Photo of the week
Members of the main workers' unions gather at Alicante's Plaza Luceros on Tuesday for the traditional May 1 Labour Day marches. This year's demands focused on employment quality, pensions and also included many references to the controversial 'La Manada' judicial sentence
PUBLIC protests have been held nationwide since Friday after a controversial judicial sentence of a gang-sex case was released by a court in Pamplona.
Judges were ruling on the case of an 18-year-old woman who had denounced five men (known as La Manada - the pack) for allegedly gang-raping her during the San Fermin fiestas on July 7, 2016. A soldier and a Guardia Civil officer were members of La Manada.
The judges ruled that they were guilty of 'sexual abuse', with incurs in a far lesser penalty than that of 'sexual attack' under the penal code. Judges say it could not be proven that the men threatened or intimidated the victim - who claims otherwise.
The sentence, released last Thursday, triggered an immediate civic response. Thousands of outraged people joined demonstrations around the country, and even the May 1 marches on Tuesday included reference to what they consider an 'unfair' sentence. 'It's rape, not abuse', was the main slogan.
A day after the sentence was released, one of the three judges stated his disagreement with the decision, but to add further controversy, he called for the accused's acquittal, believing the woman consented to the gang-sex incident.
Justice minister Rafael Catalá went on to question the ruling, which immediately led judges' associations to demand his dismissal for 'interfering in the judicial process' that should 'remain independent from government'.
The public prosecution office, that was seeking a much longer sentence for rape (sexual aggression), will be appealing the decision.
UN and EU Parliament
Pura Sen, UN Executive Coordinator and Spokesperson on Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Discrimination, openly criticised the sentence this week, saying it 'underestimates the seriousness of rape and undermines the obligation to defend women's rights'.
European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jourová also criticised the decision during a special EU parliament debate of the definition of sexual harrassment and attacks within the EU.
GRIM weather in the Comunidad and news of heatwaves of (wow!) 26ºC in East Anglia had me rushing over to Brexit Island on the FR8322 cattle-truck (nonpriority boarding; queues are helpful when you’re sat on the floor speed-writing for the Costa News on your laptop before ‘last call’), although on arrival I realised the early British summer (it fell on a Saturday this year) had jumped straight back on the FR8321 and got lost en route to Valencia. Whilst Ryanair attempts to trace its baggage reclaim reference and swears blind it went into the hold at the gate, my aborted sun-seeking trip at least meant I could get spoiled rotten by my Grandma in Norfolk who, at nearly 93, complains she’s ‘getting too old’.
“Wait until you get to my age, love. Then you’ll know what ‘old’ feels like!” I tell her. But in truth, having dreaded last February’s Big Four-Oh, I’ve decided I quite like the whole ageing thing: the older you get, the less likely people are to believe you when you tell them, which is great for the self-esteem. And someone told me last year that 40 was the new 20, anyhow.
Oh, to be 20 again. Puppy fat, acne, massive car insurance premiums, and having to study my degree all over again. Actually, no, I’ll stick to 40; it looks good on Shakira and ‘middle age’ doesn’t start now until you’re 66, according to the UN.
And being 20 would mean Alan back in my flat. Names have not been changed to protect the guilty, or even to stop my own skin crawling and bile rising to my throat.
A serial manipulator and emotional blackmailer – who turned out later to be a wifebeater – 27 years my senior, who was ‘really worried about me’ and knew I ‘needed a friend’. I’d just lost my beautiful chestnut mare, Kally, my soulmate; I’d just been made redundant; my closest friends, who’d distanced themselves from me since they found out I was a lesbian, dropped me altogether at that point because nobody likes a miserable git spoiling their day; and I was trying to revise for my A-levels, which were a month away, had never had a partner and felt alone with my textbooks and Prozac. Of course I needed a friend.
He encouraged me to ‘let it all out’; I borrowed him as a convenient brick wall. He decided I needed a hug (I did, but not from a big, smelly bloke) so I let him, not wanting to offend, because he was being kind. He decided I needed alcohol, and brought bottles round, and at his expense I enjoyed blissful oblivion. He promised to talk to my best friend and reunite us, which is mainly why I let him in every night. He told me to sit next to him on my sofa and, when I resisted, said he couldn’t see me properly to talk to as the sun through the window behind me was blinding – and, surely, I didn’t feel uncomfortable about sitting beside him? Don’t be silly. He knew I was a lesbian, he was my friend, and anyway he was married.
I sat on the very edge of the sofa, which brought questions as to why I was tense, allegations he was a trained physio-chiromasseur-thing and offers to give me a back massage, which wasn’t sexual, it was purely medicinal (the bruises from his un- qualified hands lasted for weeks). The drunker I got, the easier it was for him to ask awkward questions, which I answered honestly, because I’d been brought up to tell the truth and to be polite, and that you respect grown-ups and do as you’re told. His hands on my legs were, he said, just ‘ what friends do’ and what he and his ‘other lesbian friends did’. If I showed signs of discomfort, he was desperately hurt, rejected; no wonder you haven’t got any friends if you push them away like this! I’m trying to help you, because I’m worried about you, and you throw it back in my face?
Oblivion was becoming necessary as I chided myself for being a bitch to this well-meaning person; if I choked him off, he wouldn’t talk to my friend for me and, anyway, I hate offending people. So I drank. And drank.
I wasn’t so blotto I didn’t feel his hands ‘ downstairs’, or his disgusting mouth full on mine, or his helping me to bed and out of my clothes. But I could no more have reasoned my way out of it or wriggled away than I could have driven a Formula One car safely round a Teruel mountain pass at that moment. I remember lamely holding my undone bra to my chest and saying, “no, it’s okay, I’ll keep it on.” I remember the next morning – fortunately a weekend – feeling as though I’d been swimming in a sewer, wading shoulder-deep through a vat of snakes, gagging at his smell still in my bedsit, wanting to scrub my skin raw with caustic soda, or peel it off and burn it.
And this happened every night until I moved house to get away
He wasn’t the first, or the last, although having lived twice as long now, I hope I’d tell future offenders on day one to keep their filthy hands off me. I now realise he was no friend of mine, I had no need to fret about being polite.
I now realised I was being sexually abused. And that it was horrible.
It wasn’t physically painful, or scary; I wasn’t in fear of my life. I hadn’t been forced, even though I would never willingly have agreed to it all; I was gaslighted into letting him do what he wanted, but I could have said ‘no’, if I’d been a stronger person, and not a vulnerable child of 20 who simply froze, blocked. And it still makes me gag, but hasn’t left me emotionally scarred.
Until #MeToo, I thought I was alone, but I now realise my ugly tale is actually pretty old hat for most women. And what I’ve also discovered is that I’m incredibly lucky: somehow, I’ve survived on this planet since February 1977 without being raped, which is quite a feat. And breaking this run of good fortune is a notion that utterly terrifies me.
As a (hitherto) childless lesbian, smear tests are horrifically painful. I scream and feel faint with the searing, tearing agony, sob and feel sick. But cervical cancer is more painful still, so I duly go through with it. And every time I do, I imagine that it wasn’t a soothing lady nurse in vinyl gloves being extra-careful while her colleague holds my hands and strokes my hair, but a man I’ve never met, hungry and implacable; a relentless camel determined to get through the eye of the needle, even if the needle breaks, because the camel’s urge for physical release reigns supreme over the needle’s finer feelings, cancels out the camel’s compunction about the white-hot torture it inflicts on the needle, which has to stay silent, compliant, to save herself lest a struggle should lead to more pain or possibly even death.
That’s what being raped must feel like. And if you’re 18 when it happens, like the anonymous young lady at last year’s bullrunning festival in Pamplona, you’re probably a virgin, and the intolerable sensation – like pouring boiling water on your skin or putting your hand through a flame, and keeping it there for several minutes – must multiply tenfold.
But according to the judges at the trial of the 'Manada', this child of 18 was not raped, because there was no violence involved and she did not feel pain.
By that definition, then, you can’t be charged with assault if you beat the living crap out of someone who’s so drunk they barely know what’s going on; it’s not violence if the victim is dulled to the pain. By that definition, you could punch someone or have unconsenting sex with someone in a coma, or asleep, because it won’t hurt. Or repeatedly slap a baby under two, because our memory processing bank isn’t formed until at least then, so the instant amnesia means the unpleasant sensation will be lost forever, no harm done. Date rape obviously isn’t a thing, either: by giving the bloke the impression you’re interested, you’ve effectively consented to something sexual hap- pening. Likewise if he slips you a rohypnol; he’s obviously guilty of administering you drugs by stealth, but you didn’t refuse sex and it didn’t hurt because you were unconscious, so he hasn’t raped you. Or if she’s paralysed from the waist down and can’t feel it, it isn’t painful, so it isn’t rape.
When even Radio Norfolk reported the protests over the 'Manada' sentence, my dad said: “I heard that this morning, but I thought it’d happened in India! I couldn’t believe it when they said Spain. People will say it was ‘her own fault for being so drunk’, but that doesn’t give anyone licence, neither does wearing a short skirt, or walking home in the dark. Hearing this was dismissed as ‘sexual abuse’ in a western European country in the 21st century left me stunned.”
It also sets a dangerous precedent: it’s just opened a whole new world of opportunities waiting to be seized by men who want to fill their boots and can’t be arsed with the whole romancing and respect routine first.
Which means 50% of the planet’s population will suddenly have good reason to mistrust the other 50%. And of the latter, a high majority doesn’t deserve this level of suspicion.
“It works both ways. If I’m walking alone and I see a woman doing likewise, I feel under pressure to get away in case she thinks I’m a rapist,” dad continued.
The ' Manada' verdict isn’t just an insult and a danger to women; it’s also meant fathers, brothers and husbands everywhere will be considered guilty until proven innocent, tried and convicted before they commit the crime.
And the out-of-touch male judges who poured salt into the Pamplona victim’s wounds will not be immune to that.