WikiLeaks founder wants Flanagan charged over flippant assassination comments

[evewithanapple]

The founder of WikiLeaks says former Stephen Harper adviser Tom Flanagan should be charged with incitement to commit murder for suggesting he should be assassinated.

Julian Assange was speaking Friday in an online forum run by Britain's Guardian newspaper and was asked about flippant comments Flanagan made during a television broadcast this week.

"It

Comments

[romp]

I agree. That was stupid and ugly thing for an official to say.

[tmlforsyth]

If you do big things, except some critics. It is more serious if said by a public official, but that is for others to decide. It sounds like whining if Assange calls for it. He's an iconoclast and should be able to take someone hating on him, as long as it is just words.

[iluvhistory]

Please, do share, how is a call for assassination "someone hating" and "just words"?
If someone said "hey, that (insert your name here) should be assassinated" on television, would you feel the same way?

[tmlforsyth]

should be and are legally held responsible for on a frequent basis
In some countries, yet even an NDP MP cannot find a charge to levy against him. I am not in favor of absolving people responsibility for their speech, but I am not comfortable with criminally charging people for their words, though maybe this is a case of "yelling fire in a crowded theater", but I always figured Julian Assange a kind of anarchist, and it doesn't seem sporting for an anarchist to call for pressing charges.

[wrestlingdog]

[waldgaengerin]

What is important here is WHY Assange is pointed out as "deserving assassination".

If someone said he should be killed because he doesn't like pancakes it wouldn't be so potentially harmful to his health as saying he deserves death because he poses a threat to the American Nation.

Maybe pancake fans outnumber the American patriots, but my guess is that are also more unlikely to go target hunting. Plus, there's no mild criticism nor veiled suggestions here; Flanagan said he should be killed, which someone could easily interpret as the "right thing to do".

So there, and stop whining about whining people!

[stevie_jane]

Well obviously anyone who wants to expose the attitudes and wrongful actions of people in power is simply doing it for funsies.

It's absolutely nothing to do with wanting people to be held accountable for their words and actions so that their future words and actions will be better thought out for one and maybe less disgustly irresponsible and callous. Nope.

[stevie_jane]

*disgustingly