I suspect not many of those other registrars are run by people able to use the line "they were also unhappy I was wanted by Interpol"...

It's weird to hold that against someone though. Interpol is not judiciary. It's not even proper part of any executive.

Guilty untill proven innocent?

No, guilty as found by a court that handed him an eight month jail sentence. Even if you think that was unfair and his Pirate Bay enterprise was generally a good thing for content discovery, it's unsurprising that an organisation for the administration of intellectual property doesn't consider an enterprise run by someone with a conviction for criminal copyright infringement suitable for its partner list.

But it was 15+ years ago. I guess they don't believe in rehabilitation... Can US companies discriminate on the basis of such ancient history?

My [censored, someone close to me] can't even get a passport because of something that happened when he was 20. He's more than twice that age now.

The US (from what I hear) in particular seems to be atrocious at rehabilitation.

Had he ever claimed to be rehabilitated?

He's an active member of a political party named after his criminal enterprise.

You may think he's morally right, but he broke the law and as far as I know never repented his choice.

The political party is actually legitimate, is in power in Prague (they run the city) and is an indication that he is now acting legally. So yes.

So, what's the point of punishment if you can't be rehabilitated anyway ? Why bother deciding on the exact perimeter of a sentence if the only thing that will matter is a boolean ?

Believe it or not, the criteria for an entity to trust someone enough to grant them the privilege of accrediting them as a domain registrar can be somewhat different from the criteria the state uses to decide whether it is cruel and unusual not to release them from prison. The fact some people can be rehabilitated, doesn't mean that they always are, or that keeping people in jail indefinitely because they haven't said sorry is a proportional punishment/deterrent. The social consensus you're arguing against is that the range of attitudes towards people convicted of crimes shouldn't be as simple as a boolean updating from INCARCERATE to MAXIMUM TRUST on the date they say sorry.

Criteria used by the state are examined by an impartial judge, publically, and must be proven beyong reasonable doubt.

Criteria used by ICANN are unaccountable, capricious and prone to abuse of power

The argument is about due process.

The problem is not their opinion, its their inordinate extrajudicial power to extend punishment indefinitely upon people which have already paid their debt to society, at the behest of corporations.

Sure, if you consider "concluding someone convicted by due process of offence against IP who continues to ridicule the concept of IP unsuitable for accreditation to administer IP" to be 'indefinite punishment' which seems more than a little hyperbolic.

For related reasons, if you're convicted of creating malware and continue to loudly and publicly defend the principle of creating malware after your release, it's not cruel and unusual punishment if tech companies won't give partner certifications to your software consultancy

The US doesn't do "rehabilitation", they only do punishment, and it's ad infinitum.

They do rehabilitation but only as a side effect of imprisonment, not intentionally.

Yes, yes they can. Felons are second-class citizens in the US.