Wow...just...wow - Defense attorney blames victim in india gang rape/murder case

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Relapse**

Never have I heard such a line of gak.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/11/16452936-defense-attorney-blames-victim-in-india-gang-rape-murder-case?lite

**Asherian Command**

For those at work....

By Kari Huus, Staff Writer, NBC News
The attorney representing three men charged with gang rape and murder in India told an interviewer that the woman who died and her male companion were to blame for the attack, which took place on a moving bus in New Delhi, according to a report published Thursday.
"Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady," Manohar Lal Sharma said, according to the Bloomberg report. "Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect."
The Dec. 16 attack left the 23-year-old physiotherapy student and her companion, who was also beaten, bleeding on a highway. The woman died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospitial

Sharma, who is representing three of the five individuals charged in the attack, said Wednesday that his clients would plead not guilty to all charges in the case. Two other men have been charged in the attack, and a third was implicated but will be tried separately because he is a minor.

The lawyer's comments, which echoed those by some conservative religious and political figures, were likely to meet with more outrage from India’s urban middle class, which has spearheaded fierce protests against the government and police for their perceived failure to protect women from violence.
But they reflected a traditional chauvinism that is still held by many in the populous country.
"Guilt is not one-sided," Indian spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, told followers earlier in the week, adding that if the woman had pleaded with her six attackers in God's name, and told them she was of the "weaker sex," they would have relented, Reuters reported.
Mohan Bhagwat, a conservative pro-Hindu politician, weighed in with his view that rape occurs only in Indian cities, because women there adopt western lifestyles, but not in rural India.
But that view is contradicted by data, Reuters reported, citing the National Commission for Women, which has documented a pattern of gang rape and sexual humiliation of lower caste women in rural India.
Bhaskara Rao, who heads the New Delhi-based policy think tank said Bhagwat's comments reflected a traditional, rural society amid a country in transition.
"The people who are there in the police, judiciary, politics — they are old minds trying to deal with new problems," she said.
Reuters contributed to this report.

**Bran Dawri**

That's their defence?
My clients aren't guilty because the victim wasn't a respected lady?

And she wasn't a respected lady because she was raped?

Seriously?
This guy should be executed along with the rapists. Sorry. Not executed. Put down.

**Snrub**

I stopped reading.... right about..... here...

Some Douche Nozzle wrote:"Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady,"

Yep right there!

Excuse me while i line up a wall of facepalms. Here goes.

Spoiler:

Spoilered for your consideration.

**Asherian Command**

"Guilt is not one-sided," Indian spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, told followers earlier in the week, adding that if the woman had pleaded with her six attackers in God's name, and told them she was of the "weaker sex," they would have relented, Reuters reported.

This is... Just absolutely appalling.

"Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect."

WHAT THE FETH?!?!?
I know well respected girls that have been raped! What the feth is wrong with these people?

**clively**

My opinion of defense attorneys just lowered quite a bit.

This particular one should be thrown in jail along with his clients.

**Mr Nobody**

My question is why these leaders are trying to defend these men when much of the regular populace knows what they did was wrong?

It seems to be wilfully ignorant to a point insanity.

**AlmightyWalrus**

I'm all for blaming the victim and all but... wow...

**rodgers37**

Wow that is ridiculous.

Does anyone have any knowledge of rape in India though? Although it seems like a completely ridiculous and horrible idea, maybe the guy is right? Would be very odd and I can't see why someone sick enough to rape a women would care wether the victim is respected or not, but maybe that does happen in India?

Even if that is the case (very very unlikely) how on earth is it a defence? And how can lawyers do that? When you read a story like this you can see why many have very low opinions of lawyers in general. I don't think I could stand up in a court and try and get an obvious criminal off their charges...

**AustonT**

clively wrote:My opinion of defense attorneys just lowered quite a bit.

It shouldn't. New Dehli is not an insubstantial city and yet yesterday was the first day any of these men had a lawyer, after most of the Indian capitols lawyers refused to represent a pack of gang rapists.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I'm all for blaming the victim and all but... wow...

ORLY? What are YOU blaming this victim for?

The police said the men were looking for some fun. They had been drinking, having a party, and decided to go on a joy ride. They began circling the capital in a private bus, the police said, when they spotted a couple looking for a ride home. They waved the man and woman onboard and charged them each 36 cents.

And then, the police said, the men beat the couple with an iron rod and repeatedly raped the woman as the bus circled the city. The woman suffered severe injuries to her head and intestines and required multiple operations.

**AlmightyWalrus**

AustonT wrote:

ORLY? What are YOU blaming this victim for?

It's a Dakka in-joke. "Blame the victim!" always gets posted sooner or later in threads like this.

**Grey Templar**

Wow, just wow.

**liturgies of blood**

This is awful but the victim is blamed in most defence strategies (BTW this is not my condoning it before anyone says so), the idea that rape is the victims fault is the reason that we have "slut walks" and take back the night rallies.

Some people are happy to blame the woman because she was asking for it, dressed provocatively, had any sexual partners before marriage, morning after regret and a whole host of bs reasons.

It is gak and it is awful but politicians get away with saying gak like this all the time in certain parts of the world. It is part of a fundamental lack of understanding of what rape is and how it effects people. In their mind "it's just sex right?" and they think the woman gave consent at some point to it by smiling back, getting in a car or for the reasons I gave above.
The same people that rape doesn't happen to men either.

For all of the above and more there is such a low % of cases reported and an even lower number going to conviction.

**Grey Templar**

Of course that shaky defense doesn't work because the victim died. I think there are plenty of Rape cases where the perp didn't intend to rape anyone, it just happened. Its still rape of course and just punishment is deserved.

But this seems open and shut to me. Does India still execute people by having an Elephant crush their chest?

**SilverMK2**

There is a huge cultural change going on in India at the moment, including a lot of change on attitudes towards women. One of the reasons there has been such a huge outcry in India regards this case is because the number of people calling for modernisation of attitudes has grown large enough to start challanging the established order (subscribed to by the many of those in power and the growingly "disenfranchised" male population which is angry at the growing power of women) much more openly.

10 or 15 years ago? This would have been swept under the rug almost entirely. Even today only something like 1 in 600 rape victims in India actually secure some kind of conviction (I seem to recall that is the rate I heard quoted).

**Dark**

It is me, or most of the "blame the victim" strategies on rape cases actually backfire and are denigrant to men?

What do I mean?

"She was dressex in X way", "She was at Y place at Z hour" and so. Soooooooo, we're agreeing that we are so civilized that we can't control animal behaviours?

And then the same men try to portray women as inferior... gee.

**Grey Templar**

Dark wrote:
It is me, or most of the "blame the victim" strategies on rape cases actually backfire and are denigrant to men?

What do I mean?

"She was dressex in X way", "She was at Y place at Z hour" and so.

I think the line of thinking for that strategy is that if X, Y, and Z are true that the women in question wanted sex. And in cases where there was no verbal protest it might hold some water because consent doesn't have to be verbal. And verbal consent is not always valid.

Of course since I am sure the victim was giving clear communications that she was not giving consent in this case the above wouldn't apply.

**SilverMK2**

Grey Templar wrote:
nd in cases where there was no verbal protest it might hold some water because consent doesn't have to be verbal. And verbal consent is not always valid.

Depends where you are as to what constitutes consent, or the lack there of. Generally if consent cannot be given (ie due to incoherent drunkness, being passed out, etc), then anything done with that person is not consensual, since informed consent cannot have been given. If any objections are raised at any point before or during the act, consent can be considered to have been withdrawn and any further action (other than to stop) would be considered rape.

But again, laws and attitudes vary.

**Grey Templar**

Well yeah, if the person is unable to give consent for any reason(underage, intoxicated, etc) then any consent that is given is invalid and the automatic reply given is No.

It gets stickier when the person seems able to give or has given consent. Such as an example given in my College orientation on the subject.

The victim in question went to a party and got drunk to the point where she blacked out. She met this guy there prior to getting drunk. The guy took her back to her apartment and things happened. According to him she appeared concious and consentual. It is a known fact that in a blackout a person can still appear fully functional.

It later turned out that he had been serving her Jello shots that had been made with Everclear, and was aware of what was in them. She had a total of 8 of them, plus the 4 beers she had had earlier.

So it turned out he should have known it was impossable for her to be unable to give consent. But if he had not been aware of how drunk she was it may have been a different story.

**Howard A Treesong**

This is what happens when a culture raises men to think women are inferior, where women are subservient to men and a lesser being. She should have begged them not to rape her? Because she would have been asking for a favour, clearly. The man saying this is a total gak, I find people like him loathsome. But he won't be alone in thinking like this, and much as we are shocked by backward pigs saying these things in foreign countries, these views exist in some people everywhere.

**Dark**

And to this specific case, I don't think we can claim a lass gave consent or gave "the right messages" when she had to be beaten the crap out of her in order to get raped.

(I'm not saying that if there's no beating there's no rape, I'm just emphasizing that there was also a beating in order to achieve it in this particular case).

**Grey Templar**

Absolutly, that was kinda my point. There is no murkyness here unlike some other rape cases.

**azazel the cat**

liturgies of blood wrote: "slut walks"

Were I ten years younger and had no idea of the context, I'd say that sounds just lovely.

**unmercifulconker**

Bran Dawri wrote:
That's their defence?
My clients aren't guilty because the victim wasn't a respected lady?

And she wasn't a respected lady because she was raped?

Seriously?
This guy should be executed along with the rapists. Sorry. Not executed. Put down.

Sadly these types of claims are quite common :(

**daedalus**

Oh, that's pleasant...

The world is such a gakky place sometimes. :(

**KalashnikovMarine**

What in the nine circles of hell....

This is disgusting. In every possible way.

**Necroshea**

Asherian Command wrote:
For those at work....

"The people who are there in the police, judiciary, politics — they are old minds trying to deal with new problems," she said.

More like old minds who can't get with the program. It's 2013 and we're still having this kind of gender inequality.

Sad day.

**Howard A Treesong**

What are these 'new problems'? Rape is not a new phenomenon is it?

**Grey Templar**

Necroshea wrote:
Asherian Command wrote:
For those at work....

"The people who are there in the police, judiciary, politics — they are old minds trying to deal with new problems," she said.

More like old minds who can't get with the program. It's 2013 and we're still having this kind of gender inequality.

Sad day.

I'd say not everyone can be as advanced as those of us in the West, but that would be politically incorrect

**Necroshea**

Grey Templar wrote:
Necroshea wrote:
Asherian Command wrote:
For those at work....

"The people who are there in the police, judiciary, politics — they are old minds trying to deal with new problems," she said.

More like old minds who can't get with the program. It's 2013 and we're still having this kind of gender inequality.

Sad day.

I'd say not everyone can be as advanced as those of us in the West, but that would be politically incorrect

Just don't get why everyone doesn't want to be like "Murrca.