Newsletter for August, 2019

Rape in the News

Cyprus Rape Case – Continued

  For more information, please see the Newsletter for July, 2019, and my post, Was a British Girl Raped In Cyprus by 12 Young Israelis?

What was the British girl doing in Cyprus in the first place? An article in The Sun by Tom Wells and Rebecca Husselbee, dated August 12, 2019, answers that question. Apparently she was misled by Summer Takeover, a company advertising itself as a travel and accommodation service. Summer Takeover “offers young people an “opportunity” to work in hotspots like Ayia Napa, Kavos and Zante in the Greek Islands for the small deposit of £1.” The girl would pay a total of around £450 plus fees payable in monthly installments over a period of 8 months. She was promised 2 weeks of fun before her work started.

Summer Takeover put her in the Pampas Rocks Hotel, a 2 star hotel that packs as many as 950 guests in 250 rooms. She was given a windowless room in the basement without air-conditioning to share with 3 other girls. The 4 girls shared one room key but worked irregular hours and needed to get into the room at all hours of the day and night. Subsequently, the door was open all the time resulting in no security and no safety.

The Summer Takeover website is slick and promises the world. Reviews on the site are all positive but I found another review site, trustpilot.com, where the reviews were mostly negative. If lawyers want to know the names of potential witnesses, this is one place they should look. I’ve included some of the reviews at the end of this post. I was afraid they might disappear. Call me paranoid.  Scroll to the end if you wish to read them.

But the hotel is only part of the problem. An opinion piece by the Cyprus Mail dated August 8, 2017 and critical of the Cypriot police interrogation procedures noted that Lewis Power QC, a Justice Abroad lawyer, said that the “confession was obtained under oppression, given the threats made.” He also noted that the British girl “was not cautioned and was not given access to a lawyer.” Police dismiss his allegations as baseless but this is not the first time the Cypriot police have come under fire. During a murder investigation several months ago, Scotland Yard police were shocked that instead of videotaping interviews, the police are still writing it down in longhand. In their defense the Cypriot police are dealing with a bunch of drunk and disorderly teens from all over the world. They have a tough job. Nonetheless that’s all the more reason why certain procedures like videotaping interviews would actually be in their best interest. 

Israel is in still in the throes of trying to find a moral out of what happened at Ayia Napa. For an indepth look read NO MORE OR LESS A WHORE, another lovely headline, by Vivian Bercovici dated July 31, 2019.

The good news is that the British girl has some new lawyers, Nicoletta Charalambidou, Lewis Power QC, Michael Polak, and Ritsa Petri. Ms. Charalambidou represented her at the August 27th hearing. 

According to an article in The Sun by Jon Rogers dated August 10, 2019 a  34-second video was leaked to the website, Pornhub, as well as Israeli media by the Israelis. The video is said to show explicit sex with 3 boys. (In 34 seconds?) A source told the paper: “You can hear one of the boys saying in Hebrew, ‘You’re my whore, say you are my whore.’ She doesn’t understand and asks what they are saying and one replies in English, ‘We are saying you’re sexy’.”

Comment

The bigger news outlets like The Guardian and the NYT are finally covering the story. This seems to correspond to the British big name lawyer hired to defend the girl. This was something I noticed from the beginning. The British girl appears to be poor and was forced to wait until she had a lawyer before she could 1.) get out of jail, and 2.) have the help she deserves. If she hadn’t been able to raise money through Go Fund Me she would probably be sent to jail for a year and be permanently categorized as a whore with a dubious past. There doesn’t need to be any truth in the allegation. It merely needs to be made. I was reminded of Heavy, a memoir I recently read by Kiese Laymon, who described the confusion of growing up black in America, of witnessing a young girl being “trained” by boys who were supposedly her friends, of seeing girls and women he admired and loved being badly treated when all they they were ever guilty of was caring for their attackers. Why did the boys behave in such a sleazy way? I can answer that. Because they felt it was their right and privilege as members of the male sex. They feel superior to women.

It is obvious that the wealthier Israeli boys had legal representation fast and got out of jail fast. The girl, by contrast, whose only crime was to agree to have sex with one boy and maybe two or three but ended up being raped by an alleged dozen actually spent a miserable month in a Cypriot jail. What were the conditions? Was there air conditioning? How was she treated? She probably had PTSD. She must have been terrified. First she was victimized and traumatized, then slandered and insulted, then put into jail unfairly and punished for a crime against herself. She didn’t commit a crime. If anyone committed a crime, it was the boys but we will probably never know what happened that night. Certainly not without a serious investigation and that is unlikely.  Her attackers got off. The legal systems of the world are mostly archaic, patriarchal and biased in favor of rapists. This isn’t just my point of view. It’s fact and it must change.

An article in K news, ekathimerini.com, a newspaper attached to the International New York Times in Greece and Cyprus reports that the British girl was set free on bail on August 27, 2019. She is to report 3 times a week while awaiting her trial. Following this, the bigger newspapers began covering the Ayia Napa case. The Guardian newspaper,  The Independent newspaper, BBC News, The Washington Post newspaper, and The New York Times newspaper all came out with articles on August 27, 2019. Why did they wait so long? I believe they were waiting for someone with the right kind of credentials to go to bat for the girl. After the success of the Go Fund Me, the girl was able to secure a top British lawyer. Before he appeared on the scene, she was just some dumb girl who had gotten herself into trouble. The major papers didn’t want to risk their reputations. I remember when I saw the first article about the case. The article had cast aspersions on the girl saying that she had a past and was just a whore. I could have left it then and waited for more information but I’m glad I didn’t. The ups and downs of this case has brought one very important element to light. The lesson is: the law protects the rich and condemns the poor. It’s a lesson we well know in America. It’s a lesson that our citizens of African American descent know well. Justice costs money and, if you get into trouble, you’d better have some.

To sum up, the British girl is out on bail until her trial on October 2, 2019. We will see what happens then.  

Why I Froze and Smiled During My Sexual Assault

Jenny Lee Corvo, on Medium, has written one of the clearest descriptions of tonic immobility I have ever read. Ms Corvo was sexually assaulted by a male hairdresser in an empty locked salon. He didn’t threaten her verbally. It was the cold steel of his styling scissors along with her fear that locked her into the chair with a false smile pasted on her face while he touched her through the gown, brushing away non existent hair from her body.

Signs of life for NC sexual assault reforms after legislation declared dead

“North Carolina is the only state in the country where once you have consent to start a sex act, it’s not a crime to continue after the partner tells you to stop.” “It is also not considered rape in North Carolina to have sex with an incapacitated person who caused that incapacitation through drinking or drug use.” Did you know that? It’s a convoluted law meant to protect the rapist not the victim. It means that if a girl gets drunk and passes out, it’s okay for a boy to have sex with her. The boy doesn’t need permission. Why is this? Let’s turn it around. If a boy gets drunk, passes out, and someone rapes him with broom handle, is it okay? Same thing. Different sex. Think about it.  

Sexist attitudes towards sex are cheating women of orgasms – and worse

by Rebecca Hitchen for The Guardian on August 26, 2016.

Rebecca is a brave woman to talk about this. Penile penetration is what sex is about. Right? This is a attitude that hasn’t changed for decades, for generations. Lesbians have a high orgasmic success rate. There should be a school for men that would disabuse them of the idea that heavy, exhaustive pumping will bring the two partners to orgasm. Most depictions in movies and on TV show a man and woman running from different corners of a room. She jumps up, wraps her legs around him and he slams her against a wall then pumps away with manly abandon until they collapse in exhausted contentment. Is that realistic? What percentage of the populace does that? A large study reports that Lesbian women had a significantly higher probability of orgasm than did either heterosexual or bisexual women. Heterosexual women 61.6%, lesbian women 74.7%,  If  a man could only orgasm 61.6% of the time, there would be an uproar. Maybe, just maybe, if women had  higher rates of orgasm, they would want sex more. Maybe it would help the rate of rape in the world. What a thought!

Photo by Daniel Nieto from Pexels

Rape at college: Why back to school is so dangerous for women

From the first day at school until Thanksgiving break is the most dangerous time for women going to college. “More than 50% of college sexual assaults take place between August and November, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.” Please be careful.  

Abuse Victim’s 3 Billboards Called for Stronger Laws. Then the State Showed Up.

The patriarchal world punishes someone who complains about rape. Kat Sullivan was raped by her soccer coach when she was 17 years old. Nothing was ever done back then. The school board investigated recently and found the teacher culpable. Kat paid for two billboards advertising her case but the state has accused her of lobbying without registering. Kat maintains that she is not lobbying and from a quick look at the law, I agree. The state is threatening to fine her $40,000 for not registering. Why do victims keep being punished? Read the article. See what you think.

Oklahoma ex-officer convicted of raping multiple women is denied an appeal

By Madeline Holcombe and Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN, August 2, 2019. Daniel Holtzclaw,33, an ex-Oklahoma police officer is going to jail for 263 years. I’d say that’s life. Holtzclaw’s crime spree of 18 women started during a June, 2014 traffic stop of a 57-year-old woman. His crimes started with groping and continued on to oral sodomy and rape. He figured that since the women were of African/American heritage and had records of prostitution or drugs, the women would not report him.  What’s important about August 2nd? He lost his appeal. He’ll probably keep trying but I hope the justice system will keep doing the right thing by these women. Lock him up and throw away the key.

 The Rich and Powerful – Jeffrey Epstein

Comment

I’m so tired of reading about this. I’m angry that Jeffrey Epstein cheated his victims of their day in court. They may get a chance with Ghislaine Maxwell but it just won’t be the same. I would love to know why Maxwell, who came from money got involved with Epstein but I’ll probably never know. The other women were most likely highly paid. I’m out of my depth here. I don’t understand. Two articles for your perusal. 

How a Ring of Women Allegedly Recruited Girls for Jeffrey Epstein

New York Times, by Amy Julia Harris, Frances Robles, Mike Baker and William K. Rashbaum dated August 28, 2019 An interesting article. The case will have to go on with the women who facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s obsession. Why? The women, in order of importance are: Ghislaine Maxwell, the boss Sarah Kellen, the Lieutenant Lesley Groff Executive Assistant and Nadia Marcinkova (aka Marcinko), the sex slave. 

The Sisters Who First Tried to Take Down Jeffrey Epstein

by Mike Baker, August 26, 2019, New York Times 24 years ago two sisters meet Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Maria Farmer, then 24, was a budding artist and her sister, Annie, was only 16.

R. Kelly

R. Kelly Denied Bail; His Lawyer Says Accusers Have ‘Groupie Remorse’

Another barely believable rich man does whatever he wants story like Harvey Weinstein, like Jeffrey Epstein, like Bill Cosby, like….like…. No one says anything. Payoffs. Witness tampering, fear of reprisals. The rich and powerful take whatever they want. Some, like the above mentioned, eventually pay. We still don’t like to talk about it. It’s prurient. Nice people don’t talk about horrible things like this. I know the drill but it doesn’t work. We have to change. We must speak out. NO MORE HIDING.

Harvey Weinstein

Rosanna Arquette: ‘They said I was a pain in the ass. It’s not true’

by Paul Cocozza, August 26, 2019, The Guardian The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein. Another victim comes forward. A BBC documentary directed by Ursula MacFarlane.

Endnotes: Reviews from Trustpilot.com on Summer Takeover