Julian Assange and the silence of the Left

Julian Assange has released a photo he hopes is going to clear him of charges of sexual assaults coming from Sweden. Unfortunately for him, the whole case has gone far beyond whether he raped a woman, and it’s be to our detriment if we forget it.

He deserves a fair trial, because a false rape allegation can be ruinous. In recognition of this, David Cameron and Nick Clegg planned to change the law so that, in line with other crimes, men accused of rape would retain their anonymity until or unless they were found guilty. In response, former Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman (right) immediately stated that the Coalition’s first act was to protect rapists.

Like practically the whole Left, however, Harman has been silent in the face of allegations that Assange raped a woman by initiating sex while she was asleep and therefore unable to consent. Backers such as Jemima Khan and Michael Moore put up £240,000 bail, now at risk because in taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy Assange has left British soil.

The accuser is smiling in the photo, taken days after the alleged assault. This may mean nothing untoward happened. But as a drugs worker and (latterly) domestic violence liaison, I saw many women hanging smiling from the arm of their abusers, because the alternative would bring an all too predictable outcome.

The silence of the Left gives a deafening message: a woman’s allegation of rape won’t be taken seriously if the man she accuses is somebody they approve of. Leftist misappropriation of the feminist cause is laid bare, and shows that when women won the right to put a cross in a box every few years their drive for equality barely moved ahead inches.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Resources

View the photograph at MailOnline