I am shocked to hear that we have threatened to violate Ecuador's diplomatic immunity in order to arrest Assange. I do not use that word lightly; I mean it, I consider it shocking that we (of all countries) should threaten to do this.
If some tin-pot dictatorship passed a law that said it could revoke the diplomatic status of UK embassies at will, and then exercised this in order to walk into a British embassy and pick up someone it claimed a right to, someone we had granted asylum to, then we would be livid - and rightly so. We would climb onto our high horse and castigate the regime in question. In another age, we would have sent gunboats with all despatch. We might well still do the same, given our reaction to the last tin-pot dictatorship who upset us by declining to prove that he really didn't have the WMDs that he claimed he didn't have.
It is also a stupid step to take. Unsavoury regimes around the world will have noted this; we can hardly complain if the same power is now exercised against our embassies and our people. I hope I never have to take refuge in an embassy. I hope Theresa May never has to.
I say this not out of any sympathy for Assange. Personally, I think Ecuador should either kick him out onto Hans Crescent, or take him back to Quito and start extradition proceedings with a view to sending him to Sweden. But the principle of diplomatic immunity is far, far more important than this one jumped-up little man.
We need Cameron to stand up, admit that this threat was completely out of order, amend the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to rule this out, sack the Minister responsible, and apologise personally to Ecuador. Nothing short of that will suffice, in my opinion.
Err, Umm....No. This particular POS came to this country Illegally (false Passport or he would have been stopped at the border) wasted a great deal of our time and money fighting against an arrest warrant from a friendly nation (Sweden)and then broke bail by going and hiding in the embassy of an uninvolved country. Ecuador should have thrown him to the curb as he is neither a national of theirs, a refugee nor being pursued by the secret police of an odious regime. Nick him the moment his smug face appears in whatever company; he is not a diplomat after all.
ReplyDeleteBefore you give me grief over this, consider, would you feel the same if it was stabby mc'chav trying to get out from under a charge of GBH.
Ecuador should have thrown him to the curb as he is neither a national of theirs, a refugee nor being pursued by the secret police of an odious regime.
ReplyDeleteWhich you'll see I agree with entirely...
would you feel the same if it was stabby mc'chav trying to get out from under a charge of GBH.
Yes.
This one is dragging on a bit. It is largely down to consideration beyond the necessary, of the possibility that someone's rights might be infringed.
ReplyDeleteThe (potentially) wronged parties are the two Swedish ladies who are the (alleged) victims of the alleged crimes - them and the criminal justice system of Sweden, which most of us accept is OK on rights of the accused.
Nevertheless, the world must go on.
Sweden should apply to Ecuador for extradition, straight away and whether or not there is a treaty in place.
Should that not turn out well enough with Ecuador, it is Sweden (as well as or in place of the UK) who should also take the next step: distinct cooling of diplomatic relations.
Best regards
"We need Cameron to stand up, admit that this threat was completely out of order, amend the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to rule this out, sack the Minister responsible, and apologise personally to Ecuador. Nothing short of that will suffice, in my opinion. "
ReplyDeleteYup.
The reason that Hague won't be sacked for his dangerous threat is that he has popular support. Far too many Brits think that because Britain is "Great" and Ecuador/Greece/wherever are tinpot that we should be allowed to tell their courts what to do.
The fact that Ecuador/Greece/many other places are in fact tinpot has nothing to do with it.
I bet if Assange had been wanted for questioning in Ecuador, his extradition would have been halted on human rights grounds. And probably rightly.
Our system has to take the moral/process/human rights high-ground every time because without it we have nothing.
The government should make it uncomfortable for the Embassy, but unfortunately we seem to have lost the knack of being devious. Basically, it should be placed in the same position as western embassies used to be in the USSR.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the map identifies the site that you pointed to as the Colombian Embassy