from the make-the-punishment-fit-the-crime dept.
After a number of high-profile crimes that sparked outrage and protests, India will allow the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls under the age of 12:
The executive order was cleared at a special cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It allows capital punishment for anyone convicted of raping children under the age of 12. Minimum prison sentences for rape against girls under the age of 16 and women have also been raised.
According to Reuters, which has seen a copy of the order, there was no mention of boys or men.
Two recent rape cases have shocked the nation. Protests erupted earlier this month after police released horrific details of the rape of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by Hindu men in Kathua, in Indian-administered Kashmir in January. Anger has also been mounting after a member of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was accused last week over the rape of a 16-year-old girl in northern Uttar Pradesh state.
India's poor record of dealing with sexual violence came to the fore after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus. This led to huge protests and changes to the country's rape laws. But sexual attacks against women and children have since continued to be reported across the country.
Some activists have criticized the application of the death penalty, saying it will deter reporting, especially given that almost all perpetrators are family members or acquaintances.
Also at Reuters and Bloomberg. Editorial at The Indian Express.
Related: Indian Government Attempts to Suppress Rape Documentary
Related Stories
India's Daughter is a BBC documentary which details the shocking gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh, a young medical student from Delhi. In the days leading up to and following its broadcast, the Indian government have furiously protested its showing, and have enacted a ban to this effect. The film shows a remorseless testimony of victim blaming from one of the perpetrators speaking from death row. Jyoti's family meanwhile have praised the documentary makers, with her father stating that "everyone should watch the film". News of the ban has apparently spurred a backlash: as of yesterday, the film is available in full on a number of popular streaming websites such as Vimeo.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @05:52AM (25 children)
Because if someone 12 or older is raped, then it just doesn't matter as much.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @05:58AM (24 children)
There are different levels of horrible.
(Score: 3, Troll) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:33AM (5 children)
However:
So raping a young boy is not as bad as raping a young girl?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:12AM
Goddammit.
I have NOT said that. I replied directly to the GP's complaint about AGE.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:55AM (3 children)
Short answer: no, it's not. Much in the same way that men entering boot camp get their heads shaved while women do not. The effect is not going to be the same because of societal conditioning. It's not equality but it is realistic.
This is an issue worth a lot more words but I dislike long comments, so I'll save it for a journal entry.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)
Right, and the fact that many young girls raped can never bear children is also "societal conditioning." You sound like one of those "gender-rolls are imposed by society" retards.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 22 2018, @04:27PM
There'll be a journal entry out sometime this week expounding on my answer. Until then just take it from me that you (you specifically) have no clue what I meant by that phrase.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday April 23 2018, @11:57AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:39AM (17 children)
Really? So raping an 11 year old girl is automatically worse than raping a 12 year old girl? Why? There's no objectivity there. None. An 11 year old isn't inherently more important than a 12 year old, a 15 year old, or a 20 year old.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:32AM (4 children)
Goddammit, again.
Yes, no one person is "inherently more important" than another. However, for us huu-mans, some crimes are instinctively worse than others. Our instinct to protect children is much stronger than our instinct to protect 50-year-old dudes, and the laws tend to reflect this. The younger the child, the more horrified I am about crimes committed on them.
With rape and murder, it just so happens that the "baseline" crime is already so horrible that, if you ask me, the maximum sentence should be applied regardless of the victim (barring extenuating circumstances). I don't agree with the death sentence (see post by mendax, below, for some reasons why), but something like life sentence without parole.
But in general, yes, inherent importance be damned, hurting 11-year-olds is worse than hurting 12-year-olds, and so on. It's subjective as hell, but that's what being a human is.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:43AM (2 children)
Speak for yourself. And I certainly don't think the legal system has any business making these completely subjective, irrational determinations.
Seriously? You just admitted that you think hurting an 11 year old is worse than hurting a 12 year old? What shallow, unprincipled drivel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:00PM (1 child)
You are a moron apparently too literate for your own good. Maybe if you had a little more intelligence then words wouldn't be wasted on you. Why do we have legal ages for drinking / smoking / driving? Why anything? You obviously are too upset about this topic to approach it with any level of rationality.
All rapes are horrible, but if a country wants to create different legal definitions of HOW horrible then age is the only objective way. Since individuals have different rates of maturation any set age limit is inherently shallow, but care to offer a better system? How would you determine if a teen should be allowed to drink while others should be made to wait until their thirty two?
Oh right "And I certainly don't think the legal system has any business making these completely subjective, irrational determinations" we should just leave all such decisions up to mob rule, cause that always works so well! In an ideal world we would need no laws since everyone would get along and resolve their conflicts peaceably and amicably. laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawl
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:58PM
We're not talking about restrictions set in place because of the belief that the people being restricted can't handle a substance or activity to the same degree that someone else could. We're talking about the value of life. I do not think an 11 year old's life is more valuable than a 12 year old's (or older). Maybe you do, but I don't.
You are wrong. I am not upset, but merely disagree with this approach.
And I'm saying that I don't see the point in attempting to legally ascertain "how horrible" a rape is based on age.
What a complete and total straw man. The subject was the value of life, nothing more. Enjoy your logical fallacies.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 23 2018, @12:04PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:19AM (5 children)
I suggest that you pull your head out of your ass, and allow some oxygen to soak in to your gray matter.
Laws are not rational, or logical. Democracy isn't either. At present, people are horrified at a long string of the most horrible offenses against females, ranging in age from infancy, right on up to women lying in bed, dying of old age. There really and truly seems to be a rape culture inside of India. Many males seem to believe that any woman he sees without a protector is his to do with as he pleases. Gangs of men use these women, girls, and even babies, often times killing them in the process. Worse, is when the injure the female so badly there is no hope of recovery, and she has to lie in a hospital bed for days, weeks, or months, waiting to die. If that doesn't horrify you, then you might want to have a DNA test to see if you are even human.
Males are often raped, sure, but for the most part, they aren't used in the same fashion. Few men die from being raped. Well, relatively few, anyway.
Instead of arguing nonsense here, why don't you take your lame ass to Google, and start searching for infamous rape cases in India.
Forget about your fantasy sense of "fairness" or "equality". Read. Familiarize yourself with the issues. This is India under discussion, not the US, or Europe, or any of the other civilized western nations.
And, again, pull your head out of your ass. With that fresh oxygen, you just might make some sensible arguments that would cause some of us to think.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:04PM
I think you may finally be close to understanding all the anger against "the patriarchy"! India has long been a massively patriarchal society with widows not so long ago being burned at their husband's funeral pyre. Paying another man a dowry to marry your daughter, different rules and limitations, etc.
The "west" has been coming to terms with these issues but it is still a pretty big divide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:03PM (1 child)
Very little in your post really addresses mine, which was about the value of someone's life and whether or not younger people's lives should be considered more important under the law. I, at least, don't think so, but apparently that's trolling.
But here, we can agree.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 23 2018, @01:45AM
The issues you wish to discuss are not the issues under discussion. I'm glad that we can agree on that final point, though.
JFK made a great speech: Some people see things as they are, and ask why. I see things as they are not, and ask why not. It was a great, stirring speech. But, fact is, we have to deal with what is, not with what we wish.
What really is, with people, is that most people find it more horrifying when a very strong person abuses a very weak person. Age and gender affect a person's strength, and helplessness. Sexually molesting an infant is more horrifying than sexually molesting a 25 year old woman. The infant is totally helpless, and worse, has no possible way in which to respond sexually. The 25 year old woman may be helpless, but she is far LESS helpless than the infant. And, she at least has the physical potential to respond to sexual advances. That is - simple penetration won't destroy her, as it can the infant.
The more helpless the victim, the more horrifying the crime is. That is human nature. The more damage done to the victim, the more horrifying the crime is. Sexual harassment can be as simple as patting a woman's ass as she walks by. In the case of the medical student, not only was she raped multiple times, but foreign objects were forcefully inserted into her body, for the amusement of her rapists. That is sick beyond any understanding. It's just horrifying to anyone capable of understanding the rape.
These same crimes just don't commonly happen to males. The laws aren't making a comparative value judgement between male and female victims. The laws are directly addressing reality - the reality that subhuman animals that act out on their impulses are overwhelmingly male, and that their victims are overwhelmingly female.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday April 23 2018, @02:56AM (1 child)
You might want to do a search for "boys raped to death". It's not at all uncommon in Africa and the Middle East.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 23 2018, @04:07PM
You might want to do a search for "boys raped to death". It's not at all uncommon in Africa and the Middle East.
India is neither in Africa nor the Middle East
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:52PM (2 children)
Same argument of having sex with a 17 year old, vs an 18 year old. They just drew the line somewhere, and stuck with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:20PM
No, that's more about the ability to consent rather than the value of someone's life. I question the need for this particular line at all, since it seems to declare that the younger you are, the more valuable your life is. I'm not sure I agree with a government establishing such a thing.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 23 2018, @09:14AM
Both of those are legal
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 23 2018, @12:14AM (2 children)
Hypothesis: cut off human development potential.
The older (up to a limit), the less effort to recover from a traumatic incident and the closer to a normal/functional human.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @12:21AM (1 child)
That depends on the individual person, and really has little to do with the severity of the rights violation in my view.
There are certainly evolutionary explanations for why people feel this way, but they are explanations and not justifications.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 23 2018, @06:23AM
It has nothing to do with the "rights", it has to do with the damage caused to an individual and loss of potential for the community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:02AM (4 children)
When India was under British colonial rule, the Brits often derided Ghandi's independence movement by claiming that a self-ruled India wouldn't be able to govern itself.
It was widely recognized that the Hindus and Muslims would be unable to live in peace. When self-rule was achieve, India was partitioned into a mostly-Muslim Pakistan in the North with a mostly-Hindu (somewhat smaller) India in the South.
Pakistan was non-contiguous, that is there were two unconnected parts of what at first was just Pakistan. The Eastern part of Pakistan won its independence during the '60s and became Bangladesh.
Pakistan and India never agreed over which country Kashmir was part of, and IIRC they have fought three wars over it. Both India and Pakistan have successfully tested nuclear weapons. India once tested a hydrogen bomb as well as "an ICBM that could hit Beijing" because India and China have some disputes of their own.
In India it is unlawful to print a map that suggests that Kashmir is not truly part of India.
For quite some time now there has been violence between those Muslims and Hindus that still live among each other.
Ghandi is revered as a Heaven-sent prophet but it seems his nonviolent civil disobedience is rarely practiced.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:19AM (2 children)
An apostrophe does NOT make a singular noun plural, you illiterate piece of garbage.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:35AM
No it couldn't be: her pet peeve is, my inappropriate use of commas.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:13PM
Whattup my nazi-piece-of-trash neighbor? Long time no see, its been .000029 seconds since the last member of the grammar corp did gods werk.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Monday April 23 2018, @09:32AM
"India was partitioned"
Which was hardly a pleasant affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_women_during_the_partition_of_India [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mendax on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:02AM (15 children)
The death penalty is just plain bad no matter how horrible the crime. The criminal justice system is flawed no matter what country conducts the trial and it's too easy to execute the innocent. The rape of a child is a horrible crime, but putting to death the innocent is just as horrible.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:17AM (9 children)
"... putting to death the innocent is just as horrible."
-
-
For cases in which there is no doubt, people who rape children SHOULD be executed.
If you don't like that, avert your eyes and ears, you fucking pussy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:49AM (7 children)
That's always the argument: That it will only be used when there is no doubt. But in reality, we know that this is false and that innocent people die or almost die. So you might as well stop living in your delusion that the government will get things right 100% of the time, because we know that it won't.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:42PM (4 children)
I don't know what country you live in, but in the UK the legal system is independent of the government and the jury is formed of 12 random members of the public. I believe it is similar in many other democratic nations. I have never been on a jury myself, but guys I know who have say that it is difficult in the jury room to get them to a "guilty" verdict even when the guilt is blindingly obvious. You get ones who say like "But that poor man [the accused, not the victim] is somebody's son, somebody's sweetheart! [etc etc]". Remember the O J Simpson case?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:49PM
yes and in the US at least the DA's and prosecutors and many times the judges are lying scum and do everything in their power to trick or force the jury to do their bidding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:03PM
The country doesn't matter, because no system is perfect. Even if it innocent people being convicted happens less often in a particular country, it still happens, and therefore the typical criticism of the death penalty still applies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @04:52AM
Jury is infallible? Can you read?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 23 2018, @12:07PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:46PM (1 child)
Yes. Doubt is not the problem. It's that authorities will eventually railroad people they know are innocent. Paint as guilty as Hell some poor innocent bastard that they don't like, rile up the public, and execute him as quickly as possible. They get to look like they're on top of crime, competent and tough. give the impression that they're going to know whodoneit, and that they'll act quickly. And it appeases those among the public screaming for blood. Meantime, the real reason for the rush to execution might be to shield the real perp who might be the spoiled, callous, party animal son of a high ranking official.
Or if there's no one like that involved who they care to shield, and they have no idea who did it, maybe they use it as opportunity to get rid of some illiterate unemployable bum they'd rather not have around, innocence be damned, frame him and throw him to the dogs, and then they don't have to admit that in that case they never figured out who really did it. One sort in danger of being caught up in such a scheme is anyone who knows too much, maybe has knowledge of some bribery and corruption that would be unbearably embarrassing if it came out. Dead people can't tell what they knew. Appease the public and permanently silence a potential witness or whistleblower. Win-win!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:25PM
Ah yes, the dark side of the legal system. This needs to become a more common mindset, realizing that "the law" is not some magical force for good.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:28PM
In addition to the problem of getting it wrong, please tell us _exactly_ why.
I would agree with your statement from an emotional pov, but it I am not sure a good case can be made for a death penalty for any crime.
1) Punishment? Punishments are to improve behavior. You cannot learn from death.
2) Prevent re-occurrence? Yes, it works. But, there are other ways to make sure of this as well, and without the risk of killing the wrong person.
3) Deterrent? It is a debated issue, but there is no evidence it works better as a deterrent than other severe sentences. In fact, most research seems to indicate it has no effect (feel free to google the issue).
4) Revenge? I think this has no place in a legal system, but whatever. After he is dead, you think he feels bad about it?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:34PM (4 children)
In legal terms it is not very easy in fact, but irrespective of that you can make that point about any form of punishment. There are cases of people being imprisoned for years, and it then being discovered with new evidence that they were innocent, and by extension no doubt others whose innocence is never discovered. Those lost years can never be got back.
However, we need to be pragmatic and accept a small number of cases of error in punisments. WIth modern forensics it is not so much a question of whether A killed B or not, more an issue of how deliberate it was and the mental state of the killer as legal mitigations. Personally I would not lose any sleep about executing someone who for example drives into a crowd and claims afterwards that he did not mean to kill, only frighten, and therefore it is manslaughter, not murder.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Sunday April 22 2018, @10:39PM
With the death penalty the number is not so small. In any case, in a death penalty case there must be 100% certainty that the person is guilty and that is just not possible in nearly every case.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 23 2018, @01:12AM (1 child)
Oh really? Are you saying that forensics, which are often a matter of looking at a couple of pictures and seeing if they're similar, are completely unquestionably correct, always? DNA is much better, but has not prevented convictions of innocent people for murder on the flimsiest of evidence, even today.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday April 23 2018, @04:18AM
Yes -- Not to mention multiple scandals in recent years where it's been shown that forensics "experts" were incompetent, tainted the evidence, or even deliberately fabricated results
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @04:55AM
And you should be one of the "small number of cases" - you have it coming.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:09AM (13 children)
This is just another bit of Islamophobia from India.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:39AM (12 children)
How is an anti rape law Islamophobia? Especially when one of the cases that triggered it had a Muslim victim while the perpetrators in all mentioned cases were Hindu?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:07AM (6 children)
And all of the others have been perpetrated by Muslims on Hindus or other non-Muslims. Just that one case makes the news in the West because the mainstream media is pro-Islamist. If you track non-Western news covering India any time during the last years you see both those points. That one outlier case is used only to make the law seem just and balanced. It's real purpose is to come down hard on perpetrators of Islam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:18AM (2 children)
It's real purpose is to come down hard on those that rape children - FTFY
But, hey, don't worry about your personal bias getting in the way of facts. And how, exactly, does one 'perpetrate Islam'?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:51AM (1 child)
Hey, don't let the facts get in the way of your personal pro-Islamist bias. The current legislation was started last year and is the result of the Nirbhaya Act from 2013 being ineffective against Islamic violence.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:06PM
It doesn't state that it only applies to those of an Islamic faith. So, as I said, don't let your personal bias get in the way of facts.
Now you might argue that there are more Muslims carrying out such attacks than other religions but then you had better cite a source that backs up your assertion, rather than it being simply something that you have chosen to believe.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:29AM
I love Hindu. And look at Narendra! He's doing a great job. Moving very strongly against the Muslims. Like he did when he ran Gujarat. Congratulations!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:33AM
No, you're going overboard. Hindus rape Hindus too. The rape culture among Hindu males is something of a holdover from the old caste system. Ancient India may have been a little better than Islam for most people, but it wasn't a helluva lot better. Women were disposable, in infancy, childhood, or even adulthood. Women of the lowest castes had zero rights - women of the highest castes had few rights. A man from a high caste could use any woman whom he deigned to touch, and the very worst that might happen would be that he pay compensation to whoever was responsible for that woman. If she were low enough caste, the judges might even tell her that her rapist had done her a favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:29PM
One of the crazier bits I've seen around here.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:28AM (4 children)
Well, if you happen to be a Muslim male, then you have the Allah-given right to use any woman as you like, unless she has a protector present. Mohammed said so, and that is all there is to it. So, yes, anti-rape laws are Islamophobic. I'll have to go along with GP on that one. No Muslim male is going to agree with any law that says he has to keep his penis away from women, girls, babies, goats, sheep, or anything else that takes his fancy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 22 2018, @02:35PM (1 child)
Don't be thinking Christians or any other group were always better on that one. In medieval Christian Europe, young women could not go about alone, always had to have a protective father or brother to escort them. Any young woman who did wander about alone was asking to be raped, unless she was of very high rank. Any man in the nobility might grab her, drag her behind the nearest handy curtain, and have his way with her, and no one would lift a finger or say a word against him. If anything, it would be her fault. If of the lesser nobility herself, her family would be angered and might try to get revenge, challenge the perp to a duel, but as for dragging him before the King or the courts and getting justice, forget it.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday April 23 2018, @12:41PM
I wasn't wandering around raping unattended females 1000 years ago and neither were you. In fact I sincerely doubt that any medieval rapists at all are still alive, so let's just move on shall we.
What people did that long ago is not justification for similar behaviour now.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:08PM (1 child)
So, just like Catholic priests.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:28PM
You seem to be confusing catholics with mormons. Mormons like little girls, priests like little boys.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @07:56AM (3 children)
This law has been in making for last 1 year at the least. I am not sure who is behind it, but there is(was?) a conscious well-planned effort to bring about this law, but I know that most of the NGOs involved in it get their funding from foreign entitles.
1) First the NGO heads went to different English medium news channels and cried that Indian men are uncontrollable raping beasts - a well tried and tested tactic that has been working from 1857 when it was invented by the British.
2) Then they got behind several cases, such as one where a teacher was arrested in West Bengal, but it turned out that the girl was caught cheating in an exam and hence was lying.
3) Then late last year there was full drama of a celebrity of Dangal (movie) fame who claimed harassment because a man was sleeping behind her in a flight and put his legs on her hand-rest. The man was arrested and spent months behind bars before truth was found.
4) This year the ruling nationalist part BJP lost a major state election and they have central election in 2019. Kathua rape case hits all the right points - it is in a city ruled by current nationalist party (helps opposition party), in a region that is majorly populated by Muslims (who hate Hindu nationalists), in Kashmir (where it is easy to blame Indian government), is not fake (unlike previous cases), and is close to election year.
As far as men and boys are concerned, India doesn't recognize rape of men, punishes 16-18 year old men as adults for crimes against women and doesn't recognize domestic violence against men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:04AM (2 children)
Maybe they should start educating the population first on what is acceptable and what is not. The problem goes much deeper, looking at your last sentence.
Without solving the source of the problem any punishment will have hardly any effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @09:54AM (1 child)
Oh India is being educated all right, that all Indian men are rapists and wife-beaters. Hence my last sentence.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:08PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday April 23 2018, @06:50AM
There are some people who are a waste of oxygen. Just a couple of weeks ago, one such piece of scum was profiled here on TV. The psychologists agree that he can never be trusted in public again, so we're going to pay some ridiculous amount to lock him away for the rest of his life. Seriously, a bullet to the head, and you're done.
But...
Too often, the wrong people are arrested. Convicted based on "eye witness" testimony, which isn't nearly as reliable as people think. Crime labs falsify evidence. Mentally ill people confess to horrific crimes, because it makes sense in their distorted reality. Innocent people are coerced into confessions, especially on high-profile, horrific cases where the authorities are under pressure to nail someone, indeed anyone.
If you jail the wrong person, you can always release them, and at least try to compensate them for the error. Executions are a bit harder to reverse...
There's no point to this post, other than to express mixed feelings.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.