Teen rape case sparks reaction

Ref:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=76139



Teen rape case sparks reaction
Support grew yesterday for the 16-year-old girl at the center of rape allegations, as Greek President Karolos Papoulias spoke out against her alleged attackers, while Health Ministry officials met with the teenager and her mother.
“It is a shocking moment for our society,” said Papoulias. “We are all responsible. We are citizens of a country where the most noble ideas developed. We cannot let some people... blacken this.”
Papoulias was reacting to unrest in the small town of Amarynthos on Evia where many locals have accused the girl of making up a story that she was raped by four schoolboys.
The girl and her mother are from Bulgaria and moved to Greece in 1999. This has prompted some officials to suggest that racism has led to the reaction on Evia.
“Greeks have experienced expatriation and racism and we will not impose what we have been through on the immigrants living and working here,” said Papoulias.
Deputy Health Minister Giorgos Constantopoulos also met with the 16-year-old and her mother, who have not been named because of privacy laws. Constantopoulos said that the ministry would provide any assistance the girl needs. She has moved to Athens since the alleged incident on October 27.
The high school where the alleged rape took place decided yesterday to suspend the schoolboys for five days as well as their alleged victim.
School officials did not take any action against the three girls said to have witnessed the incident. The 16-year-old claimed that one of the girls recorded the incident on her mobile phone.
No such video was found but authorities have asked a mobile phone company to check if it may have been deleted or sent on to anyone else.

The ugly social ills simmering in Evia

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=76132

The ugly social ills simmering in Evia
By P. Mandravelis

The deplorable case involving the rape of a 16-year-old girl, allegedly by a group of fellow pupils, at a school on Evia brings to the surface several ailments of Greek society, many of which we would prefer to sweep under the carpet.

The case highlights, once again, the ills of the Greek television sector, where various channels chasing the short-term distinctions of the AGB viewer ratings firm pay lip service to respecting the journalistic code of conduct but then go on to systematically violate it. Similarly, although they insist that they are not trying to replace the judiciary and carry out interrogations, they extract all manner of lurid details from the protagonists of the issues they are covering under the pretext of enlightening the public.

Questions such as “What did your son tell you about the case?” or “How did your daughter get back from school?” or “Can your child’s mobile phone record videos?” belong in the courtroom. These questions also reveal the fixation with attracting viewers by broadcasting as many grisly details as possible.

Most concerning, however, is the problem of racism, which is rearing its ugly head once again in Greek society.

The victim in the alleged rape case on Evia is a girl of Bulgarian origin.

Perhaps the stereotype of foreign women having “loose morals” - due to the tendency of many to find work in late-night bars - fueled the groundless conclusions that the apparent rape was not actually rape but a voluntary sexual union.

Indeed, the fact that the citizens of Amarynthos on Evia staged a protest to express their solidarity with the accused boys smashes yet another myth about Greeks being immune to racism.

Many claim that Greeks are not racist. This is untrue. But the opposite of this, that Greeks are racist, is also untrue. This stance itself, according to which an entire nation is racist or not racist, is prejudiced. Some Greeks exhibit racist behavior while others are tolerant of foreigners living alongside them in society.

Some claim that there are very few demonstrations of racist behavior in Greece. This may be the case but one can only speculate. There are no statistics to give us an overall impression of the situation. Others claim that the racists among us are few and far between.

But the problem of racism in our society cannot be observed simply through the scrutiny of citizens. The problem of racism becomes clear the day after a racist incident - it is clear in the abhorrence or the justification it provokes among citizens at large. And this is where the truly ugly side of our society rears its head.

Shock TV preys on students

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=76084

Shock TV preys on students
By Marianna Tziantzi

Allegations that four schoolboys raped a 16-year-old female classmate on Evia have prompted a spate of bad reporting from the country’s sensationalist and scaremongering media. Sex scandals involving monasteries or rented apartments once dominated the news bulletins. These days the big news is “sex in schools,” preferably footage of group sex between pupils. Private channels offer naughty details about a school orgy while airing shocking though fuzzy footage from school bathrooms which, in the words of one silver-tongued anchorman, have become more like porn film sets.

Some channels reproduced the testimony of the victim word for word in a slow, sensual fashion. They also aired the confession of one of the boys. The text scrolled on the screen as the news reader adjusted his voice for dramatic effect. Objectivity supposedly rules as both sides are awarded equal airtime. Captions such as “They treated me as if they were beasts” or “I was crying, screaming” are contrasted with others like “We made love using a condom” or “She bragged she had had sex with many men.” Shock journalism comes with cheap shots, pompous condemnations of xenophobia and haughty repetitions of the obvious (“This could also happen outside Evia”).

Young students, their backs to the camera, are interrogated by a journalist. A deputy minister watches the questioning from an adjacent window on the TV screen. Mothers incriminate the girl as her own mother rebukes the coverage on various channels. An army of lawyers, psychologists, parents and teachers make up the rest of the picture.

The shocked audience then believes the truth is somewhere in the middle: That there were actually two alleged rapists. That the girl wanted to have sex but then changed her mind. It’s not about repressing facts. It’s about mining the truth without exploiting human pain.

New probe in teen rape case

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New probe in teen rape case
The Education Ministry yesterday began a separate investigation into allegations that four schoolboys raped a 16-year-old classmate in a school on the island of Evia.

The teenagers were charged with rape on Monday. Their parents were accused of failing to control the boys.

However, the ministry wants to conduct its own probe to find out if any of the teachers at the high school in Amarynthos were negligent or if they could have done more to prevent the alleged incident.

The unnamed schoolboys said that the 16-year-old girl consented to having sex with all four while students were staging a sit-in protest. Three schoolgirls have been accused of witnessing the incident and failing to intervene.

The alleged victim and her mother have been placed under police protection after being vocally abused by some locals outside a courthouse on Monday.