The Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in England has won his second match at the Paris Olympics.
Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl, won his second match at the Paris Olympics and received an even harsher reaction from the crowd on Wednesday than for his first match.
There's an important detail that I'm not really seeing here. The UK gave him an 8 year sentence. The Netherlands negotiated to have him transferred to their jurisdiction, which happened after 1 year served, and then the Netherlands promptly let him go.
One legal distinction is that Van de Velde is unlikely to have been convicted of rape had he stood trial in the Netherlands rather than England. In England, sex with a 12-year-old is rape, regardless of the circumstances: an under-16 cannot legally consent. But after he was extradited to the Netherlands, having serving almost a year of his prison sentence, he was released after less than a month. Under Dutch law, his crime was deemed to be the lesser offence of ontucht, sexual acts that violate social-ethical norms.
I'm not sure what the law ought to be though. I personally think a 16 year old should be legally able to have sex with their 15 year old partner. Maybe in england the difference in age matters. But if not, and a 15 year old legally cannot consent, is this hypothetical 16 year old now a rapist? That doesn't sound right to me.
A 19 year old having sex with a 12 year old? That is clearly wrong and that's rightfully already illegal here. But it's not automatically rape because Dutch law does recognize consent from people under 16. I have no idea at what age people can give consent though. I'm not sure if there is a minimum. But if the 12 year old in this situation did not consent then it would obviously be rape, just to make that clear.
A question: what is the situation in other countries with high schoolers having sex? It must happen all the time that some 18 year old is dating a 15 year old and that they have sex. I think the overwhelming majority of Dutch people would not want that to be illegal, let alone considered rape.
Just to be very clear I'm not defending him in the slightest, this whole thing is horrible and I agree he raped her.
I was just explaining the situation and the differences in law in England and the Netherlands.
While I agree that this crime should definitely fall within the definition and corresponding punishment of rape, I don't agree that no 15 year old can ever consent to sex.
Some countries have a "Romeo and Juliet" law that allows consent when the age gap is close. The UK does not have this, and someone under 16 cannot legally consent to sexual activity at all as far as I understand it.
In Germany you can have sex with 14, everything below that is illegal (however the courts can decide not to prosecute if the involved persons both consented, are both under the age of 14, and very close in mental development).
Between 14 and 16 you can have sex with people your age ±2 years (14 with 16 or 16 with 18, but not 14 with 17).
At 16 to 18 it's I believe ±3 years, so that with 17 you can have sex with persons up to 20 years old, even though you're a minor and they're adults.
There are exceptions to this, most notably that if they have any power over you (teachers, bosses, etc), it will count as statutory rape as it's argued that the victim didn't have the possibility to refuse without fear of consequences.
In the US generally people under the age of consent are allowed to have sex with one another though exceptions would be made if the age gap was too large. People the age of consent and older are not allowed to have sex with people below the age of consent, unless they're married.
Wait so you can get married under the age of consent? That seems completely illogical... if you can't consent to sex surely you can't consent to marriage?
What else should they be doing? Storming the court and dragging him to a lynching tree? I'm guessing the French wouldn't be especially accommodating to such vigilantism.
Stop putting words in their mouth, there are so many things to do other than booing that are non violent but you just immediately took the most extreme possible outcome and suggested that was what the person you are reply to meant.
I think it's a little different than typical vigilantism when he's convicted and demonstrably used his privilege to get out of it, much less when he's in the Olympics representing his nation (of child rapists, apparently, thus the government officials defending his right to get children drunk and rape them).
You are right that France isn't the place to do it though, the French pedophilic cabal that has infiltrated the government is their Supreme Court.
"A little different." This time. What about all the other times? What if it's a member of the French supreme court that it turns out that, despite you thinking they're a pedophile, they aren't actually a pedophile?
I mean if they’re high in the judiciary they’re already guilty of something. It’s like billionaires, you know? Probably best to just get rid of the lot. Safer.
Or are they one of the ones stopping the corruption from spreading, but the lynch mob was convinced by the corrupt one that they were the real pedophile?
Also, black people were regularly accused of that in the U.S. during the era when lynchings were common.
Some kind of institution with final decision making ability for disputes is needed, yes.
How would I have it structured? Something along these lines:
The body itself is entirely transparent with all meetings and matters of discussion open to the public
The body makes decisions by consensus
The body is created to deal with a single issue and immediately disbanded thereafter.
No single person can serve on such a body more than once.
The members of the body are chosen by some kind of open, democratic process.
There are otherwise no restrictions, requirements, or limitations upon the capacity of who can be on such a body (e.g. no age requirements, no citizenship requirements, etc.)
I’m not an expert and these aren’t exhaustive or anything, just a few ideas. Obviously the rules shouldn’t be decided by a single person, they should be decided by consensus.
i think at the very least he deserves an ass whooping. not trying to get into vigilante wierdo justice here but it would be nice to see one less confirmed remorseless pedo in this world since the system has definitely failed in this case.
ya basically but im not trying to come off as a edgelord maniac saying its the responsibility of regular people to vigilante this guy. itd be cool if they did but i doubt that would make the person this piece of filth hurt feel any better. At the very least tho itd be cool to see him jumped and every bone broken in his body and him then turned into a vegetable thatd be cool.
l think its actually pretty reasonable to want a unrepentant pedophile rapist who has escaped justice to be served his just desserts. Im against the death penalty world wide because again justice isnt perfect and sometimes innocent people (especially in america and especially minorities) get executed. But in a rare case like this i think the gloves should be taken off a lil, but who knows maybe im just deranged.
The Netherlands is kind of fucked up when it comes to morality sometimes. I used to work with people from this country, and there were constant issues.
I'm sorry, but this is just really kind of disingenuous to start something like this next to a topic such as this. Your experience with one company or something is purely anecdotal and the controversy around Zwarte Piet is also very nuanced to this very day. The kind of nuance someone not from here will not get from a casual google search. For anyone that cares about actually understanding, here's a rundown:
Many people attributed Zwarte Piet as a fun and good role model for kids, not some kind of caricature clown to laugh at. Literally almost everyone grew up knowing and having a fond enjoyment of Zwarte Piet, like a childhood imaginary friend that always showed up when you needed a smile the most. And that creates a strong desire to set that positivity forth by continuing the tradition. It takes really good reasons to destroy something most people attribute to be part of the greater good of their lives.
Even people of color were not completely on one side, but for the ones that it hurt, it hurt loudly. Black people in the Caribbean (Also part of the Netherlands) still use Zwarte Piet to this day, because they do not care - They do not see the racism in it. Unfortunately there seems to be a correlation between being affected by racism and seeing the racism in Zwarte Piet, as many of us learned as the conversation marched on. And racists definitely did wield Zwarte Piet to make their racism be known. In a world without racism, Zwarte Piet would not be controversial. And many people were not acutely aware of the racism some people of color faced.
The majority has wanted to get rid of it (since about 2018, actually), and most places have more accepted solutions in place now. But this does not mean that many people agree because we think Zwarte Piet is actually inherently racist. It's because we've heard the concerns of people of color and weighed their burden to be more important to relieve than the perceived benefit of tradition and instilling a positive message on people that look different from yourself. It also didn't help that the vast majority of people that still wanted to overrule those concerns were pretty obviously racist, which pushed even more people over the edge, because we don't want to hold traditions in place that shield racists and bigots. Some countries could really learn from that.
The other responder here is either an AI bot trying to cloud the issue wa long answer, or a human doing the same. Right out of the playbook— Not falling for it 💅
There's also the absolute lack of nuance of "Haha the Dutch are all kinda racist - look they wear blackface as a tradition, aren't they so morally reprehensible am I right?". Of course I'm going for maximum nuance after that, because they already muddied the water.
And you damn well know that posting that carelessly next to a different touchy subject is in extreme bad faith. It's almost like you're mad I didn't let them slander my country unopposed. Get outta here.
Dude they even said that Zwarte Pete is being phased out because while Zwarte Pete themselves in the context of only the Netherlands wasnt very problematic, the fact that the world is more globalized and Americans who HAD been hurt by THEIR history of Blackface took precedence over an overall positive tradition for people of the Netherlands. Nuance exists, and American history is not WORLD history