Questions remain to be answered about the recent Cyprus rape case. One is whether or not we should be calling this a rape case in the first place or rather a case of false allegations by a young British woman against a group of 12 Israeli youths.
In July of last year, a British woman claimed to have been gang raped by a number of young Israeli men before retracting the allegation. She was then found guilty of making the false rape allegation, in part, because the incident had been filmed by the men and released online.
Subsequently a number of British tabloids and women’s rights activists have campaigned on the woman’s behalf, questioning, for example, why the retraction was made without legal representation and suggesting that the police have lied in this case.
Some of these questions and arguments sound reasonable and the case looks set to be appealed. However, what is worrying about the reaction is how one sided and dogmatic it sounds at times.
With some of the conservative tabloids, for example, we find a chauvinistic attitude, a presumption that only British justice is justice. With even a system of justice, like the one in Cyprus, that is based upon the British model, presumed to be profoundly flawed. Almost before the facts of the matter are in hand, minds have been made up based more on prejudice than objectivity.
With the women’s campaigners and indeed a number of newspaper columnists the presumption that the woman is innocent and indeed has been raped is overwhelming but again this appears to be based on pre-judging, on an ideological belief of a “patriarchal legal system” and, as we have seen over the last decade a demand that we #believe the “rape victim”.
Writing on the subject, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel explained, “When I met the young woman at the heart of the Cyprus rape case, I knew instantly that she had been the victim of serious sexual assault”. Perhaps she’s right but can you really “know” or again, is there at least an element of ideology and pre-judging taking place here?
Perhaps this is a flawed legal system. While being based on the British model it does not have some of the checks and balances. For example, suspects are sometimes denied access to lawyers. It may also be the case that traditional attitudes influence Cypriot legal processes and could lead to a bias in rape cases. However, this does not mean that in this particular case we know that the British woman is innocent.
The Cyprus Mail asked the locals in Nicosia. They had different opinions but often noted that they were not at the trial and don’t know all the facts. The facts - a useful starting point for any legal system interested in justice.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here