rape

Pascal Mazurier Rape Case Timeline


The Pascal Mazurier Rape Case:

Between being arrested for raping his child (2012) to being an advocate for 'fatherhood' (2017)

view pdf version here





C:\Users\Ananya\Desktop\Blank Noise\bca69bc3-f5f5-43b0-801e-de44c376f0d0.jpgScroll.in

Suja Jones had long been suspecting that her infant daughter was being sexually abused. Her suspicions were confirmed when she returned home to see her daughter crying after having spent nearly four hours with her husband Pascal Mazurier in their bedroom.  Following this, in June 2012, she filed a complaint against Mazurier that began a five year long battle against not only her husband, but also society, that repeatedly accused her of being a 'bad mother'. In April 2017, Mazurier was acquitted by the Karnataka district court, the verdict stating that he was innocent and that Suja was using her daughter as a 'weapon' to stop him from leaving India. 

2012

  • Suja Jones had been experiencing domestic violence by her husband Pascal Mazurier, a diplomat at the French Consulate, Bangalore. In 2010, she suspects that her then two year old child, could be a victim of sexual abuse. She takes her daughter for sessions with Dr. Saldhana at Enfold.
  • June 5th 2012: Dr. Saldhana confirms Suja Jones’s belief of child sexual abuse based on her child’s reactions.
Source: 1. http://www.firstpost.com/india/french-diplomat-rape-case-when-it-all-began-350168.html
  • 13th June, 2012: Suja Jones comes home to see her daughter crying. She is informed by her domestic help that Mazurier spent a long time in the bedroom with their daughter and that she had been crying since. She takes her daughter to the Baptist hospital immediately.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/french-diplomat-held-on-charge-of-raping-his-child/article3531968.ece
  • 14th June, 2012: Suja files a police complaint, after she is orally informed by the Collaborative Child Response Unit of the Baptist Hospital that the child showed tell-tale marks of sexual abuse. The doctors at the hospital claim that it is a medico legal case, and therefore retain the medical report with the intention of submitting it to the police themselves later.  Pascal Mazurier is held by the Bangalore police on charges of rape. The FIR was registered under Section 376 of the IPC at the High Grounds police station, where he is held for the night and released the next morning. He is not arrested because the French Consul General asks the Police Commissioner not to arrest him till the matter about his diplomatic status was sorted out. Not having a diplomatic passport in India, Pascal was never a diplomat. However, the Consul General was just playing with time or trying to see how they could protect Pascal.
  • 19th June, 2012: There are protests and demonstrations in Bangalore against Pascal Mazurier, by organisations including Enfold. Following this, Mazurier is arrested. The French Embassy draws out a statement saying it would provide full cooperation with the investigation of the case and says that Mazurier does not hold diplomatic immunity and will be tried in India. Suja Jones requests the French Embassy for financial support for herself and her three children. C:\Users\Ananya\Desktop\Blank Noise\arrest.jpg
  • 8th July, 2012: The Bangalore police claim that the results of the DNA tests of the samples collected from Mazurier were 'inconclusive'.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2170597/Bangalore-police-say-DNA-test-report-rape-accused-French-father-inconclusive.html#ixzz4jI8D2E5h
Source: MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP / Getty Images
  • 26th July, 2012: Mazurier appeals for bail on several occasions. The bail is denied in the lower court. However, later, in the high court he is granted bail.
  • 17th September, 2012: Pascal Mazurier is officially charged for the rape of his daughter. He once again appeals for a bail.
  • 16th October, 2012: Mazurier released on a bail from the high court for Rs.100,000/  from the Parapanna Agrahara jail.

2013

  • January, 2013: Police files an additional charge sheet against Mazurier, with a detailed report of doctors who said the accused sodomised and raped his daughter for two years.
4Youtube.com
  • 17th June, 2013: Mens Rights Activists and other groups including CRISP (http://www.crisp-india.org/) support Mazurier.  Photos of Mazurier appear with MRA community, holding placards saying “ papa loves you” . During this period, Pascal is seen ( based on images found on the web), to be working towards building public sympathy towards him. With the help of Men’s Rights Activist groups, Mazurier moves a petition seeking custody and visitation rights for his three children before the family court. Court grants him visitation rights for the two sons, once a month.
  • 22nd December, 2013: Mazurier continues to work towards building public sympathy towards him. He tells reporters in December 2013, that the "ordeal and ill-treatment" he has faced is comparable to the "humiliation" suffered by Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat who had been strip-searched and arrested in New York.
Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/131222/news-current-affairs/article/i-was-treated-devyani-here-pascal-mazurier

2014

  • Trial begins in the rape and sodomy case in the Special Court. BT Venkatesh, lawyer, represents Suja Jones.
Source:1.
  • 15th February, 2014: Jones files an application pressing for sodomy charges against Mazurier.
  • 12th March, 2014: Bangalore Court allows sodomy charge against Mazurier.
Source:http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-bangalore-court-allows-sodomy-charge-against-french-consular-official-pascal-mazurier-1968762
  • 16th April, 2014: Mazurier  approaches Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ‘speedy justice’.
C:\Users\Ananya\Desktop\Blank Noise\french-diplomat-pascal-mazurier-charged-with-rape-seeks-narendra-modis-ntervention-for-speedy-justice.jpg
5BCCL 2014
  • 15th June, 2014:  The Consul general applies to be present at court to ensure that the rights of the accused were respected. (since these are ‘in camera’ proceedings the public is not allowed at the hearings.) . The court allows them to be present. Following this, a member of the consulate was always present in court. (that definitely put pressure on the courts too).

2012 – 2017 Photos of Pascal Mazurier appear on the internet.

C:\Users\Ananya\Desktop\Blank Noise\Pascal.jpg
6SouthLive.com
pascal_paplovesyou
7(Photo Courtesy: DNA, 2015)

war on fathers
8(Photo Courtesy: AFP, 2016)
Based on evidence found on the internet, Mazurier seems to have approached various organisations and Men’s Rights Activist groups to garner support.  He claims that he has been ‘framed’ by his wife, who was trying to ‘tarnish (his) career and reputation’ and stop him from leaving for South Africa on a posting.
 He has asked the police to investigate his wife and the actions that she has taken. He says he is a ‘loving father’ who wants to ‘be there’ for his children, and that his wife is trying to take them away from him. He has led several demonstrations demanding his rights of “fatherhood”.
The court refuses to discharge Mazurier, ruling there was sufficient evidence for him to face trial. Judge of the Special Court for child rights Shubha Gouder, framed charges against him, under IPC Section 376 .
On 25th December, 2015, after being granted permission, Mazurier visited his children in the presence of a supervisor.

4. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/519253/pascal-meet-daughter-xmas-wife.html

2017

  • 23rd April, 2017: Mazurier is acquitted for the case on the grounds that he was “falsely implicated” and was innocent. Judge BS Rekha rules that the child had not been abused at all, and that it was a urinary infection that was causing the pain. According to the verdict, Jones is using her child as a ‘weapon’ to stop her husband from leaving the country. Accusing her of being a ‘bad mother’, the verdict goes on to discuss details of Jones’s life, for example: "Her dress sense was objected (to) by the accused. She used to party at home and (has) also taken inappropriate photographs of herself in 2005 when her husband was not at home and the accused was not happy with her behaviour". Jones is determined to challenge this verdict in the Karnataka High Court.  

Timeline prepared by Ananya , Action Hero Intern at Blank Noise, June/ July 2017. Ananya is a student at Azim Premji University. 

Additional resources/ articles 




Madkam Hidme : Pledge To Not Forget





Madkam Hidme was dragged away from their home by security personnel on June 13. The next day, the police sent back her corpse. “A stark nude body wrapped in plastic,” Lakshmi, Madkam's mother said. The police released a photo that showed the body of Hidme on the ground. She was wearing a crisp, ironed Maoist uniform. The outsized pants had been rolled up neatly around the ankles. The police claim she was a Maoist , hence killed .Her mother says she was raped and killed


The police had also stopped Congress and AAP fact finding teams from visiting Sukam, the village where Madkam Hidme lived. A second post mortem report is to be submitted . There are no new press reports on the case.
Pledge To Not Forget

When You Are Past The Auto Correct Apology : Which By The Way, You Must Deliver





To Salman Khan and anyone justifying your words
To anyone who found it funny, and or has made such statements before or is likely is to here after.
Beyond political correctness
Speak after feeling.
What , according to you, does 'a raped woman' feel?

 “When I used to walk out of that ring, it used to be actually like a raped woman walking out.”
comment audio

National Commission For Women Wants An Apology From Salman Khan For The Rape Comment Within 7 Days . Shiv Sena Will Not Forgive Salman Khan If He Does Not Apologise
Singer Sona Mohapatra gets trolled with rape threats, after commenting on Salman Khan misogyny. 
To Salman Khan,
And anyone who could have said the same. 

Tell me what a ‘raped woman’ feels.

Past the public apology
The 'mistake'
‘Misquote'
'A slipped statement'
'A joke'
'Just a joke'
'Foot in mouth'
Laugh
Light
Not right
Big deal.

Tell me what a ‘raped woman’ feels.

They might stuff hollow words in your mouth
Stuff them back in our ears
Beyond shame
Right or wrong
Apology.

Feel 
Like a woman
Man
Person
Dog
Leaf

Tell me what a ‘raped woman’ feels.

*

Also read Paromita Vohra's column " Boyz to men "


Badaun

Against Castration

to read the entire article visit Kafila
The most recent demands for castration can broadly be divided into two categories: popular and legal. Here we wish to problematize both, the legal and popular demands for castration by drawing out the reductive understanding of rape implicit in this demand; and by tracing the problematic notion of emasculation-as-justice driving this demand. We call for a suspension of the demand for castration on three broad grounds, listed here and discussed in greater detail below:
-          The logic of castration as legal punishment locates the threat of rape squarely in the male body (specifically male genitalia), reinforcing the heteronormative paradigm of peno-vaginal penetration that feminists have been trying for decades to dislodge from Indian rape law.
-          Such a punishment obscures the role of institutions in enabling and preserving rape. It also delinks sexual assault from structures of caste, class, sexuality and disability, which shape sexual violence.
-          The popular demand for castration relies on a logic of emasculation (napunsak banana) that actually re-centers “good,” protectionist masculinity as the way to creating a safer environment in our communities.

Pallavi , You and Me


Mumbai lawyer murdered for yelling at security guard

Pallavi wasn't murdered for yelling at  the security guard.



She was murdered because the man who murdered her believed he could. 
She was murdered because we live in a 'culture' that finds excuses for murder- nothing 'provoked' 
murder/ attack/ violence.  There is no such thing as 'honour killing' - it's murder. There is no such thing as 'asking for it'.
She was murdered because there are more than few men who have anger issues and have been allowed to have anger issues because they are 'men'.  Masculinities needs some serious urgent attention.  
She was murdered because her neighbours kept their doors shut tight.




A city isn't unsafe for woman- just by itself.  




You make it safe when you don't ignore, dismiss or trivialise violence.
You make it safe when you don't let fear overtake your spirit. Streets would always be safer if there were more of YOU / me outside. NO?
You make it safe when you let someone being assaulted know you are there for them. ( street violence / domestic violence/ all violence- Do send in strategies on how the 3rd person could intervene)
You make it safe when you report to the cop. ( yes we know the cops have a LOT of work to do on earning public trust BUT )  
You make it safe when you recognise there are fewer people who set out to harm, and more people living in fear of being harmed. You are part of the latter. Make that fear your strength.


Young man arrested on charge of gang rape and molestation


Crime location: Rampurhat bus station, West Bengal
Nature of crime: rape
Who: 3 men
Time : 3 am

A young man has been arrested on charges of gang rape and molestation of two teenaged girls. He was one from a gang of 3 rapists-  the other two men are missing.   Telegraph states that one of the survivors called for help from the public around the bus station which led to one rapist being caught. The girls have reported the incident at the Rampurhat Police Station. The other 2 men have been identified.

Report via
Hindu ,  Telegraph , Indian Express

Sexual Assault laws




There's been much debate over the proposed amendments to how Indian law views/considers 'sexual assault'. Here's a bit from Kalpana Kannabiran:

Broadly, rather than viewing ‘sexual assault' as a mechanical substitute for ‘rape' under Section 375 of the IPC, the effort of rights groups has been to think through the feasibility of formulating a chapter on sexual violence/atrocity that will define a range of such violence in a manner in which the focus shifts from the penetrative logic of definitions hitherto used to the assaultive nature sexual violence.


That article here.

To contextualise what's happening in India within the context of international debates, we've invited our first Guest Post! It's from Megan Hjelle who's been researching this issue for the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore.

Gender-Neutral Sexual Assault Laws - A Brief Summary

Since the 1997 Writ Petition filed by Sakshi regarding amendments to India’s penal code regarding rape, gender neutrality has emerged as a lingering controversy. As currently written, India’s rape laws recognize the male/perpetrator - female/victim as the only framework within which rape can occur and regards penile-vaginal rape as the only “real” form of rape.

When the draft bill for amendments to the rape law was introduced with the intent of updating and expanding the laws into a spectrum of sexual assault offenses, few could have known that the topic would be such a lightning rod, pushing to the forefront fundamental contestations of the nature of gender itself. In an attempt to understand why the issue of gender-neutrality has been so uniquely contentious within the Indian context, the developments of gender-neutral sexual assault laws in other countries may provide some insight.

Rape law reform in countries such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Australia produced, among other legislative developments, gender-neutral sexual assault laws. This note seeks to provide a brief summary of gender-neutral sexual assault laws along the following lines of inquiry:

- When did the shift to gender-neutrality occur?
- Why did the shift occur?
- What, if any, were the feminist stances in opposition and counter-responses?
- What impact, if any, have the application of gender-neutral laws had?

As most of the relevant data on the topic comes from research focused on the U.S., this summary will use the U.S. reform as its point of departure, with relevant comparisons to other nations with gender-neutral sexual assault laws as well.

Under the U.S. Model Penal Code, adopted by most U.S. states, rape was originally a crime that could only be perpetrated by a male on a female. The early Model Penal Code sex offenses were drafted under the influence of Kinsey’s research on sexuality. As well as creating a sexual offense hierarchy of severity, at the top of which was penile-vaginal rape, the drafters also required evidence of force in order to establish a rape. The drafters, fearing unfair prosecutions of defendants during a time when rape could still result in capital punishment, thought the evidence of force requirement would protect against false charges. Instead, it made successful rape convictions rare and re-victimized rape survivors by putting them on trial.

In the 1970’s, however, on the heels of the “Sexual Revolution,” the crime of “rape” was changed to “sexual assault” in an effort to de-emphasize the sexual elements of the crime and re-cast it as a crime of violence. The Michigan 1975 Criminal Sexual Conduct Statute served as a national model for implementing many of the rape law reforms that have now been adopted to some degree by most of the U.S. states. The reforms were largely a result of the feminist movement, which had as one of its fundamental objectives, the goal “to change peoples’ awareness and perceptions of violence against women.”

In comparison, Canadian rape law reform began in the early 1980’s and, in the U.K., sexual assault was not recognized as gender-neutral until 1994.

The development of gender-neutral sex offenses within the U.S. and elsewhere, is marked by a lack of direct discussion. This seems to be due to a confluence of factors relating to the goals of the feminist movement. At least one researcher has posited that “some extension of the coverage of rape laws was implicit in feminist objectives.” Feminists set out to “challenge the stereotyped assumptions about male roles and female sexuality” by “achiev[ing] comparability between the legal treatment of rape and other violent crimes, prohibit[ing] a wider range of coercive sexual conduct and expand[ing] the range of persons protected by law.”

Because feminists hoped to put an end to the phallocentricity of the laws as written and to emphasize the victim’s experience of violation, shifting the focus “from bodily harm to the protection of autonomy,” a gender-neutral law seems implied since, theoretically, it would capture more violative acts and would topple the hierarchy of penile-vaginal rape. Even at the time the Model Penal Code sex offenses were created, the drafters recognized the possibility that a gender-neutral approach “could also help to abrogate certain sex stereotypes that our society is appropriately beginning to address.”

Some researchers also identify as a factor changing social and sexual norms. For instance, one researchers posits that, social acceptance of oral and anal sex contributed to the shift toward gender-neutrality, while another attributes it to increased tolerance of more and difference types of sexual activity.

A researcher of Canada’s rape reform goes even further to identify gender-neutrality as merely a result of more primary reforms, rather than an end in itself.


Because, as suggested above, gender-neutrality may have seemed like a natural step in the feminist agenda rather than a focal point of the reform and as a result of practical reasons, the shift to gender-neutrality seems to have encountered little direct opposition in the U.S.

For instance, as previously mentioned, feminists had several linked objectives behind the reforms. Because of this, the rape law reforms were significant and numerous, with variations between states. So, states like Michigan made changes to remove the resistance requirement, remove immediate reporting requirements, shift the burden of proof, legitimize the victim’s testimony without corroboration, remove the marital exception, enact “Rape Shield” laws, provide an entire continuum of acts to be included under the term “sexual assault,” with gender-neutrality often being just one part of this array of reforms.

The single point of contention against gender-neutral sexual assault laws represented in the feminist literature seems to have developed retrospectively, rather than concurrently with the reform. And, in fact, that argument is best distilled and articulated by a recent argument in opposition of any gender-neutral amendments in Indian legislation:

There seems to be a presumption that if women can be framed as violators, then the trauma of rape for women as victims would be reduced and the stigma attached to the offence would peel off.

The response to this contention pivots between the arguments that gender-neutral terms do not preclude a gendered response to sexual assault, nor does it erase women’s experiences of sexual assault to include men. In also highlighting research indicating the trauma experienced by male victims of sexual assault, one researcher succinctly counters:

A principle of criminal law is, surely, that all persons should be protected equally from harm of like degree.... The case for treating crimes of like heinousness similarly appears to be stronger than that calling for a distinction to be made between penetration of the female body and penetration of the male body, whatever the sex of the actor.

Although some have tried to argue that gender-neutral laws have impeded the progress of rape law reform in combating sexual assault by introducing male victims, this argument does not seem corroborated by significant research. In fact, the majority of research shows that introducing gender-neutral laws and the rape law reform in general, have not had either a significantly positive or a significantly negative impact on sexual assault in the U.S. as of yet.

In conclusion, gender-neutral sexual assault laws were brought about during a period of intense legal reform initiated by feminists during the 1970’s to 1980’s in numerous nations and states as an attempt to trouble gender stereotypes and biases. There is an ongoing debate regarding the benefits and detriments of gender-neutrality to feminist goals, but research shows that the rape law reform has had little significant statistical impact on sexual assaults.

Megan is a second-year law Brooklyn Law student committed to providing advocacy and representation as a public interest lawyer. Her work is rooted in an interest in the ways globalization, migration and gender perpetuate and subvert each other. Megan has worked with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking in Los Angeles, where she helped match trafficking survivors with services and coordinated trainings to promote the identification and referral of trafficked individuals. More recently, Megan has worked at the Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program. There, she developed and implemented a media outreach plan, helped maintain and strengthen international partnerships, coordinated trainings and worked on clients’ T-Visa and Asylum applications. Megan hopes to combine her background and legal education to facilitate a holistic, community-centered approach to advocacy for underserved populations and is currently pursuing these goals in an internship at the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore.

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