that “WikiLeaks had from the beginning an agenda to nail principally the U.S. and its allies in different scenarios”,  implying also that according to such agenda WL’s neglected “for instance Russia”. Winnerstig questioned as to whether WikiLeaks is an independent organization, and that it would explain why “we have not been seeing disclosures of Russian or Chinese archives”.

It cannot be by accident that at the same time the main Swedish newspapers – in occasion of the elections in Russia -  have dedicated tremendous space to remind us of “the horrors of Russia / Soviet Union”. In these regards, the Swedish anti-WikiLeaks/Assange campaign stands as purely chauvinistic, old fashioned Macarthysm.

Further, formulating a serious imputation, the high-ranking analyst representing on the State Television a governmental institution subordinated to the Minister of Defence, stated that WikiLeaks / Julian Assange are now indulging in blackmail or extortion towards Sweden. See below:

In fact, the WikiLeaks/Assange accusers are the ones that to the highest extent discredit Sweden by the assistance in weaponry and arms factory one of the worst dictatorships. Who is in fact violation Swedish legislation?

Further items on the article above in Is Sweden’s “Criminal investigation system” effective?

Continue to Second Part in this series

The Number-One country in the World’s ranking of arms-exports per capita, is now pursuing to become World’s first in the export of an aggressive “gender-perspective” -proved deprived of Human Rights for All. For the promotion and export of the “Swedish model”, Swedish State “feminists” have collaborated in the creating, using and protracting of the case Assange, all along.

 The series “Sweden versus Assange – Insider Analyses”:

• Part I: Introduction; Duckpond in Swedish legal system
• Part II: Exporting Sweden’s “gender” perspective model
• Part III: The Assange Extradition Case Revisited.
• Part IV: Swedish/U.S. Intelligence co-operation in the Bodström Society

by Marcello Ferrada de Noli

[Previously in this series, INTRODUCTION, and “Duck pond in the Swedish legal system”]

 ”The amoebas think that the drop of water in which they live, is the whole universe”– Albert Einstein

The using of Assange as a symbol, one more factor among the constellation of causes

I have pointed out previously elsewhere that the official engagement of Sweden as proxy-Inquisitors in the US case against WikiLeaks results from a constellation of causes. In this article I will refer to one of them, namely the Swedish declared international promotion of the “gender perspective”, made in Sweden. See further below.

Certainly there are other reasons that also contribute to why this process has been artificially protracted. I have previously mentioned the time was needed for the US prosecution to gather what they possibly can as “incriminating material” in the Bradley Manning trial that can link to Julian Assange. I advanced this explanation with further details in the RT interview below [click on image for video].

The (apparently) inexplicable refusal of Prosecutor Ny from Sweden’ side to interview Assange in London through video link or in person, excellently serves the above mentioned strategy of protracting the case. Besides, the more Sweden prolongs the case over time, the more damage is inflicted to the organization WikiLeaks, who’s leader – after many months under arrest and restrictions – has now completed six month being further confined in an embassy located in London. Most analyses in these columns converge unequivocally to the same conclusion: the target is WikiLeaks; the case is political.

A brief comment. As I am primarily interested in the political aspects of this case, I had not previously focused as much on the legal aspects. However, during my recent break I had the opportunity to study more in depth the aspects of the Swedish legislation pertinent to this process. It is pristinely clear that the organization of an interrogation of Assange through what the law calls “Videokonference” [for the Swedish reader, see “Förordning (2000:704) om internationell rättslig hjälp i brottmål.” Here] is fully possible.

Further – through the government officials’ public presentation of the organization WikiLeaks as enemy of Sweden and as a threat for the Swedish national security – the government is rallying support among the public deriving help from a mob-sentiment against “Sweden’s enemy Nr 1 Julian Assange”. That he is also US enemy No 1 would have been enough, however.

Sweden’s efforts to regain a presence in the international scenario

Since the times of the late Olof Palme, Sweden has lost status in the international scenario, bit by bit. The main reason for this is the abandonment of the Neutrality policy together with a clearer (and absolutely admitted) alignment with NATO and the US. Because of its current ideological engagement that started with the government of the right-wing social democratic Göran Persson, Sweden cannot any longer be considered a neutral arbiter of international conflicts.

Sweden has also been impeded from exporting its socio-economic model, as the world now knows it is no longer in use in Sweden (most of the state-welfare institutions that were hallmarks of the Swedish society have been extinguished or sold to private capitalist management). What have the inventive Swedes now found that they could “sell” as their image to the world in order to regain their international presence?

Answer: a radical sex-related legislation and the proclaimed protection of women’s rights. This would be a lovable enterprise if it not were for some in the ultra “feminist” movement in Sweden, instead of a Human-Rights perspective and a truly egalitarian line in gender issues they have shown to have an agenda of gender-supremacy and a behaviour of fascistic rule – including racist approaches – in a variety of spheres in society. It should be noted that in Sweden many actual leading ‘feminists’ occupying themselves with state feminism working from positions of government and in the mainstream media are right-wing militants.

I have already advanced this thesis when I denounced the above strategy in the occasion of a little-known WikiLeaks cable on Sweden [See article Wikileaks cable on procedures at UN Women would help explain Sweden’s feminists campaign against Assange], referring a specific political alliance with the US Department of State   in order to get Sweden in a UN strategic centre for the promotion of “gender perspective” in the world. That strategic centre is called UNIFE, and Head of the UNIFEM office in Sweden is Ms. Margareta Winberg 

Source WikiLeaks.org. The cable in full here

Margareta Winberg is a  former Minister in the government of Göran Person, the right-wing politician (Social Democratic) and a public admirer of President George W Bush.  Margareta Winberg – who once declared publicly ”It is strange that not even more women hate men” – is probably the highest ranked representative of State feminism in Sweden; her role in making obligatory in the Swedish education system  – including universities and academic research – the “gender-perspective” based in the supremacist theses of extremist professor Eva Lundgren is described in “Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television: ‘Men are animals’” and in “From demons exorcism to State-Feminism. Further background on the Swedish case against Assange“].

Some chauvinist Swedes – women and men in some positions of power – act as believing that Sweden is the perfect country and, having the “best and most advanced” sexual-crimes legislation, it should be exported together with the Swedish gender-supremacy model to the rest of the world and in particularly to “underdeveloped” countries. With such supremacist beliefs encouraged or reinforced by a clear “radical feminist”-oriented media, some ultra “feminists” also think why not make that legislation even more “radical”, more “modern”, more “unique”. However, what the world outside such chauvinistic reasoning have already understood, is that a radical sexual-crime legislation per se, or a radical characterization of crimes or the conceptual enhancing of criminal entities in order to allocate extra behaviours, is not to be praised as effective only because a new and extended crime-typology would serve women’s integrity better. It has to serve society better, and this entails also a democratic and fair administration of justice with regard to such legislation, including prosecutors’ and police investigations under the Human-Rights perspective of equal rights for All, women and men, natives and immigrants.  Swedish legislation fails in this and is actually discriminatory both as it is written and as it is applied.

Some weeks ago Sweden was visited by the Minister in the French government. She came to examine more closely the applicability and actual feasibility of the Swedsh sexual-offences legislation. She was in a tour scheduled to visit other countries too, and with the aim to evaluate different legislations. However, the Swdish media hurried to publish informations along these lines “French minister comes to Sweden to learn our sexual-crime legislation and implement it in France”. No comments.

In actual fact, the world outside Swedish självgodhet-feminsm says NO to gender supremacy; and NO to ethnic supremacy (Sweden Prime Minister Reinfeldt has started to use the term “ethnic Swedes” in the context of distribution of wealth and social justice). And NO to medieval legal praxis Sweden-style such as ordering the ipso facto incommunicado of a male detainee even after a non-proven or sustained accusation has simply been put forward against him at a police station (or in which the police or prosecutor ‘determine’ a crime has been committed, whether the ‘victim’ agrees or not). Or to “preventive arresting” in such arbitrary style, as suggested by Prosecutor Marianne Ny (Ny wrote, “Only when the man is deprived of freedom – detained – and the woman quite and easy gets a perspective of her situation, can the woman discover how she has been really treated” Marianne Ny means that the preventive detention she suggests “has a good effect as protection for the woman even in the cases where the accused man is charged by acquitted in the court”.

No to verdicts as those obtained in Swedish courts by lawyer Thomas Bodström in which an immigrant man, a political refugee, is condemned to a long prison term, it being enough the accusation without proof or evidence (The verdict stated: “According to this court, we found the plaintiff’s story credible and that fully meets the requirements to form the basis for a conviction”). It was about a Swedish woman referring to an event that occurred nine years prior and to which she decided to make a police report  – at the initiative of a Bodström associate, a former police that impersonated being a prosecutor in performing her private investigation).  In sum, the notion of per default culpability of men – based in the idea that that the society we all live in has been patriarchal in the past or still carries some vestiges of that in the present – is preposterous, and shall be rejected. Changes are to be done at the core of a social system, the very system that exploits both women and men and even profit of the stupid gender-wars agitated by these, wrongly self-called “radical” or “feminists”.

Swedish fundamentalist “feminists” (and as we have mentioned, lawyer Claes Borgström) have stated that men bear a collective guilt, and they have to pay for it.  The modern “radical” legislation, and other diverse sexual-behavioural models Sweden is marketing to the world bear more and more distinctly hallmarks of a gender-vendetta. Instead of fighting for Human Rights and true democracy for All, social economic equality, respect by the State rulers for the citizens integrity, and fairness in the administration of justice, the ultra “feminists” behind the Swedish crusade wish to export to the world their narrow and biased supremacist gender perspective. They may be popular among the opportunist politicians of Sweden, but they are utterly mistaken as to whether the world is willing to embrace an ideology which represent the negation of Human Rights for All.

The international promotion of the “advanced” legislation of “modern Swedes” as an opportunistic reason in the Swedish case against Assange

In my analysis, one potent factor that emerges amid the medial strategy on the part of the government is that the phony accusation against celebrity Assange has been considered pivotal, and continues being so, for the advertising and publicity for the new law which Sweden intends to export, as mentioned above, and to which the one-sided internal Swedish “debate” is now coming to an end.

Please do remember that Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has repeatedly engaged in public interferences in the case and taken a biased positions towards advocating unilaterally for the juridical well-being of the women-accusers in an eventual trial against Assange. And most relevant in the context of this anti-Assange campaign described above, Reinfeldt has himself acknowledged a connection that can hardly be interpreted in any other fashion than “Sweden’s fight in our case against Assange strengthens Sweden’s expectations regarding our sexual-offences legislation.” 

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt at the National Swedish Radio studios 25 January 2012. Foto: Maria Aros / Sveriges Radio

On 25 January 2012, Reinfeldt declared the following (answering journalists’ questions as to whether it was a problem for Reinfeldt that – in the context of the Assange case –there is developing internationally the description of Sweden as a banana republic):

- “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.”

Previously, in February 2011, referring to the Swedish case against Assange, Reinfeldt  declared publicly:

“I can only regret that women’s rights and status weighs that light regarding these types of issues, in comparison with other type of theories put forward.”

It is not by accident that the process against Assange has been protracted all along during the time this legislation was under study and referred to several instances for consultations.

For more details on this item I refer here the reader to my previous article Swedish radical “feminists” declared Julian Assange a symbolic issue.  

The use of the fabricated case against Julian Assange. From “Talk-about it” to “Dare-to-report”

One of the activities deployed by ultra “feminists” was the infamous Prataomdet campaign.

“In connection to a discussion regarding the media coverage of the Assange case, Swedish journalist Johanna Koljonen started to tweet, openly and intimately, about her own experiences of drawing lines and negotiating gray [sic] areas in sexual situations. Hundreds followed Koljonen’s example on Twitter under the hashtag #prataomdet (”#talkaboutit”). As a result of this, several Swedish magazines, newspapers and other media outlets are publishing pieces on the subject. In a matter of days international media, such as The Guardian, Die Welt, BBC World Service, Norway’s Dagbladet, Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat, and others have followed.” 

This is the public page called by Sweden Women’s Lobby for a “discussion on how to further work politically with the starting point of (Prataomdet Campaign) core issue”. The pamphlet start by clearly explaining what the core issue was about:

 “#Prataomdet is a public discussion in conjunction with the trial (sic) against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange”.

As seen in the document below, the main prominent speaker at the Conference is Claes Borgström – the lawyer of the plaintiffs in “THE TRIAL (sic) against WL’s founder” – from the firm ”Bodström & Borgström” mentioned above, here presented as the Social Democratic Party Spokesperson for Gender Issues. He should know there is no such  “trial” against Julian Assange. Assange has not even been charged by any Swedish prosecutor.

 But also in the speakers list is noted journalist Maria Sveland, author of (translated from the Swedish) “The Bitter Cunt” or  ”Bitter Bitch” and that, according to her Wikipedia article (Swedish), has been entrusted with several programs at the Swedish Radio. As well as Elin Grelsson, also journalist at the Swedish Radio in a variety of programs, now with a weekly audition in SR’s P4..

Recently a new campaign was launched in Sweden called “Våga Anmäla”, meaning do dare to police report sexual harassment, rape, etc. everything that can be considered a sexual offense by the victim.

In the process of working on this article and evaluating, among other aspects, the possible relationships between this new media campaign and the previous anti-Assange media campaign “Prataomdet” a new development took place. To my (not so much) surprise, this morning’s edition (7 December 2012) of the main Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter had a full one-page editorial starting with these lines – marked in red in the image below

 What this development has to do with other new issues in both the campaign to promote the new legislative radicalized propositions of Marianne Ny et al with regards to sexual-offences, and the fate of the “symbol” Julian Assange in reference to these campaigns, in another article.

Next in this series, There is enough evidence, fact-based on the repeated and uniform political behaviour of Swedish rulers – both historically and during the present government – on that this government is fully prepared to extradite Julian Assange to U.S. The arguments put forward to the public by the Swedish EU Commissionaire Cecilia Malmström are not tenable.

Continue to the Third Part in this series: The Assange Extradition Case Revisited

The series “Sweden versus Assange – Insider Analyses”:

• Part I: Introduction; Duckpond in Swedish legal system
• Part II: Exporting Sweden’s “gender” perspective model
• Part III: The Assange Extradition Case Revisited.
• Part IV: Swedish/U.S. Intelligence co-operation in the Bodström Society

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I thank Traci Birge for valuable comments