Dear Michael Moore:
I read your diary. While I can't claim to be any kind of official representative of the Swedish government, I am however a half-Swedish American, who's lived in both countries for substantial periods. I'm even writing this from Stockholm.
I'm a fan of most of your work, actually, but your diary painting Sweden as a paradise for rapists upset me a lot. Not because you're badmouthing Sweden, and certainly not because I think rape isn't taken seriously enough. No, I'm upset because the picture you painted is simply dramatically wrong, and unfair. So I'd be grateful if you took a minute to hear the "other" side of the story.
First, some context:
Sweden (and the Nordic countries in general) are arguably the most progressive countries in the world. You might've noticed that your movies do well there, Mr Moore. I even heard people talking about you positively on the Stockholm subway just a week or two ago. Their progressive attitudes are not limited to a generous welfare system, universal health care, free education, and so forth.
Progressive attitudes extend just as much to moral and rights issues, to gender and sexual equality, to children's rights, and so forth. Women's issues have an important place in Swedish attitudes and politics, far more so than in US politics. Abortion is not a hot-button topic, it's a non-issue. It would be tantamount to political suicide to propose it be banned, which hasn't really been a topic of any real debate since the 1970's. Sweden has extensive legislation on gender (and sexual) discrimination. They have extensive legislation on payroll equality. Parents have the legal right to 16 months of paid parental leave, they have government-subsidized daycare that'll watch your kids for a fee capped at about $200 a month, regardless of the number of kids.
And they're progressive in the sexual arena. "Abstinence-only" sex education is unknown, and sexual education is mandatory no matter what your religious views might be. Sweden is still one of all-too-few countries with legalized gay marriage (real marriage, not partnership) and gays in the military has been around so long nobody even remembers when that was; probably around 1970. It has the only former state church (and really big one) which performs gay marriages. (And on a gender-related note, the priesthood is on the verge of becoming a female-dominated profession there)
Don't get me wrong: My point here isn't to say "Oh, but on the other hand these things are good." My point is: Doesn't it strike you as very strange, that such a progressive country would, for some reason, have a gigantic blind spot for sexual violence? It strikes me as extremely strange, and counter to all my experience of the place.
Sweden and rape
The simple fact of the matter is that it's not like that. Sweden is not a rapist's paradise, and it's not a country that doesn't take rape seriously. It's the exact opposite. Which is what you'd reasonably expect as well, if you know the place. Let's get down to brass tacks, Mr. Moore: All the statistics you cite are true. But your interpretation of them is grossly wrong. Let's start with the very high number of reported rapes:
First off, the number of reported instances of a crime does not correlate to the number of actual crimes. That's a fairly well-known fact to criminologists. Just to take an example, about ten years ago there was a huge spike in the number of reported murders in Sweden. This didn't have anything to do with any new murders in Sweden, but was actually due to the fact that Spain had arrested Pinochet, and a large number of Chilean exiles reported their "missing" relatives in hope of justice. They ended up accounting for almost half the reported murders that year (if memory serves)
Second: This is especially true for rape. I don't think I need to lecture on this site about how 'traditional values' have long lead to stigmatization and shame for rape victims, to rapist husbands walking free. Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest rape statistics in the world. Do you really think it's because there's that much less rape there?
Having mentioned spousal rape, BTW, Sweden was the first country to ban spousal rape, in 1965. (For comparison, North Carolina, as the last US state, banned it in 1993.) Sweden has had an active and vocal discussion (can't really call it a debate) in the last 10-15 years, on getting rape charges higher priority from the police and prosecutors, to getting women to report the crimes more often, and so forth. This includes active campaigning by the government.
So, is it any wonder then that the number of reported rapes has increased? No, that's a good thing, and also a completely predictable result of the active campaigning. I don't view the fact that Sweden has a high number of reported rapes as a bad thing. The fact that the conviction rate has dropped is an equally predictable consequence, since women have become less hesitant to report 'doubtful' cases, and prosecutors have starting pursuing cases that they would previously not.
Third: There's no solid evidence that the actual number of rapes has increased. To quote Jerzy Sarnecki, a well-known criminologist in Sweden: "They may have dropped, even." (link in Swedish, sorry. He's talking about violent crime in general in that article, but there are others about rape.) There's no general perception in Sweden that the amount of actual rape has increased dramatically.
Fourth: The Amnesty report you mention does not exactly "single out" Sweden; it's a report on the Nordic countries complied by Amnesty's local branches there. It too relies heavily on the reported-crimes statistic.
The Assange thing
Oh dear, now that's a quite a hot topic. Let me start out by pointing out some factual errors in your diary:
Then a conservative MP put pressure on you and, lo and behold, you did a 180 and reopened the Assange investigation.
The Assange police investigation was never closed. The prosecutor dropped the charges, and later brought them back. That's not the same thing, or even unusual. Second: Which conservative MP? I haven't heard of it. I haven't even heard any major Swedish politicians say much of anything about Wikileaks or Assange.
Sweden has separation of powers not only between executive and legislative, but between the 'political' government/cabinet and the bureaucracy. The Attorney General of the US may choose which cases the government wants to pursue, but for the Swedish Minister of Justice to do the same would be illegal and unconstitutional. Even more so for an MP. In a high-profile case like this, he'd immediately end up in a hearing in the parliamentary constitutional committee (Konstitutionsutskottet), which has oversight in those matters. No such hearing has been held, which means either there's no evidence whatsoever, or not a single other MP felt like reporting it (which is all it takes to get a hearing).
The case against Assange was dropped by the prosecution authority. That decision was itself appealed, by the representative of the women. In Sweden, victims in rape cases have the right to an attorney who guards their personal interests, much like a public defender. The irony here is that this is one of the many rules Sweden created to make sure rape charges are taken seriously in court, and not dropped on the whim of, say, a single sexist prosecutor.
Except you still didn't charge him with anything. You just wanted him for "questioning."
Yes? The Swedish legal system has a formal distinction between being "under suspicion" of a crime and being under arrest. He was under suspicion, and he had received formal notice of that fact, and the fact that he could thus be asked to submit himself for questioning. When he ultimately refused, they issued a warrant for his arrest. That was tried in court, with Assange's lawyer present, and then appealed by his lawyer and upheld. I don't know in what way you seem feel his right to due process has been infringed.
I don't pretend to know what happened between Mr. Assange and the two women complainants (all I know is what I've heard in the media, so I'm as confused as the next person). And I'm sorry if I've jumped to any unnecessary or wrong-headed conclusions in my efforts to state a very core American value: All people are absolutely innocent until proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
I'd say that's a universal element of justice, not a value we as Americans have any kind of monopoly on, much less any special relation to. I think you might need reminding that that also means you shouldn't imply that the prosecutors are guilty of corruption, as well as some unnamed politician, and that the women who reported it are guilty of falsely accusing someone.
I don't know what happened in that bedroom, and I'm honestly damn tired of people who seem so darned sure that they do, no matter what they think of Wikileaks. As a filmmaker, I'm sure you know Rashomon.
Finally
The bottom line is this: In your attack on Sweden, you seem to forget the entire reason why Assange was there to begin with, and why he'd applied for permanent residency there.
Swedish politicians don't particularly hate Wikileaks. Wikileaks is perfectly legal there. The right to publish classified information, and conceal your source is constitutionally protected there. It is illegal for the government to even ask a journalist who his sources were.
While Sweden's not devoid of scandals, it's still consistently ranked as one of the very least corrupt countries in the world. Uncoincidentally, it also has one of the most transparent governments. All government documents are constitutionally public by default, with the only exception being the 'obvious' for defense, active police investigations, diplomacy and personal privacy matters. Stig Bergling, the biggest spy in modern Swedish history, served a 20 years in prison for treason. That's not much by international standards.
Wikileaks is not particularly controversial in Sweden, and I see no motivation for the Swedish government to help in some dirty, misguided and frankly, bizarre, conspiracy to 'smear' Assange. With conservatives in the US openly calling for his murder, I hardly see how 'alleged rapist' would do so much to that effect. Nor has the Swedish government taken any steps towards shutting down Wikileaks itself, despite that it has servers hosted in Sweden, and despite the fact that they're getting money through the Swedish payment service Flattr.
Sweden's not a US ally or NATO member. It has no history of doing the US many great favors, especially in foreign policy. The US broke off diplomatic relations with Sweden for a while during Vietnam after the PM compared the bombing of Hanoi to the Sharpeville massacre. The Swedes, and their politicians, opposed the Iraq war across the board. They oppose torture across the board. Wikileaks own leaked cables showed that Swedish military intelligence busted a CIA plane for making a stopover in Sweden on one of their rendition flights, and the US ambassador was given a dressing-down for it. (and it hasn't happened since) Yet somehow, they're supposedly blatantly violating their own constitution to help the US government cover their dirty secrets relating to wars they always opposed? The USA can exert pressure, but I don't see why the Swedes would ever do that much 'dirty work' for the USA for such a stupid reason. They certainly can't extradite him for something that's not a crime in Sweden.
Sorry but the conspiracy theory is just that; a conspiracy theory - in the worst sense. I've lived in more than just two countries and visited many more, but I honestly can't say I could think of many countries less likely to engage in corrupt behavior on the USA's behalf, or many countries less likely to not take a rape charge seriously.