[NYTr] Air Force Charges Victim in Her Own Rape

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Berit C Westby (activ-l)


Barf alert.  Unbelievable.  -Berit

Feministing.com - Aug 7, 2007
http://feministing.com/archives/007517.html

Air Force Charges Victim in Her Own Rape

This news item made my stomach turn: Cassandra Hernandez, a female
Air Force airman was raped, reported her attack and then subsequently
became a court-martial defendant, herself.

The story goes down like this: Hernandez was at a party, where she
was drinking. She says that three male airman raped her. She went
to the hospital and filed a report accusing her attackers. Due to
stress and harsh interrogation tactics by the Air Force, she
eventually refused to testify against the airmen.

The Air Force then charged her with underage drinking (of which she
admits to being guilty, but that's hardly the point, now is it?)
and, along with her three attackers, "indecent acts." I had a hell
of a lot of trouble finding an official definition for "indecent
acts," and the best one I came up with is a "form of immorality
relating to sexual impurity which is not only grossly vulgar,
obscene, and repugnant to common propriety, but tends to excite
lust and deprave the morals with respect to sexual relations."
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the basic translation seems
to be "a sexual act, particularly one that is not generally accepted
in society, such as sex with multiple partners."

So. The woman was raped. By three men. She reported her rape. She
was harassed by her superiors, to the point where she became too
afraid to testify. The Air Force took this as meaning that the sex
was therefore consensual (which isn't what it means at all), and
charged her in the case of her own rape. If she loses her case, she
could be publicly registered as a sex offender.

Sounds like it couldn't get any worse, right? But it does. How? The
three alleged attackers were offered sexual assault immunity to
testify against Hernandez on the indecent acts charge. Having at
least half a brain cell among them, they accepted.

Hernandez is writing to her congresspeople and her Governor, Rick
Perry, in a desperate plea to end this madness. Once you finish
throwing up, crying, breaking things, etc., I strongly suggest that
you write, too.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Apparently, the correct action to take is to
write directly to YOUR congresspersons. It is a good idea to include
one of the links to articles about the case, so that they know
specifically what you are referring to.