I've had it with the Swiss.
I used to admire them -- their clean, orderly, decorous way of life. Their stubborn independence and self-reliance. I forgave them for the years they never joined the United Nations, and even now, not joining the European Union.
When I learned, years ago, that they had blithely allowed German military trains to transit their country during the Second World War, while claiming Swiss "neutrality," I was shocked, but tried to excuse them on grounds that they were protecting their country from invasion and armed warfare.
I was glad when they finally gave women the vote not so long ago. And I was glad when their banks initially balked at American demands to release the names of their American clients. Swiss banking secrecy, after all, has not been a ploy to launder dirty money; it has been a time-honored tradition to respect the privacy of their customers.
(May I add that Europeans have always been, and still are to a large degree, much more discreet about their money than Americans are.)
But now, not only are the Swiss bankers caving in to America's bullying, so are the Swiss police and Swiss jurisprudence.
Arresting Roman Polanski the other day in Zurich, where he was to receive an honorary award at a film festival, was disgraceful and unjustifiable. Polanski, now 76, has been living in France for over thirty years, and has been traveling and working in Europe unhindered, but the Swiss acted on an old extradition treaty with the U.S. and seized him! The Swiss Justice Ministry will decide whether to extradite him to the United States.
The judge in the 1977 statutory rape case is dead. Polanski had agreed at the time to a plea bargain, but then the judge reneged on it. Polanski has tried to appeal.
But there is more to this story. The 13-year old model "seduced" by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It's probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence.
I met Polanski shortly after he fled America and was filming Tess in Normandy. I was working in the CBS News bureau in Paris, and I accompanied Mike Wallace for a Sixty Minutes interview with Polanski on the set. Mike thought he would be meeting the devil incarnate, but was utterly charmed by Roman's sobriety and intelligence.
Now, three decades later, the long arm of Uncle Sam is grabbing this man and hauling him back to California, thanks to the complicity of the Swiss. There are surely more important issues in the world, and more villainous rogues at large that we should be attending to. Why does America always get sidetracked by sex and scandal?
I suggest, in the finest American tradition, we protest this absurd and deplorable act by smashing our cuckoo clocks, pawning our Swiss watches, and banning Swiss cheese and chocolate.
And let them yodel all they like.
The girl's mother complied when Polanski's suggested that she should not accompany her daughter to the photo shoot because her presence would inhibit the girl. That's what mother testified before the Grand Jury, according to the probation report. She trusted Polanski, and who would think that a man who suffered so much in his life, would cause harm and suffering to a child?
Read this for a great rebuttal of the many defenses of Polanski
http://johnshore.com/2009/10/05/hollywood-go-polanski-yourself/
I will do to you what that animal did to a 13 year-old girl, and if you can say, with a straight face, that you were not raped, I'll call for him to go free.
Better yet, do you have a young daughter or grand-daughter I can take out to dinner?
HE. RAPED. A. 13. YEAR. OLD. GIRL.
And you seem to be O.K. with that.
I think taht says everything about your character that we need to know.
Goodbye.
Yes, there are many important issues to deal with in the world. Good thing that one person does not have to keep track of all of them. The legal system has been admittedly slow moving in this, but that doesn't mean that justice should be ignored or denied in this case. Polanski committed a crime which he was supposed to serve time for. It's not the fault of the system that he belongs in jail. It's the fault of Polanski himself. Charming or not, a crime such as his deserves to favor justice for the victim, not sympathy for the perpetrator.
Oh, and a quick word about the American legal process. Sure, some judges reneg on plea bargains. But there are legal appeals processes to remediate that. And that legal appeals process DOES NOT include fleeing the country and avoiding punishment for a crime that you CONFESSED to. That alone should be enough to have him extradited to the United States, so that he can receive a fair trial that oh so many of you cowardly defenders think he never got. If he really is as changed and innocent as you say, put him before a jury of his peers and see what they think about raping a 13-year-old.
Sexual assault is sexual assault. There are no mitigating factors. I am glad that the Swiss decided to take action and follow both their legal obligation to the United States and their moral obligation to the human race and treat this cowardly sex offender for what he is. A cowardly sex offender.
The LA Times and The New York Times, hardly right wing rags both published factual accounts of the case and Mr.Polanski clearly gave the girl alcohol and illicit drugs before having sex with her, sex she did not want, and sex she had no way to consent by any legal standard then or now. Mr. Polanski did not deny his crime, and the Judge was correct to deny a ridiculous plea bargain contrived by the prosecutor likely due to Mr. Polanski's prominence in the community. Mr. Polanski should have been subjected to a jury trial and sent to a California prison for his crime. Instead he decided to flee the country and become a fugitive.
I am not without empathy for Mr. Polanski's losses and for all the pain he has suffered. Regardless, that does not give him the right to take the innocence of a 13 year old girl. Fame and Fortune are not a license to rape or a get out of jail free.
If you rape a girl and go to jail, it's your fault that you weren't successful enough, and you have to take responsibility. That's what keeps me on the straight and narrow. Everytime I think about committing a robbery, murder, or raping someone, I do a reality check, and realize I'm not successful enough to get away with it. Being unsuccessful is a powerful deterrent to crime.
That's only fair. That's how life should work.
That totally means he deserves to go to jail more than Roman Polanski does. I mean, all my husband did was fight in a war. But he's a poor conversationalist.
What an astute observation this author has made. Truly whether or not you face justice should depend on how well you can entertain at a dinner party.
Afterall, that's what the Wall Street Journal and American political leaders tell us every day.
Shame on you Ms Co-founder of Women Overseas for "Equality"
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-z-shore/polanskis-arrest-shame-on_b_301134.html
Let's examine the purely legal situation for a moment. The fact that the writer says that 'the swiss acted on an old extradition treaty thereby slyly insinuating that the extradition treaty is some anachronism from an age when bizarre laws were agreed upon for what are now historically irrelevant reasons the fact is that the treaty in question is a binding bilateral treaty under international law. The Swiss DON'T HAVE A CHOICE.
Let's now ask whether this is indeed a foolish anachronism that all right thinking people would wish to be repealed. Polanski drugged, assaulted, raped and sodomized a 13 year old child. This is not only appalling to anyone who has looked at a 13 year old lately, but strangely enough (despite the writer's attempt to blame the victim's mother and the ludicrous remark that she was nearly 14) this is ILLEGAL.
So do we really want a world in which those who commit serious crimes (assault, rape...) can skip a country and live happily overseas without a care in the world. Perhaps the writer does, but I have a sneaking suspicion that she doesn't really. Just when a great artist is involved.
This article is an embarrassment. An intellectual pygmy could do better.
The author doesn't even deny what happened, but just tells us that because the child's mother was negligent and Polanski is charming, that means he should get a pass?
That this author is part of a WOMEN'S GROUP is even more horrifying.
That HuffPo would publish this article makes me seriously reconsider any further participation on this web site....
There is a problem with the hypocrisy rampant on this board. Personal, both need to be taken to task for thee deeds.
Read the grand jury testimony, if you can stomach it. It is quite credible, and Polanski has never denied that he did everything the victim said he did. The only reason there was a plea deal was because she didn't want to testify (again). I'm sure her mother influenced that decision, since it's likely she committed a crime as well.