Rapist Released to “Care” for Victim
December 3rd, 2008From a mailing list I’m on, ICAD, I’m forwarding the following to my blog so it gets attention:
Tens of thousands of Koreans are protesting the suspended sentences of four men convicted of repeatedly raping a young girl with intellectual disabilities. Protesters are calling for impeachment of the judge. The victim, now 16-year-old was repeatedly raped by her grandfather and three of her uncles over a period of many years from when she was a young child in a case police described as gruesome.
The Judge in this case suggested that suspended sentences were appropriate so that these men could continue to provide care for their victim.
It is important that international attention is focused on this case as the prosecutor attempts to appeal these sentences.
1. Please consider letting others know about this case. More info can be found at
http://icad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/korean-outrage/
and
http://icad.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/thousands-protest-rapists-probation/
2. Please consider responding to the icad poll on sentencing in this case and asking anyone who cares about the abuse of people with disabilities to do the same by going to
Suspended Sentences Poll
http://icad.wordpress.com/
Thanks for considering this request.
I tried to go to the Suspended Sentences Poll but all I saw was a short piece on the case with a comments area, no petition or poll or form to fill out or other clear way to make your voice heard.
I’m on several different international disability-oriented mailing lists, including some devoted specifically to human rights issues. And I also run an international blog on disability, poverty, international development, and human rights in developing countries. So I can help spread the word. But first I would want to better understand how people are supposed to register their support for the girl in a way that should hopefully be actually heard.
here is the petition:
http://agora.media.daum.net/petition/view?id=63065
*puking*
“The Judge in this case suggested that suspended sentences were appropriate so that these men could continue to provide care for their victim.”
I am not sure that this would be what the girl is wanting, let alone needing! I’d think she’d rather be in the care of anybody BUT those guys!
Thank you for bringing attention to this case. If enough international attention is brought to this case, the Korean government may be forced to address this travesty of justice. To date, tens of thousands of Korean protesters have not been quite enough.
Unbeliveable. I really have no words for this travesty, just anger.
They certainly weren’t providing ‘care’ – utterly appalling.
Thanks to Kristina, I went to look at the petition:
http://agora.media.daum.net/petition/view?id=63065
But even after I ran the Korean through the automated on-line translator (which people can do by copy/pasting the URL into the URL field at http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ and selecting “Korean to English” in the language field), I still had trouble understanding how to sign. If I’m understanding the other signatures correctly (or if I am correctly identifying the appropriate text AS signatures), it does not appear as if people are being asked to use real names etc. to sign, which I would think would be important for verification purposes. This leaves me unclear how effective the petition campaign is likely to be.
Sorry to be off topic, but I was wondering if you would have any interest in blogging about this (or maybe you’re too busy with your sweetie
)
Jerry Lewis, the man who runs the annual Telethon to raise money for people with muscular dystrophy in the US is about to receive a humanitarian award. Many people in the disability community is protesting this award because they feel that Jerry perpetuates and entrenches negative, harmful stereotypes toward people with disabilities. More about the petition campaign at: http://www.petitiononline.com/jlno2009/petition.html
There is also a Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40538392681