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.
Just booing?
He went to another country, raped a 12-yo, fled and after conviction, his government - the Netherlands, only decided to give him a year of prison.
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.
Not saying it’s right, but for context:
From https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/30/netherlands-child-rapist-olympics-steven-van-de-velde
That, combined with him being on the Olympic team, sorta makes me concerned about Dutch people
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.
surely giving a 12 year old alcohol beforehand is evidence of rape, right?
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?
It is illogical but the people who support it aren’t our best.
We’re usually talking very fundamentalist christian sects and right wing politicians in the vein of Roy Moore.
The parents have to consent to the marriage if the person is underage.
Oh, Indonesians have some, ahem, concerning stories for you.
He didn’t rape a Dutch 12 year old. He flew to England and raped an English 12 year old. Eight years was getting off pretty easy to begin with.
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.
They could have not invited a convicted child rapist to represent their country at the Olympics.
“They” are not the booing crowd.
You are absolutely correct!
You’d need to use a guillotine.
Holding up signage, shouting rapist, turning their backs…there is a lot of room between booing and lynching.
Not putting him on a pedestal as a representative of your country would be a good start.
I think they were doing that by booing him.
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There’s SO many options between one year in prison and extra judicial killing. Like, in prison for 10 years, just off the top of my head.
I agree, but the booing crowd aren’t the ones that can put him in prison for 10 years.
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.
This mod is notorious for this.
I didn’t put words in their mouths, I asked a question.
“What else should they do next?” Was the question, everything that came after was you putting words in their mouth as an answer
Again, you are not psychic. You do not know what I meant by what I said because you didn’t ask.
An incredibly leading question, yes
You do not know my intentions. You are not psychic.
Roman Polanski has entered the chat.
Being against lynching means I’m a child rapist? Really?
No no no no. I was just pointing out that France won’t extradite a child rapist. Calm down friend.
Edit: spelling
Sorry, I understand now.
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.
So…you are suggesting the lynching tree.
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.
Well, I’m sure you tried. It’s still an edgelord maniac’s take.
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.
You might not be trying to get into vigilante justice but you did anyway
Yes?
Really? You want vigilantism and lynching? Do you think that might possibly go wrong at some point?
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.
If they’re in the supreme court, they are the corruption.
(BTW, I don’t agree with lynching alleged or sentenced pedophiles, just wanted to get in my little jabs at the court)
Throw rocks at him. Large rocks.
Maybe they can start by sitting on the court/field? 😏
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.
Edit: look up “Netherlands Santa”
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.
We try to understand racism, and strive to effectively reduce it rather than just mindlessly treat symptoms. Many people saw the existence of Zwarte Piet as a way to instill positive experiences to kids who might be isolated from having positive experiences with actual people of color. We know that in part racism comes about from not having enough (or too many bad) real world experiences with people of different skin colors. It is a type of fear of the unknown. As such, this still seems like solid reasoning. (Fun note, rats will also not help other stranger rats with a different fur color to escape even with no direct harm to themselves except when they have already lived alongside aside a rat with that fur color)
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.
EDIT: Added a video about the rat study :)
What the actual fuck does that have to do with the current story
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 💅
If you’re not willing to be nuanced about difficult topics in good faith, you clearly do not care about it, nor about making the world a better place.
There’s nuance, which takes a while, and there’s distraction, easily achieved by loooong posts plus ooh a rat study
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
That’s ridiculous