Last week I was announced as the second WikiLeaks party candidate in Victoria for the Australian Senate. My running mate – the bloke in the number one spot – is Julian Assange.

I’m a well-known feminist author, media commentator and public speaker who has dedicated her career to defending women’s rights to control their bodies. This means I have fought for a woman’s right to choose abortion and to decide if she’ll engage in sexual activity, what sort and with who. I’ve volunteered as a sexual assault crisis counselor and, several years ago, went public about my own experience of rape.

This background has led some to question my decision to run for the WikiLeaks party. The concerns raised have had nothing to do with party’s agenda of bringing transparency, accountability and justice to the Australian Senate. Rather, the accusation is that by running with Assange I am attempting to whitewash allegations he sexually assaulted two Swedish women.

I disagree. But before I explain why, I want to show my respect for the people who have raised their concerns with me. Despite disagreeing with many of their premises and conclusions, most are genuinely concerned about the way western societies have long treated victims of sexual assault and I sincerely thank them for this.

My view is that I wasn’t bedside when the events that have given rise to the allegations against Assange took place. No one was, except him and the women involved. This means that I don’t know what happened, and neither does anyone else. Because none of us knows what happened, no one has grounds to judge him or the two women as either guilty or innocent. Such judgments are for the courts.

Juries, judges and judicial system are the best means we’ve discovered so far to determine the facts of a case and the culpability of anyone involved. I worry about low reporting and conviction rates for sexual assault and would support remedies to bring such figures in line with comparable crimes. However, this view doesn’t justify a presumption that a man is guilty in any particular case.

Assange has not been charged with sexual assault or any other crime. Rather, Swedish authorities want him for questioning. He has repeatedly said, including to me personally, that he is eager to answer questions on this matter. Indeed, from his perspective, the sooner the better so that the matter can be dismissed or charges. For him – and the two women I’d imagine – the delays to justice in this case have resulted in justice being denied. The reputations of all involved will remain in peril, and all lives on hold, until the matter is resolved.

So what’s holding things up? The answer is the unyielding attitude of the Swedes. They won’t question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy nor talk to him by video-link, nor make use of the routine legal solutions like those provided by the mutual legal assistance treaty to resolve the impasse. Sadly, the Australian government has declined to help, despite making efforts less than two weeks ago to assist six Australians accused of murder to give evidence by video-link.

What does Assange fear from Sweden? The same thing he fears from Britain – that the moment he sets foot outside the Ecuadorian embassy, he’ll be extradited to the US. There, he is likely to face charges under the espionage act for publishing sensitive information – including the collateral murder video - that whistleblower Bradley Manning says he leaked to WikiLeaks.org.

Any doubts that the US has Assange firmly in his sights was laid to rest in the prosecution’s closing arguments in the Manning case, which directly referenced him more than 20 times and described WikiLeaks.org as a group of “information anarchists”.

Persecution by the US is why Assange sought and was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. Not wanting to answer the Swedish allegations had nothing to do with it.

For active and concerned citizens, this is the crux of the dilemma. How can they support a super power’s judicial persecution of a man whose only crime is to have published leaks in the public interest – a super power whose record in prosecuting Manning for these leaks includes torture? Yet, how can they raise their voices against the judicial persecution of that man without making light of the allegations raised against him?

The solution is two-fold. Firstly, we need to put pressure on the Swedish government to stop dragging its feet and implement one of the many simple and obvious ways to question Assange. In the interim, we must scrupulously maintain both his presumption of innocence regarding allegations of sexual assault, and the women’s regarding allegations they have lied.

But most importantly we must remember that the worldwide movement of people inspired by the WikiLeaks solution to the problem of declining democracies across the west – a movement that gave birth to the Australian WikiLeaks party – is bigger than one man.

I have chosen to stand for the WikiLeaks party because I want to bring the WikiLeaks disinfectant of transparency and accountability to the Australian Senate.

This decision reflects nothing more or less then my respect for the rule of law and a desire to make Australia safe for democracy again.