That wasn't the only scandal. There was a fuss last year when a young French author, Tristane Banon, described her encounter with him. She explained that she had interviewed him for a book about public figures and their missteps, and claimed she had to fight him off physically. She said she hadn't made a complaint at the time, because she didn't want to be "the girl who had a problem with a politician".Of course, the point of the thing is that enlightened French people don't care about politicians' sex lives, unlike those prudish Americans, so I guess French people file sexual assault under "private sexual conduct." It looks like that's not true in New York.
ARTICLE V: Representatives of MembersAs far as I can tell, though, his immunity from prosecution only extends to his work for the IMF. Seeing as he's already been taken in for questioning, I don't know how relevant it is. If he tried to skip back to France again, though, dunno if they'd be able to stop him...and if I was him I would. Although with Sarko still in power maybe they'd bounce him back.
SECTION 13
Representatives of members at meetings convened by a specialized agency shall, while exercising their functions and during their journeys to and from the place of meeting, enjoy the following privileges and immunities:
(a) Immunity from personal arrest or detention and from seizure of their personal baggage, and in respect of words spoken or written and all acts done by them in their official capacity, immunity from legal process of every kind
Although, I could be wrong.It looks like this is a crazy complicated gray area.
"The IMF isn't a sovereign state; it has no basis upon which to claim diplomatic immunity of any sort. Er, it sounds like I'm asserting that. I mean that's how it should be. I realize the United Nations may disagree."The officials of the various UN institutions are granted diplomatic immunity by Article 105 of the United Nations charter, which the USA are a co-signatory of.
" I don't think it is appropriate to give representatives of something besides a sovereign state diplomatic immunity. Too many potential problems. If he were acting as a representative of France, sure. But the IMF? No way."Fair cop, although I fail to see why 192 sovereign states shouldn't be able to get together and agree that the people working for all of them should enjoy certain immunities. The United Nations and their associated institutions do not exist in parallel to sovereign states, but as supranational entities endowed with certain mandates by their constituent states.
Bernard-Henri Levy weighs in, makes me want to punch something.Do french people tend to use more french-derived english words when they write? The use of dossier here
I hold it against all those who complacently accept the account of this other young woman, this one French, who pretends to have been the victim of the same kind of attempted rape, who has shut up for eight years but, sensing the golden opportunity, whips out her old dossier and comes to flog it on television.He's talking about that woman who accused him of trying to rape her. And anyway, apparently she actually tried to talk about it before but was basically censored (literally censored in one case, when she named him and his name was bleeped out) So you can't really blame her for that.
I checked and, by comparison with Stein's piece, even the guys on /r/MensRights/ are having a cogent and balanced discussion of the issue.Well, this is the kind of rape that everyone sort of imagines when they say rape. Someone you don't know jumps on you, violently tries to remove your clothes, etc. Even someone who doesn't believe in 'date rape' would have to convinced that this was rape or else completely deny the entire concept.
The grand jury, which heard testimony Wednesday from his accuser, a 32-year-old chamber maid, gave the go ahead for Strauss-Kahn to be tried for allegedly forcing the women to submit to oral and anal sex. He is accused of attempted rape.Women?? There are more than one in this case?
I'm not sure who you mean by "everybody", since French media outlets have published her name, her address, her photo, and the name of her fifteen-year-old daughter. Among the French media outlets that published this stuff is French Slate, so anyone with an internet connection can find it out. She's not protected at all.
And nobody complains when we name the bank that was robbed but everybody wants to protect rape victims, what the heck is with that?
Being falsely accused of a serious crime stinks and can totally ruin your life. But it does seem to me that this issue comes up every time we discuss rape and very rarely when we discuss crimes other than rape. Did anyone object to Bernie Madoff being named before he was convicted? How about OJ Simpson with the sports memorabilia? Lindsey Lohan when she was accused of stealing that necklace? Scooter Libby? Martha Stewart? (Looks like that's a no on Martha Stewart.)Well, a big part of that is the nature of the evidence. If someone is busted for stealing a necklace, it's pretty obvious that they have it. With rape it's always a he-said/she-said situation. The evidence against Madoff was that he confessed to his kids, and later plead guilty, it would have been obvious. Same thing with OJ's theft charge (for a counter example, just look at his murder charge)
So yeah. Any thoughts about why that is?
It disturbs me a little that you think perp-walking pre-conviction defendants in front of cameras in shackles and handcuffs is necessary and arguing against it is discouraging rape victims.I'm confused. Are you opposed to this in all cases or only in cases of alleged rape. Because what I'm opposed to is treating people accused of rape as if they're more likely to be falsely-accused than people accused of any other crime. When I look at old MetaFilter comments about people accused of other crimes in the US, I don't find any complaining about this, and I do find some gloating about perpetrators being humiliated, as in the comments I linked about Martha Stewart. It's fine by me if we do away with perp walks and whatnot altogether. It's not fine with me that people only seem bothered by this when the crime in question is rape.
Also, with Lindsay Lohan, I, personally found her defense plausible. Celebrities are lent/given designer stuff to wear to wear all the time as a form of advertising, so it's possible that she thought she had some deal to wear it and the owner forgot, or something.Right. Lindsay Lohan's case was a she-said/ she-said. Lohan said that she was loaned the necklace, and the store owner says that Lohan stole it. Yet nobody has complained about the fact that Lohan was named in the media before she was convicted. As far as I know, nobody sought out personal details about the shop owner in order to discredit her. So what makes you think that the issue here is "he-said/ she-said"?
It's not like the state makes a habit of parading some dude who stole $50 from the 7-11 in front of the cameras.Not true. Hell, the Chicago Tribune has a regular Mugs in the News feature that shows mugshots of anyone whose arrest made the newspaper. The crimes are mostly pretty serious, but some of them are relatively minor. Here's a woman who hit another woman in the face with a glass in a bar fight. This guy is charged with leaving the scene of an accident.
Like I said, it's fine if people have a problem with that. I don't much like it, and I don't see any good reason for the police to release mug shots to the media. But it is suspicious to me that people only seem to raise those concerns in rape cases.Maybe because rape is a far greater transgression because it involves sexual mores. Stealing a necklace or punching someone in a bar doesn't make you a disgusting creep. You would still be friends with someone who stole a necklace or got into a bar fight? Would you still be friends with a rapist?
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was also on the move on Wednesday; he had found a new place to live in Manhattan, at 153 Franklin Street, and he moved there early Wednesday evening.They should have kept him in Rikers.
...
His new home is a free-standing three-floor town house in TriBeCa that was recently renovated by Leopoldo Rosati, and had been on the market for nearly $14 million. The town house features a rooftop deck, a fitness center, a custom theater, a steam spa bath, two Italian limestone baths, two Duravit jet tubs, a waterfall shower and a dual rainfall steam shower.
...
Mr. Strauss-Kahn left 71 Broadway about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, accompanied by two plainclothes police officers and led by the police chief, Joseph J. Esposito. Mr. Strauss-Kahn was smiling. He entered the back seat of a Lexus S.U.V., which was trailed by an unmarked car and led by a police car. A few moments later, he arrived at 153 Franklin. Cameras from the assembled news media went off, and in a matter of seconds he was inside his new home.
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posted by Ironmouth at 7:23 PM on May 14, 2011 [1 favorite]