Dominic Strauss-Kahn released

[aliceliddell]

There is no case to answer because Ms Diallo is an 'unreliable witness'. No medical or forensic evidence is relevant. When raped women are 'witnesses' in the legal system, their credibility is the topic of contention, not the evidence. The issue of consent is largely ignored. Criminal law requires 'presumption of innocence' and 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Is it this combination that results in an inadequate legal response to sexual violence or other factors? Can this be changed?

Why doesn't crying burglary work?

Is it because if a householder reports burglary, the police don't immediately start referring to the alleged burglary, don't ask if you left the door unlocked, don't ask you why you kept valuable jewellery in your jewellery box, don't ask why you had a TV in full view of the street, which is tantamount to inviting in a burglar and don't imply that you voluntarily gave the burglar all your worldly goods and then regretted it and decided to pretend they had actually been stolen?

But 90% of rape charges are dropped.

Do you believe that 90% of all reported rapes are made up, Cote d'Azur?

And the other charges against him haven't been dropped.

They are still being pursued.

And still it seems, that doesn't make any difference to his possibility of running for president.

So being a rapist or other type of sexual predator, is no big deal after all.

1 in 4 women experience violence from men

1 in 9 women is raped.

94% of rape allegations are true. Only 6% of allegations are false (Home Office British Crime Survey stats).

The Diallo case was dropped because the chances of securing a conviction were so slim. This is not the same thing as 'made up.'

DSK originally claimed no sexual encounter had taken place.

Forensic evidence shows "a very brief sexual encounter" took place. Therefore the issue is about consent. And given his position in relation to hers it could be argued very strongly that even if she said 'yes' it was coerced and therefore rape.

Ms Diallo had to undergo an intimate examination and a complete assassination dissection of her character. In all this, her character, her words, her life have come under far more scrutiny than his.

Several other women have come out and made claims against him.

But of course it is way more likely that she made the whole thing up. And Banon. And everyone else. They're all out to get him, poor innocent framed man.

There wasn't enough evidence to take it to court. The law is the law. If the case cannot be proven under our current system it is right (in the legal sense) that the charges are dropped. That doesn't mean it's right in the moral sense. It doesn't mean he's innocent nor does it mean the system works for the vulnerable. He may not be a proven rapist but I am truly agog that people think he's an innocent.

Such depressing awful statistics. Such sad reading!

It really puts flippant comments on this topic in context.

The thing is, every time someone utters the line "she might have made it up", it sends out the message that "if you report a rape, we won't believe you."

We already have the majority of rapes going unreported. The way the media and the criminal justice system go on, I'm sometimes suprised that any rapes get reported.

Am going to quote quite a lot in this post so have put my comments in italics and quotes in normal font - I know it should be the other way round, but it is easier this way.

I agree totally with all that you say sunshineandbooks. I also agree with HerBeX. Oh and with DontCallMeFrothyDragon.

This article says it pretty well;

www.sabotagetimes.com/people/dominique-strauss-kahn-goes-home-a-dark-hour-for-justice/

"But somewhere along the line the naked fact that a sexual act took place seems to have been entirely forgotten. Instead, Diallo?s past and present errors of judgement eclipsed the undeniable fact that something distasteful must have happened in Suite 2806, and with a man with a well documented history of mistreatment towards women."

"When we have factual evidence of a rushed sexual encounter of less than ten minutes between a man like Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a chamber maid who doesn?t seem nearly malicious enough to prepare a pre-meditated sex sting on a guest staying at the hotel where she had been a model employee for 3 years. None of it makes sense."

I find this quote particularly poignant and revelatory of attitudes towards rape;

"Instead of asking if Strauss-Kahn was the type of person who could attack a woman in this way, they asked whether Diallo was the type of person who could fabricate this story. The prosecutors concluded the latter, which was the easier thing to do, and the US law supported their actions."

Also note that;

"Two female members of staff from the hotel report DSK made ?blatantly inappropriate? advances towards them"

Sorry bit this whole thing just stinks. And what makes me sick is all the rape apologists in France who are acting like DSK has been cleared/is innocent and we can get him back onto the job of being one of France's most important minds. Fuck that!

Cote I respect your opinions generally on MN but I can't help wondering if you are playing Devil's Advocate on this one? Ok the charges are being dropped but we don't know if DSK is a rapist or not - the fact that he may well be will not impede his political career in France. Just watch.

CoteDAzur rape is no more considered a serious crime in France than in England. If it ends with a nice juicy murder then it gets press and people follow the case closely.

But the plain and simple rape of a domestic? If it hadn't happened abroad no-one would have been any the wiser. The press would have covered it up, like they have in the past. They are starting to open up a bit now, thanks to this case, which can only be a good thing.

In the suburbs of Paris and other large cities there are regular gang rapes of teenage girls by teenage boys. This rarely gets reported. In fact I only read about it in the English press French gang rape article

This is an old article but it is still going on - how often do you hear about it?

This article also sheds some light on different ways of seeing the same subject.

I am not going to go into my own personal experience of France's attitude to victims of domestic violence and rape (else I'd be here all day and dragging up some nasty experiences I don't want to think about), but I will use the example of one male friend. He was accused of a rape which had apparently happened a few years before. There was evidence against him and his friends - no DNA but stories which added up IYSWIM. His hearing was over in minutes - the judge's argument being, it happened so long ago, why didn't you cole forward before (to the victim). I don't know if my friend is innocent or guilty - I give him the benefit of the doubt as I am good friends with his wife. But the speediness of the hearing, the way it was just dropped and the victim ignored by the judge was pretty scary.

Sounds to me like you want any man accused of rape to be locked up and guilty until proven innocent. Thank god we don't have it that way

To be flippant you could argue that in the case of rape you would have fewer miscarriages of justice if it was guilty until proven innocent. But no one is actually saying he should be be incarcerated despite not being convicted. That is a straw man argument.

What we are saying is that the system and society generally is fundamentally biased in favour of the accused rather than the victim when it comes to cases of rape. For every 94 women who are raped, only 6 see their rapist punished. That is not right.

CoteDAzur wrote - "Clearly you are not familiar with politics in France. Extramarital affairs are considered irrelevant. Rape, on the other hand, is a serious crime and effectively kills political aspirations."

Which French politicians have had their political aspirations effectively killed by rape?

vesuvia there's a couple being accused right now and have had to resign.. but oh, wait, the allegations only came to light after people started talking about it with the DSK issue.

Now everyone believe he has been exonerated I hope these new cases won't be pushed to one side and forgotten about.

French press are reporting today that 80% of French don't DSK as a candidate for the presidency. So at least it's killed his political aspirations that way.

Makes you wonder about the other 20% though.

Yes, but would they not want him enough to vote for Sarko if he was the opponent?

I don't think he can or should or will run for President, but if the socialists get in you can guarantee he will have a plum ministry position.

Theala - maybe the other 20% are those who understand that DSK is that exceptional thing in France, a man of the left who has a powerful grasp of economic reality. And are ready to prioritise that skill over all other character traits...

Bonsoir There are others on the left or who are left leaning who could take up ministry positions who also have a strong grasp of economic reality - people who are currently in business but have worked in politics under the left in the past.

But potential presidential candidates? Don't think so. Look at the rest of the muppets on the left who yearn to lead the country...

Maybe Bonsoir, but tbh, I'd say most of the other 20% don't think he's done much wrong.

Whereas I think that at the very least, he's guilty of such a gross miscalculation of judgement that it reflects very badly on his ability to lead the country, economic whizz or no.

I agree that there's very few other plausible potential candidates though. Hollande seems like a bit of a tit. :expert political analysis:

No, but the President doesn't need a good grasp of anything much. He needs good ministers, advisors and speech writers.

I'm not keen on any of the current socialist candidates, but there is no way I could vote for DSK (and I'd have said that before this case, knowing a fair amount on his reputation). A president of France, or any country, can not be allowed to have such a blatant disregard for half the population.

Chirac was a dirty old man bit of a ladies' man, but he never came across as perverted, or disrespectful of women. DSK's reputation goes before him.

Theala I couldn't vote for Hollande purely because he lived with the other great tit of the Socialists for so long, Ségolène. My political analysis is also expert and very mature :)

Aubry is disappointing me daily at the moment due to her statements on DSK, but they are quite close. Until the crap she has been spouting this week I think she'd have got my vote (except I can't vote in France. And nor would I vote for the socialists. But if I had to, that's how I'd have played it)

Oh gosh Cheria, you cannot seriously believe what you wrote. The president of France is not a figurehead.

I am not going to write what I think of Chirac as it would be libellous, but his failings go way beyond womanising (and, yes, he was a serious womaniser).

Well I guess there we have it - the priorities of a patriarchy loud and clear.

If you are considered to be good at making money, and we like your politics, you can do what you like to the nonprivileged and we won't ask too many questions or try to find out too hard what really happened.

As if the message wasn't blatant enough before, I think we members of the sex class get it loud and clear in this case; rape is only nominally illegal and only nominally worthy of investigation. Women - you are not worthy of the right to impartial hearing and fair access to the justice system (AKA as human rights). And you can multiply that by 100 if the man is rich white and powerful.

And people think we don't need feminism!?

Yes, I also thought Aubry was ok, until all this happened. It seemed they all covered up for that eejit. There's none of them that seem to have any moral backbone, neither on the left nor the right.

I think if I could vote, which I can't either, I'd be hard pushed to support any of them.

Cheria I'm clueless but genuinely interested - why is Segolene Royal such a disaster? Is she another fake socialist like the lovely DSK? I had always got the impression that she was a feminist who really cared about women and had done a decent job of standing up to Sarkozy in the last election. As I say, I know next to nowt about the situation, just curious so feel free to correct me