One of the

problems with sexual assault cases - one of the reasons so few survivors ever press charges, and one of the reasons so few cases are prosecuted to conviction - is that no one ever really knows what happened. It’s always one person’s word against another’s, and whose word we’re inclined to believe is always wrapped up in identity, politics and power relations.

In the Assange case, what’s truly suspicious is not that he has been accused of rape, but that the Swedish government has been so eager to arrest and prosecute him for it. I don’t know much about Swedish law or politics, but as far as I’m aware, that kind of stuff doesn’t often happen, and it suggests that the arrest is far more about WikiLeaks than it is about anything he may or may not have done to the women who accused him.

Protest the bizarre and all too convenient terms of his arrest and extradition, absolutely. But don’t turn it into an attack on the alleged victims. Women who report sexual assault get more than enough of that as it is.

here