WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange applies for Swedish residency

[DrGee5]

Source: The Local

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has applied for a permit to work and reside in the country, a spokesperson for the Swedish Migration Board confirmed on Tuesday.

"He has applied for permission to work and stay in Sweden and (the request) came in on August 18," Haakan Gestrin told AFP. He added it was not possible to give more details about the 39-year-old Australian's application because it had not yet been processed.

Another migration board spokesperson, Gunilla Wikström, told Swedish news agency TT that the application was on hold since some information was missing, but did not provide further details. Assange's application was submitted shortly before rape and molestation allegations against him by two Swedish women were made public.

A Swedish duty prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for him on August 20th over a rape claim, which was later abruptly withdrawn by chief prosecutor Eva Finné the next day, saying new information had come to light. Then last week, Finné said there was no reason to believe a crime had been committed, adding however that she had enough evidence to keep looking into a molestation allegation from the other woman against Assange.

Police questioned Assange about the allegation on Monday, and his lawyer told AFP on Tuesday he expected the prosecutor to "drop the whole thing." Assange himself has called the allegations part of a "smear campaign" aimed at discrediting his website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of secret US documents about the war in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks published nearly 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on July 23, and it intends to publish another 15,000 within the next week or so.

AFP/The Local

Read more: http://www.thelocal.se/28690/20100831/

---

Read more:

Renewed rape suspicions for WikiLeaks' Assange
Published: 1 Sep 10 11:08 CET

A top Swedish prosecutor decided on Wednesday to reopen a probe into rape suspicions against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Source: http://www.thelocal.se/28704/20100901

===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== =====

Assange: Swedish press freedoms 'most proven'
Published: 16 Aug 10 14:56 CET

Julian Assange, the Australian founder of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has praised Swedish legislation protecting the freedom of the press but says that other countries, such as Iceland, are also working to improve their legal framework.

Source: http://www.thelocal.se/28398/20100816

===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== =====

WikiLeaks to apply for Swedish licence
Published: 15 Aug 10 12:33 CET

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed that he will submit a formal application this week for a Swedish publishing licence (utgivningsbevis) in order to guarantee that the website is covered by Swedish whistleblower protection laws.

Source: http://www.thelocal.se/28380/20100815

[xchrom]

1. God this is fascinating. Nt

[MrObama]

6. Very fascinating... Nt

[thereismore]

2. Doesn't look like he is running from the rape charges. nt

[unblock]

5. unclear -- the application came in before the rape charge.

[superconnected]

3. I hope the accusations don't stop him getting his visa there.

Especially now that we know the accuser wrote a blog on how to do character assassination to legally destroy men.

"Ardin has written and published on her blog a “revenge instruction”, describing how to commit a complete character assassination to legally destroy a person who “should be punished for what he did”.

http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2010/08/strangest-blog-thread-yet-on-swedish.html

More about Anna Ardin - radical feminist who used to work for the Sweedish gov
From http://counterpunch.org/shamir08272010.html

[LaurenG]

4. Here is a link to a post explaining rape in Sweden. It's not the same there as here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4524637&mesg_id=4524755