What follows is the full text, translated into English, of an article by Jessica Balksjö which appeared in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on August 21, 2010.
The article, titled “Thirty-Year-Old Woman: I Was Assaulted” and subtitled “Discusses Charges Against Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange,” constitutes the only detailed public discussion of the allegations against Assange yet offered by either of his two accusers. It has never before been published in English.
This translation was prepared by a Swedish-speaking friend of StudentActivism.net, and lightly edited by myself. I’ll be putting up a post discussing the article’s significance tomorrow.
• • •
Aftonbladet has spoken with one of the women behind the rape charges against Julian Assange.
When she met a woman who said she had been raped by Assange, both decided to go to the police.
The 30-year-old woman is going public with her story here in Aftonbladet to explain the specifics of the accusations and to correct a number of errors in a story published in Expressen this morning.
Assange met both women during his visit to Sweden. He was first charged with raping one of the women, charges which were dropped by the chief prosecutor, Eva Finné, but he is still charged with molesting the second woman.
Considers Herself the Target of a Sexual Assault
The women met Assange during his stay in Stockholm. Neither of them had previously met Assange or the other.
The 30-year-old woman says that she considers herself the victim of a sexual assault or molestation, but not a rape.
The police report had its origins last Friday, when a second woman contacted the first with a similar, but worse, story. This second woman was between 20 and 30 years old.
Gave a Detailed Statement
Because of the ongoing police investigation, the 30-year-old woman has chosen not to provide details of her allegations at this time, but she gave the police a very detailed account. The other woman has also made a detailed statement to the police.
“I believed her right away since my experience was so similar to hers,” said the woman to Aftonbladet.
The two women decided to go jointly to the police to make their statements.
“I Don’t Feel Threatened”
“It is completely incorrect to say that we chose not to file a report with the police because we were afraid of Assange,” said the woman. “He is not violent, and I do not feel threatened by him.”
In both cases, the sex was initially consensual, but subsequently became abusive.
“The other woman wanted him to be charged with rape. I filed my report as a witness statement in support of her account and to support her. Both of us stand behind our accounts,” the woman told Aftonbladet.
“Charges Not Orchestrated”
The 30-year-old woman dismisses the conspiracy theories currently flooding the web.
“Neither the Pentagon nor anyone else orchestrated these charges. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a warped attitude toward women and is incapable of taking no for an answer.”
studentactivism.net 
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January 7, 2011 at 4:46 am
Helen
Thanks for this.
January 7, 2011 at 7:59 am
John N Florida
“Neither the Pentagon nor anyone else orchestrated these charges.”
Are the departments of the US Government so well known in Sweden as to be spoken of colloquially? This seems suspect to me.
January 7, 2011 at 9:21 am
Angus Johnston
John — Swedes know what the Pentagon is. And this article was a response to another in a different paper that raised the conspiracy claims. It’s likely that the Pentagon reference came from there.
January 7, 2011 at 9:57 am
Weekday Blues
It flabbergasts me that USAmericans can sometimes so blithely forget about the hegemony of USAmerican culture. Many non-Americans know what the Pentagon is because we have to. We can’t not. It’s in our faces.
Also, thank you for posting this article.
January 7, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Cézsar
“It is completely incorrect to say that we…were afraid of Assange,” said the woman. “He is not violent, and I do not feel threatened by him.”
The 30-year-old woman says that she considers herself the victim of a sexual assault or molestation, “but not a rape”.
In both cases, the sex was initially consensual, but “subsequently became abusive”.
^As has been said all along, rape never occurred here. Just one woman’s arbitrary, strategic and malleable opinion on what constitutes sexual assault after having seduced, lured into her bed and consensually and willfully fucked a man.
Real damage has been done to real rape victims by the mendacity of rabid feminist bloggers and commentators who have deliberately twisted her allegations and ground their axes on the backs of real rape victims by purporting her story as rape, something which she herself clearly denies.
I hope said bloggers and commentators can live with themselves. Every genuine female claimant will now be grilled to death about their claims because of what YOU have done. To use such a thing as a weapon is beneath human contempt and must be denounced.
January 7, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Chris
All that said , would these women have gotten any attention to their concerns if Assange hadn’t been someone who embarrassed the powers that be with truth? That I doubt.
January 7, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Hashmir
Cézsar, there’s no delicate way to put this: Your post was a load of misogynistic shit.
Completely ignoring the fact that you think (for no apparent reason) that the victim “seduced” Assange, presumably so she could then file a complaint against him — because, you know, filing sexual assault charges is always fun, and totally isn’t a miserable experience where your character will be attacked by strangers because the accused happens to be a popular white guy — you clearly have no concept of “consent.”
Allow me to explain. Sometimes, someone wants to have sex with someone else. That’s called “consenting to sex with that person.” Sometimes, they do not want to have sex with someone else. That’s called “not consenting to sex with that person.”
Sometimes, someone wants to have sex with someone else, but then, while they are having sex, they stop wanting to have sex. This could be because of something one person did, or because of a change in circumstance, or simply because they no longer wish to have sex. If they make known that they no longer wish to have sex, and then their partner continues to have sex with them, then this is “non-consensual sex.”
For example: Let us suppose that you are a straight man, and that you have begun to have consensual sex with a woman. Let us further suppose that you consent to having your hands tied to the bedpost. Now, let us FURTHER suppose that upon tying your hands, this woman proceeds to cause pain to your genitalia. I need not go into graphic detail; you can envision whatever you wish.
By your definition, no matter what she does to you now, it is not a sexual assault. Indeed, by your definition, you actively CONSENTED, even SEDUCED this woman, and you can never withdraw consent after entering the bedroom.
Your concern for “real” rape victims would be touching, if you had any concept of what rape is.
January 7, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Cézsar
@Hashmir
Like I said,
“Real damage has been done to real rape victims by the mendacity of rabid feminist bloggers and commentators who have deliberately twisted her allegations and ground their axes on the backs of real rape victims by purporting her story as rape, something which she herself clearly denies.”
I suppose the shoe fits, aye? ;-)
January 7, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Hashmir
You’re right as far as the victim being the only person who gets to decide if they’ve been raped.
I assume then that you will happily acknowledge that she was the victim of a “sexual assault,” which she *does* claim to be?
January 7, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Arkay
Cézsar, the rape charge in this case involves the other woman. This individual never believed she was raped or claimed she had been raped, and the incident involving her has not been charged as rape. Going by this interview, the second woman allegedly *did* feel that she had been raped, and this other individual said she was in support of the second woman. Reading comprehension: it is AWESOME.
Oh and by the way a lot of the most prominent feminist bloggers and commentators you’re saying are diminishing rape are themselves rape survivors. The More You Know.
January 7, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Hashmir
Arkay, I’ll save you the time waiting to hear what Cézsar thinks about raping feminists:
“Just one woman’s arbitrary, strategic and malleable opinion on what constitutes sexual assault after having seduced, lured into her bed and consensually and willfully fucked a man.”
Because, you know, insisting that female claimants not be grilled to death is what causes “female claimants [to] be grilled to death.”
January 8, 2011 at 12:03 am
Angus Johnston
Cézsar, you’re obviously ignorant of the allegations here. Ms A, the woman interviewed in this piece, alleges — and has always alleged — that she was sexually assaulted by Assange. Ms. W, the other complainant, alleges rape. You’re misrepresenting their allegations, and slandering them on no evidence at all.
In short, you’re full of shit.
January 8, 2011 at 5:12 am
Cézsar
Ms W asked Mr A if he had HIV, Mr A said no, Ms W then consented and proceeding to enjoy sex with Mr A. Only after discovering, a few days later, that Mr A had also slept with Ms A, did Ms W realise that the sex she had consented to could now be vengefully depicted as rape.
So her case, inflamed by the feminist blogging enableriat, actually worsens the damage being done to the credibility of real rape victims.
January 8, 2011 at 7:24 am
Angus Johnston
Cézsar, you’re misrepresenting facts and allegations that are in the public record. If you don’t stop, I’ll ban you.
January 12, 2011 at 1:47 pm
jesse jane
Once again, the women clarify that they were NOT raped. They were NOT afraid. They accuse Assange of acting “abusively”, but they did not throw him out. In fact, two good friends BOTH had sex with him in the same week, threw him a party and bragged about their exploits on twitter and through personal SMS messages. Get real!
Let it be crystal clear: Assange did not rape these women. They did not claim or file rape charges. He did nothing from what they say here or anywhere that is a police matter. Assange cooperated with the Swedish authorities. The Swedish STATE attempted to PUT rape charges to the complaint the women made, but had NO EVIDENCE or COMPLAINT, and repeated denials from the women that they were raped. That should be the end of the discussion, but apparently it’s hard to move on when you’re in an echo chamber.
No fear. No violence. No coercion. That’s no rape. If this position is misogynist, then all the women I know are woman-haters.
These “victims” then engaged in a truly horrific act of bringing the state authorities into their own poor judgment, leading a man to be smeared before the world as a “rapist”, to be confined by state authorities while his life is in mortal danger.
Cézsar is not distorting the public record. It is RIGHT HERE on view. A grown man with ZERO history of abuse or violence is accused by two friends in one week of impropriety (supposedly because he wouldn’t submit to an HIV test) and magically he is a “rapist”.
Truly despicable. Thank god Naomi Wolf has been speaking common sense.
January 12, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Angus Johnston
Jane, As I’ve noted in other comment threads, Ms A here describes herself as a victim of sexual assault and Ms W as alleging rape. As well, Ms A says that Assange did not “take no for an answer,” which by any standard definition is sexual assault.
January 12, 2011 at 1:58 pm
jesse jane
I’ve read enough of the discussion on this blog to have figured out that you “guys” are operating in an alternative moral universe. In the world I inhabit, which is far bigger and broader than my own personal values and judgment, when a woman invited a man to get naked in bed with her — that’s consent. There is no allegation that the women were “fucked unconscious”, but rather that one woman returned to bed in the morning and when “half asleep” was penetrated. They then discussed his reluctance to wear a condom again (and I’m not disagreeing that what he did was rude). They then returned to having sex. PERIOD.
You may think that’s a police matter. You may think regret, or the insane fear of disease/infection is ok — but whatever. I encourage you to tell all prospective sexual partners that your definition of rape is simple: you do not require force, coercion or violence to make rape accusations. All that is required is the accusation itself for a man to be destroyed in front of the world after CONSENSUAL sex. That’s your choice. But do not expect any sane person to go along with you. All the campus codes did was to belittle rape charges by re-classing whole ranges of consensual sex as “rape”. So no wonder people think “rape” isn’t that big a deal.
Rape is a crime of violence against women (generally). It is an act overwhelmingly perpetrated by men. In the feminism I learned, it is not sex. It is violence. It isn’t ambiguous. By claiming the range of ambiguity as “rape” — you create a fiction. And there is plenty of actual rape going on. Sex workers are raped every day. Wives are raped. Children. People on dates. Drunk girls at clubs.
In a case where the women said “I wasn’t raped” and “I wasn’t afraid” — why is it so hard to see how OBVIOUSLY politicized this case is, that Assange is being egregiously victimized.
Calling him a “white man” is moronic by the way. I’m sure that goes over well in your (white) circle of activist PC friends. But out in the real world NOBODY GIVES A DAMN. In fact, it’s overwhelmingly black men, other men of color and working class guys who get screwed by this kind of nonsense. The rich white rapists like the Kennedys do just fine abusing women behind their battery of lawyers.
Free the Scottsboro boys? No doubt “feminists” would today be brining the rope to the lynching.
January 12, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Angus Johnston
Jane, you continue to misrepresent the record here. The police report says that Ms W was asleep, not “half asleep,” at the time that Assange entered her without a condom. And in the article translated above, Ms A describes Ms W as alleging rape and herself as having been sexually assaulted.
You can’t call it consensual when Ms A says she said no and Assange wouldn’t listen. You just can’t. You can’t claim Ms W was awake when she says she was asleep. You just can’t.
It’s just not right for you to lie about what the charges are.
January 12, 2011 at 2:34 pm
jesse jane
I’m not lying. We are reading the exact same material, which includes the facts that no woman pressed rape charges, no woman claimed force, no woman claimed fear. Period.
This woman was naked in bed with a man. The SEX was consensual. The condom disagreement was bad form. Don’t have sex with the guy. Say “get off me”. But the woman says she continued by her choice to continue. Period.
If you think that’s “rape” — then you have lived a lucky life. Bad behavior, disrespect, using people: that’s not rape. It’s not cool, but it’s not a police matter.
This is a textbook CIA operation to turn the discussion of US government duplicity into a smear campaign. And you are so eager to score good-feminist-guy credits that you are willing to disregard the facts, or to view them in a way that re-defines rape to include consensual behavior.
I’ve had several partners begin sexual activity with me while I’m asleep, which as chance would have it I don’t like. I didn’t call the cops, I smacked them in my sleepy stupor. Like a grown up. You refuse to look at the context of this (beyond “noting it”) and continue to allege “rape” when the women themselves in this very text say they weren’t raped. PERIOD.
January 12, 2011 at 2:36 pm
jesse jane
“He is not violent, and I do not feel threatened by him.”
January 12, 2011 at 2:38 pm
jesse jane
“but not a rape”
Period.
January 12, 2011 at 2:42 pm
jesse jane
If a woman claims she is on birth control pills and isn’t (or forgot one day) — then has sex with a man, is that rape? Sexual assault?
Should the police be called?
The issue is HOW the consensual sex was had, not whether the sex itself was consensual. That’s why this was not a crime of violence (rape) OR a crime at all.
Don’t like the guy? Then stop having sex with guys you don’t know. Maybe take some grown-up responsibility. The line for rape must be crystal clear: no means no. And when no becomes yes, then it’s yes. If you think cops should be called on men for these accusations, then truly you live in a world I neither know, nor have any interest in visiting. And in terms of law: there is no evidence, so there is no case. Period. But you feel free passing on rape charges, which is an assault of a particularly gruesome kind. There is no defense. Maybe one day you’ll learn, though probably the hard way.
January 12, 2011 at 2:46 pm
jesse jane
Quoting Cezsar: “I hope said bloggers and commentators can live with themselves. Every genuine female claimant will now be grilled to death about their claims because of what YOU have done. To use such a thing as a weapon is beneath human contempt and must be denounced.”
+1.
Thank you for speaking to the issue at hand and the myopia of those who would speak in our name.
January 12, 2011 at 2:54 pm
jesse jane
On the issue of “not taking no for an answer”:
Do you have sex? Do you date? Are you familiar with courting?
Women often say no (not yet). If a man FORCES a woman who says no, that’s rape. If a man pressures a woman who says no, instead of charming her or wooing her through positive means, that’s rude. That this common courtship ritual is so simple to you is mind-boggling.
People make pressures of all kinds. Women often find themselves in situations they didn’t sign up for. That’s why it’s a sign of moral adulthood to take responsibility for who you CHOOSE to invite into your bed and who you CHOOSE to have sex with. Assange treated this women as disposable? Again, bad form. But not a crime. And if they don’t like it, they should feel free to say they don’t like it.
BUT.
There is a gulf between regret, fear of sex without latex (eg sex is sinful, dirty, life-threatening, etc), demands for forced government-mandated HIV testing, providing the legal means to keep Assange under government detention and literally threatening his life. You seem to pay no mind to that.
This argument is the reason campus leftism is impotent, ghettoized and totally out of touch with the issues facing students today. I remember the PC police from my campus days and it seems little has changed. Some guy says “welfare is dehumanizing” and a rich, private school brat liberal says “that’s racist” because they obviously have no clue what the welfare system did to people.
Likewise, not agreeing with the (deranged) re-defnition of rape to include WHATEVER is not misogynist or sexist or trivializing rape. It is actually taking the issues seriously and dealing with them frontally and without cant.
The women said “I wasn’t raped” and “I wasn’t afraid”. Two women, pissed that their trophy lay had sex with them both in the same weak had a panic attack over “disease”. Well, DON’T HAVE SEX WITH MEN YOU DON’T KNOW and then complain they were rude to the police.
Seriously.
January 12, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Angus Johnston
Again, Jane. When the two women went to the police, one said he’d raped her and the other said he’d sexually assaulted her. That’s what this piece — the only substantial first-person account from either of his accusers — says.
There are other errors in your account, but that’s the absolutely fundamental one.
January 12, 2011 at 3:35 pm
jesse jane
Errors in my account? I don’t have an account, I wasn’t there.
What we are reading, and perhaps more importantly to the larger discussion, is about two things: 1) what is rape?, and 2) this is a CIA smear job that the feminist establishment has fallen for hook, line and sinker.
Guess that’s easier than defending the right to abortion, that it be taught in medical schools and available at public hospitals, covered by public health plans and the like. It’s easier than engaging the lack of childcare for women, or the total destruction of communities from de-industrialization. Easier too than dealing with the explosion of the sex industry through porn, strip clubs and pervasive prostitution (especially among young women and students).
The women say they were not forced. They seduced him. They entered into bed naked with him. They threw a damn party for him. They went to police to see about procuring a forced HIV test. They were not afraid of him. They say this in the text above. Why don’t you see that?
Where is Jaclyn Friedman’s retraction for inserting the word “fear” into the discussion, or for claiming that in a description of consensual sex (which they said was consensual) that one of the women was “held down” as if that meant “forced” — which they did not claim?
Why aren’t you demanding that retraction?
Why aren’t you discussing the use of this smear campaign? The biggest exposure of US government duplicity in our lifetime, and THIS is what you care about? Good god.
If you want to bury “feminism” as the last refuge of myopic scoundrels, then go right ahead. And since the issues which face women are overwhelmingly issues of being poor, I’m sure “feminism” will continue it’s utter lack of interest in actual women.
If you think what is described is “rape” and is an offense worthy of jail time, being permanently smeared as a predator — then you aren’t a progressive. You are a reactionary, and the “feminist” label and jargon and “certainties” won’t change that fact.
Sisters: if a man forces you to have sex, that’s rape. Period. If you don’t like how a guy is treating you, then throw him out. If you go to the police, you are a weak person who is committing a far greater assault than not having sex HOW you may have wanted it. Live and learn. Grow up. Moral adulthood means taking responsibility for your actions and not crying to daddy-police to make some guy you bagged take a blood test.
And it’s also worth noting that I posted very reasonable (no pejoratives, judicious use of quotes and documentation) on this issue to both Feministing and Feministe. And both have censored ALL comments that aren’t going with their line. Everybody agrees!
Check out the Alternet discussions if you’re curious about what people think when allowed to actually speak their mind. And please pay special attention to what the women are saying in open forums. Wolf is hardly alone. She is speaking for the overwhelming majority of women following this case.
January 12, 2011 at 3:39 pm
jesse jane
Angus, serious question:
If a woman claims she is on birth control pills and isn’t (or forgot one day) — then has sex with a man, is that rape? Sexual assault? Should the police be called?
January 12, 2011 at 3:41 pm
jesse jane
I have a friend. A girl he was dating in his teens told him that she was on birth control. They had sex. She got pregnant. He dropped out of college to work in a cabinet factory to support the child. He is VERY angry about it, though took responsibility. Is that woman, who forced him into menial labor at the dawn of adulthood — a situation he more-or-less occupies to this day — a rapist?
What punishment is appropriate for her?
I say “none”. She is a bad person, who did something truly abusive, even enslaving to a good man. But call the cops? Get real.
January 12, 2011 at 3:44 pm
jesse jane
This whole thing is a real wake-up call on just how out of touch the identity movements became. You know I think it, but just to say it: rich, white, privileged cretins jacked movements for liberation and turned them into liberal victimhood societies of one kind or another exactly as Bill Clinton was destroying welfare, eviscerating public education funding and incarcerating a whole generation of men of color. But the so-called feminists cheered Clinton on. Just like today their same ilk is totally and completely missing-in-action while abortion services evaporate across whole regions of the country and right-wing fanatics are murdering liberals.
Do you know what time it is?
January 12, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Angus Johnston
Take a break, Jesse. You’re cut off for now.
September 1, 2013 at 3:31 pm
Assange upholds pro-rape ideas | Feminists opposing an Assange-led Wikileaks Party
[…] one of the alleged victims – AA – did make a public statement to the effect that she characterises Assange’s treatment of her as sexual assault or […]