Is the UK going to invade..........

[eddie]

Ecuadors Embassy? The President of Ecuador says the UK threatened to do just that,lol Just to get at Julian Poor old Julian thinks the embassy can get him out of the country, just drive to the airport and he will be free! Doubt he will get that far, so has he moved into the embassy for good?

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...f-embassy?lite

[CaptainHaplo]

No - they won't. They didn't do so when a police office was shot from the Libyan embassy. To do so is - under international legal standards - an act of war.

[Catfish]

Breaking into an Embassy would indeed be an act of war, however i am sure England is capable of generating enough pressure to finally make Ecuador kick Assange out. And if not, some bully will find a way to deport or abduct him later, or plain kill Mr. Assange. Certainly, he is now well-known, so they have to make him a villain first.


A bit OT:

I stilll wonder where the outcry is, about what has leaked out. I mean there is enough stuff to fire high brass and topple governments, from atrocities against international law to secret plans violating everything a "democracy" stands for.
Instead it has become a man hunt trying to shoot the messenger


Also if you speak the truth because you think you have to, they will call that treason, and for them it certainly is. But most whistleblowers did not want to speak out against America, but for the America they think it should be, based on law and own national claim, following the constitution.

This witchhunt against anyone daring to say that a government uses illegal methods violating international law, is just the bullying reaction of a bunch of criminals caught in the act, red-handed, and has not much to do with military secrets. "Retaliatory punishment" itself would also be illegal b.t.w..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...?newsfeed=true

https://docs.google.com/a/firedoglak...WmM/edit?pli=1

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Isn't it amazing how tolerant we become of the "West's" actions.

If Assange is residing in the British embassy in China, asking for asylum from the Chinese, and the Chinese say they are going to intercept him and even threaten to revoke the British embassy's diplomatic protect on short notice, it'll be considered an atrocity w/o debate.

[antikristuseke]

Objectivity is a rare thing, always has been.

[TarJak]

From what I've read the UK can use the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to legally enter the embassy and arrest Assange.

Whether they will or not is debatable. Whether Ecuador can move him out of the UK without him getting arrested on the way is also debatable.

The whole thing stinks and has done from the start. Even the Swedish sexual assault allegations are a bit suss.

It does make interesting watching to see the machinations though.

[Skybird]

I wonder how a national law made after international agreements over the status of embassies as sovereign foreign territory can find international acceptance. It is like Germany making a national law to raid Denmark by force. Such a law would mean - nothing.

I'm sorry, but entering an embassy without mutual consent of the owner indeed is an act of war. Britain would deserve a spanking if they try it, no matter their little law thing.

How are relations between Equador and Britain?

Yes, the thing stinks to heaven. The Swedish laws over rape in themselves already are a bit excentric, to put it mildly, but in case of Assange the whole case by a 90% chance has been constructed from A to Z. He may be an non-sympathetic character - he surely is -, and Americans may want to trade revenge on him, but if governments - including the American - would not betray their people so massively and routinely, then there would be not so much dirt under their carpets they would want to hide. The trouble is not so much Assange's publishing, but the trouble is those who created the dirt and ruined the carpet.

Originally Posted by Catfish

I stilll wonder where the outcry is, about what has leaked out. I mean there is enough stuff to fire high brass and topple governments, from atrocities against international law to secret plans violating everything a "democracy" stands for.
Instead it has become a man hunt trying to shoot the messenger

You see - the destraction tactic was extremely successful then.

[TarJak]

Not wanting to claim Wikipedia as the most reliable source, it is in fact correct in this instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma...territoriality

Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status and are not sovereign territory of the represented state.[5][6] Rather, the premises of diplomatic missions remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges (such as immunity from most local laws) by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and (as an adherent to the Vienna Convention) the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country. The term "extraterritoriality," therefore, is often used in this broader sense when applied to diplomatic missions.
As the host country may not enter the representing country's embassy without permission, embassies are sometimes used by refugees escaping from either the host country or a third country. For example, North Korean nationals, who would be arrested and deported from China upon discovery, have sought sanctuary at various third-country embassies in China. Once inside the embassy, diplomatic channels can be used to solve the issue and send the refugees to another country. Notable violations of embassy extraterritoriality include repeated invasions of the British Embassy, Beijing (1967)[7], the Iran hostage crisis (1979***8211;1981) and the Japanese embassy hostage crisis at the ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru during 1996.

The piece of law in Britain was introduced to allow actions such as the Iran hostage crisis to be "legal" in Britain, whilst there would still be an international law case that could be brought, the likelyhood of that proceeding and being successful would be small and is certainly no protection for the Ecuadorian embassy in this case.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Catfish

I stilll wonder where the outcry is, about what has leaked out. I mean there is enough stuff to fire high brass and topple governments, from atrocities against international law to secret plans violating everything a "democracy" stands for.
Instead it has become a man hunt trying to shoot the messenger

You know about our beautiful word "Nestbeschmutzer". I think it was Dieter Hildebrand who said: "In Deutschland zeigt man mit dem Finger nicht auf denjenigen der das Nest beschmutzt, sondern auf den der darauf aufmerksam macht" - guess this goes not only for Germany

(Rough translation: In Germany people don't point their finger at the one who crapped into the nest, but at the one who mentions it.)

[Jimbuna]

"Under British law we can give them a week's notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

The most likely outcome I would have thought.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Not wanting to claim Wikipedia as the most reliable source, it is in fact correct in this instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma...territoriality



The piece of law in Britain was introduced to allow actions such as the Iran hostage crisis to be "legal" in Britain, whilst there would still be an international law case that could be brought, the likelyhood of that proceeding and being successful would be small and is certainly no protection for the Ecuadorian embassy in this case.

The Wikipedia entry says that "the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country."

That's what it is about.

Violate the embassy's status without Equador's permission, and this effectively ends the basis of needed trustworthiness in any diplomatic relations worth the name. If I were Equador, I would retaliate againmst this hosdtile action by the same standards. Get my peoplke out of Britain immediately. When they are safe, end diplomatic relations and arrest British diplomatic staff in Equador, all that I can get. And leave it like that until Britain accepts to return to internationally accepted standards of action and behviour and exchnages their people against Assange.

Why sticking to the rules oneself if the other side breaks them for its own "advantage"?

[Jimbuna]

end diplomatic relations and arrest British diplomatic staff in Equador, all that I can get

You jest....surely?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

You jest....surely?

If we decide to play hardball, it would be naive of us to expect the other side to not do so.

However, I doubt it will come to that. After all, even if Assange does get asylum, he can't live out the rest of his life in the Ecuadorian embassy, he's got to leave it some time...and that's when he'll be arrested. Unless Ecuador can fathom out a plan to get him out of the country, I guess there's always the option of putting him in a diplomatic bag, it's been done before.

But yeah, this is just hot air, I doubt we'd be as stupid as to storm the Ecuadorian embassy, not unless this guy has the codes to our nuclear missiles or something! If we do go down the route of revoking the embassy then it'll take weeks, and be very messy. Better to just wait it out...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

You jest....surely?

No. Slap me once, I slap you twice. Kick me twice, I kick you three times. Beat me three times and get four in return. Well, that's me.

In principle, what the UK threatens to do at the Ecuadorian embassy equals what the Iranians did at the US embassy. I know that some may not want to hear that, but that'S how it is. It cannot be that a state claims the right to nullify international rules for embassies by making a national law, and then break the rules on that ground. That is as if China would make a law that territorial waters of China no longer are the internationally accepted 6 or 11 miles or how much it was, but now 60 miles. Or as I said: Germany makes a law that allows German police to raid Danish homes and territories. Who would accept to let the Germans and Chinese get away with that?

If Britian decides to play tough and illegal because it is opportune to do so, I would confront it on the same grounds - and then plus some more.

Oberon however probably is right. This is a waiting game.

[TarJak]

The argument the Poms have in their favour is that their law can override their compliance with the Vienna convention. The issue is that the argument will always take place after the fact by which time Assange is banged up and on his way to Sweden. Ecuador can cry all they want in The Hague, but that argument will take a long time and Assange's arrest and extradition will have been long gone by the time it is finished.

And what would the likely result be? Ecuador and Britain dissolve diplomatic relations for a while and then in a few years patch things over and forget it ever happened. Britain may get stung with a damages bill, but the appeals on that would take years as well. Right or wrong the UK law gives them the ability to do what they want within their own borders, including walking into the Ecuadorian embassy with a weeks notice.