Assange & Sweden Miscellaneous Information: Part 3 20 February 2011 – 17 July 2011 This is a somewhat random collection of news clippings and other items relating to accusations of sexual misconduct that have been made against Julian Assange by Swedish authorities. Much of the material is in Swedish, but I believe that at least half is in English. The quality and reliability of the various items vary widely. In some places I have added clarifications, warnings, etc. [in italics, within square brackets and initialed--A.B.]. But there is nothing systematic about that, either, and everything in this document should be interpreted with due caution. Questions and comments regarding any of the information included here are welcome and may be addressed to me via e-mail at: [email protected] – Al Burke Nordic News Network Links to other parts of the series Documents in PDF format Require Adobe Reader or similar program Part 1: 14 August 2010 – 16 December 2010 www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/case1.pdf Part 2: 17 December 2011 - 17 February 2011 www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/case2.pdf Part 4: 8 August 2011… www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/docs/case4.pdf For more and better-organized information: www.nnn.se/nordic/assange.htm ASSANGE & SWEDEN • MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION: PART 3 Professor: News coverage on Assange is partial and controlled Marcello Ferrada-Noli Newsmill 2011-02-20 Svenska Dagbladet, a main Swedish newspaper, illustrated its 17 Feb 2011 article "Idyllic picture of Sweden is darkened" with a montage showing the notorious criminal Göran Lindberg-- a world-reviled, convicted serial rapist (including the rape of a 14- year old child)-- portrayed together with Julian Assange and his lawyer Mark Stephens. A conspicuous columnist of the newspaper Aftonbladet refers 13 Feb 2011 to Julian Assange as "a paranoid idiot who refuses come to Sweden to confront trial". The competitor newspaper, Expressen, describes 13 Feb 2011 in its cultural page "the sexual pleasure of Mr Assange is just an inescapable element for his severe compulsive needs that are beyond. ." The above is a sample of recent publications by four main Swedish newspapers. These media (DN, SvD, Expressen and Aftonbladet) have published a total of 802 articles on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since the reports on the subject began in July 2010. To assess such reports I have conducted an empirical and statistical analysis based in a consecutive sample of 103 articles corresponding to the total reports published in the last month-period ending 17 February 2011. As an overview, the aim of the analysis was to test the notion "trial by the media" in the official case of Sweden against Assange. This is a serious complaint because it involves issues of human rights violations. In Sweden, this allegation of human rights violations has not been specially commented upon and is ignored by most of media. But it is widely discussed in the rest of the world. The Australian Ambassador has recently conveyed a letter to the Swedish government containing a plea on that Assange's human rights should be respected in the case of an extradition to Sweden. This alleged public media trial together with top-government statements, as expressed by Assange lawyers, would have generated a nationwide, hostile situation for Julian Assange, who has not yet even charged, heard or prosecuted by any Swedish Court. I have done independent research departing from that hypothesis. My goal has been to test whether the media-trial theory is valid in Sweden or how much empirical material exists beyond the lawyers' professional assessment. I used a main parameter of inclusion versus exclusion of the following categories a) Objective reporting, b) Erroneous information or deployment of disinformation, c) Omission of relevant information, d) Personality descriptions ad-hominem. Further, a theme on censure of contributions critical to the main-stream thesis and exercised in the blog-linking process to the Swedish newspapers was also analysed. The result was an overrepresentation of media articles with a non-objective reporting (56 percent) on issues around the accusations or the Court proceedings in London and particularly with a negative content towards Julian Assange as a person. A breakdown of this group shows that articles containing information mainly erroneous in content or deceiving in its formulation were 20 of the total articles in the sample. The articles omitting relevant information in the context of the article's subject or with regard to the article's heading-- although such information was available or published by other media-- was 36 percent of all articles. 2 ASSANGE & SWEDEN • MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION: PART 3 Among the articles which referred Julian Assange's personal character or clearly implied features of his personality (forty percent of total articles), far more articles (72 percent) did so by using hostile, detrimental or aggressive terms in contrast with articles using positive terms (28 percent). When comparing these variables, the statistical analysis showed a ratio of 0.38, pointing to a significant overrepresentation of negative assessments. The analysis suggests a manifested hostility by the Swedish media against Assange and objectivity deficits in the news reports related to the case, raising questions about the journalists' professional culture and ethics, their disregard for the critical and investigative function of journalism, and their passivity or condescendence towards press-information provided by authority. The results of the investigation raise also the question why Swedish journalists employed by traditional media act so uniformly. Finally, I scrutinize whether the frequently claimed freedom of expression by Swedish newspapers can be compatible with censorship exercised by the media, by means of blocking opinions viewed as contradicting conventional wisdom, such as exposing reasons for Sweden's official antagonism towards Assange and WikiLeaks. Who in the Swedish media is deciding to filter the links of articles to admit certain blogs and censure others? What are the criteria? Is it the newspaper publisher or the journalist who is authoring the newspaper article? Or is it the blog-search engine company providing the link from the blogosphere? These questions arise from a recent article in Sweden by the prominent American writer and journalist Naomi Wolf (12/2). The main Swedish newspapers refused to link to her article, creating further international embarrassment for the Swedish media beyond the facts of the Assange case. Her article, published as a guest-contribution in Professors blog, analyzed in the main the police proceedings around the investigations on Julian Assange. Although a main conclusion derived from this investigation is that such "trial by the media" it is undoubtedly exercised in Sweden, it was also noticeable in this investiga- tion that some of the journalists of the viewed media, individually considered, scored high both in objective reporting and by a neutral characterization of Julian Assange. It should be also recognized that a number of other Swedish journalists and bloggers have reacted differently than those following the official line in the case Assange, and have contributed with critical posts or columns. There are as well some web-based media publications in Sweden that in their pages have too published critical or alternative analysis by a variety of authors. These are nevertheless few in contrast to those in the mainstream media, but their civil courage is highly needed in a society where, as Voltaire said, it is dangerous to be right in those matters on which those in power are mistaken. 3 ASSANGE & SWEDEN • MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION: PART 3 Table 1. Types of character description about Julian Assange in articles of main Swedish newspapers (Period 17 Jan.-- 17. Feb 2011). Categories: A-- Neutral or absent. B-- Mainly hostile, C-- Mainly sympathetic Table 2. Objective VS non-objective content in the articles of Swedish newspapers on the case Assange. Period 17 Jan-- 17 Feb 2011 4 ASSANGE & SWEDEN • MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION: PART 3 Table 3. Assessment-categories distributed by media The full 20-pages report-- including tables and figures-- on the research referred here is found at the link http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com • 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. [Note: In terms of methodology, this analysis has significant shortcomings and should therefore be regarded as more suggestive than definitive. --A.B.] - - - - - DN: 2011-02-22 Trasig eller förstörd Anklagelserna mot Julian Assange Assangeaffären: Att tvinga på någon sina kroppsvätskor. Jag fick tag i förhören med Julian Assange och anmälarna av de påstådda sexbrotten just när en Kanadaresa stod för dörren. Pappersbibban åkte ned i handbagaget. Sedan sträckläste jag en berättelse som jag redan ryktesvägen lärt känna, men där originalet skilde sig rejält från de historier som nått mina öron tidigare. Jag landade i Kanada för en konferens med 220 kolleger från ett trettiotal länder. När Assange, Sverige och sexövergrepp kom på tal i informella sammanhang var perspektivet i stort sett ett och detsamma. Är det verkligen våldtäkt om en kondom går sönder? 5 ASSANGE & SWEDEN • MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION: PART 3 När jag sedan kommer hem igen, och hör svenska kolleger fråga sig samma sak, inser jag hur väl försvarssidan lyckats med att etablera sin bild av vad som skett. Jag ringer Claes Borgström, målsägarbiträde och stridbar advokat för kvinnors rätt. Han suckar igenkännande och berättar hur han blivit uppringd av journalister från världens alla hörn och fått frågor om det i Sverige är ett brott att ha samlag utan kondom, om det är våldtäkt om kondomen går sönder och om han står på CIA:s lönelista. Nej, så är det ju inte. Däremot är det ett brott att penetrera en kvinna som sover [“offret” har sagt att hon var “halv-vaken” och inte sade emot--A.B.], är medvetslös eller av annat skäl inte kan freda sig.