Re: Statement on New York Festival Attacks

[Margaret Trawick <trawick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Katha wrote:

>  I'ts true that the glen ridge boys almost got away with it, and had
>much local sympathy.  but, for the record, they did not "torture" that
>retarded girl, or even "rape
> her."  they cajoled and manipulated her into inserting objects into
>herself. Repulsive, and they deserved every minute of jail they
>eventually got -- but not rape or torture.

Sounds like torture to me, Katha, and arguably also rape.  I am reminded of a
case in which a man forced a coke bottle into a woman's vagina.  The judge
ruled that the man had not raped the woman, because it was a coke bottle he
used and not a penis.  But the effect on the woman was the same as if it had
been a penis.

How can we excuse acts of sexual violence of men against helpless women and
girls (or against other men for that matter) on the grounds that one instrument
instead of another was used against the victim, or on the grounds that the
victim "did it to herself" even though she was forced to do it.  The crime in
this case is all the more vicious because the victim, being a retarded girl,
was even more defenseless than most.  In effect, she was a young child.

It is unconscionable for us to advocate that the perpetrators of such a crime
be allowed even partially off the hook for legalistic hair-splitting reasons.
Courts already are all too eager to ignore or trivialize terrible crimes such
as rape and torture, thereby facilitating more of the same.  If we don't speak
up against them, who will?

See the article below for a similar case of legal complicity with rape and
torture of persons the state does not want to have to deal with.

MT




BBC News Online: World: South Asia
Monday, 26 June, 2000, 14:42 GMT 15:42 UK

UK ' ignoring Sri Lanka torture'


By South Asia analyst Jannat Jalil

A report by a human rights group based in London accuses the UK of ignoring
evidence that many Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have
been tortured.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture is published to
coincide with the UN International Day in support of torture victims, and is
based on the medical examination of 49 Tamils, two of them women, who have
recently arrived in Britain.

The foundation says they were systematically tortured by the Sri Lankan police
and army.

It says more than half of the Tamils in the study were suspended upside down
and made to inhale noxious fumes, and a quarter of them suffered sexual abuse,
including repeated rape.

So far, seven of them have been refused asylum, while the rest are still
awaiting a decision from the Home Office.

Evidence 'ignored'

The foundation's research officer, Mary Salinsky, says evidence of torture is
often ignored or side-stepped by Home Office officials and she says this should
change unless the evidence is challenged by a medical expert of equal standing.


A Home Office spokesman denied this was the case, saying that all evidence was
considered in every asylum application.

The report points out that before 1994, 93% of Tamil asylum seekers were
allowed to stay, but since then 95% of applicants have been refused - although
a large number of decisions were overturned on appeal.

The authors of the report says it shows the danger of any attempt to base
asylum decisions on a safe countries list - an idea that has been put forward
by the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, as part of his government's response
to domestic concerns about the increasing number of asylum-seekers arriving in
Britain.

The Tamil Tigers are also accused of torture and many other human rights
violations during their 17-year long struggle for a separate homeland in which
more than 60,000 people have been killed.