What the hell is wrong with this picture?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009Posted in: Azteclady Speaks
Tags:incest
Why is it that sexual crimes, particularly against young women, are often viewed with gasps of outrage and cries for justice, yet punished by the equivalent of a slap on the wrist?
Take for example the Austrian motherfucker who incarcerated and raped his daughter for 24 years, fathered all of her 7 children, kept three of those children imprisoned underground all of their lives, while separating the other surviving three from their mother and foisting them on his wife/their grandmother. He pleads guilty to incest, he gets up to one year in prison.
Yes, you read right, one year.
If convicted of rape, he could get up to 15 years, and up to 20 years if convicted of “enslavement.” He could get up to life (however many years a life sentence may be in Austria) if convicted of homicide in the case of the baby he put in the incinerator shortly after birth.
But raping his daughter continuously, impregnating her with her own half siblings? That only gets up to one year.
At least the sick bastard changed his plea to guilty of all charges but dammit, what if he hadn’t? what if there wasn’t enough hard evidence to convict him?
One year? Seriously?
That’s so fucked up, I don’t have words.
DC
March 18
6:22 pm
And it’s stories like this that are so damn sickening, that cause the filth writers to base stories on the sick tales. They should slowly torture the bastard, cut off his testicles and other body parts and then have him die a slow painful death.
loonigrrl
March 18
8:35 pm
Well, I think the problem here is that you’re mixing the two crimes. Incest in one and rape is another. As far as I know, there are no elements of coercion when finding someone guilty of incest. It’s a separate thing. That’s why there’s a harsher penalty on the rape and not the incest. They’re dealing with the two crimes separately.
Now, if your argument is that the rape sentence should be much more than 15 years then I would totally agree with you. I think for that alone, he should be put away for life. And I would expect that they will look at the incest as an aggravating factor when sentencing him of the rape.
Louise van Hine
March 18
8:47 pm
In the USA there are different “levels” of severity with sexual assault which carry much stiffer penalties. In Fritzl’s case, however, it does not appear that they charged him with individual counts of rape. If he had continually abused his daughter over 24 years from the age of 11 then there would have been a truckload of individual charges but it appears they did not. Another difference between the Austrian law and American law is that in the case of multiple charges, he would serve the sentence that was the longest if he were found guilty of more than one. In America they have additive or concurrent sentencing. They caught him dead to rights, so I don’t think there was any doubt of his being convicted of rape, which would have exceeded the charge of incest no matter what.
veinglory
March 18
9:36 pm
Incest per se, in the absence of rape is just a matter of genetics. The rape and enslavement charges are what is wrong with what he did, and why he is going away for life.
Kelly B.
March 18
10:43 pm
There’s another case that really disgusted me. In Brazil, a 9 year old girl was pregnant with twins – after her stepfather raped her. Her mother took her to a doctor who performed an abortion on her, which is legal in Brazil when rape is involved.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brazil responded by excommunicating the child’s mother & the entire medical team that performed the procedure. Oh but not the stepdad.
How sick can you get?
http://www.wowowow.com/politics/church-excommunication-brazil-doctor-abortion-234248
Lorraine
March 19
12:54 am
This was one of the most horrific cases of its kind I’d ever heard about. Put simply, his victim *his very own daughter* is facing a life sentence, doomed to replay in her mind, over and over, the last 24 YEARS of enslavement and RAPE BY HER FATHER. The mere thought of the torture she endured is enough to send me over the bend. The minimum he should get is life in prison.
I hate to sound like a man hater, but I’ve always believed that if men were the victims of rape, it would be an offense worthy of a life sentence, if not a capital crime.
Oh, and can we start calling child molestation and rape by its true name, TORTURE!
Sam
March 19
2:52 am
I’m glad he pled guilty to everything. I hope he is made miserable in prison. Sicko. I also think the 9 year-old raping step-father in Brazil needs to be neutered. AND ex-communicated.
Sam
Lori
March 19
3:38 am
I can’t believe the sentence is so light. That’s disgusting. Simply disgusting. But I am glad he pled guilty and admitted it.
Jenns
March 19
3:52 am
Oh my God. I hadn’t heard this yet. I just … Words fail me right now.
And I’m totally with Sam about that stepfather.
It’s really sickening to think of how many evil monsters are in this world. And as disgusting is the fact that there’s often so little justice for their victims.
Lolita Lopez
March 19
4:06 am
The last two evenings on CBS, Katie Couric has done an expose on sexual assualt within the military. It’s effing disgusting. The sexual assualt rate increased 30% in 2007, and 1 in 3 women in the military will be a victim of sexual assault as compared to 1 in 6 in the civilian population.
The most shocking and disgusting parts of the expose were the punishments. Of 2000 plus reports of sexual assault, only 100 or so men were actually prosecuted. Very few of them actually got prison sentences. Most of those men received demotions or pay loss! For RAPE! One guy was found guilty of rape, demoted, and then deployed anyway. And CBS uncovered “moral waivers” for recruits convicted of FELONY sexual assault.
That just upsets me so badly. Those women make the same sacrifices as those men do and yet the military criminal courts crap all over them. My bff served in Afghanistan as a combat medic and told me numerous tales of such horrific conduct. I had really hoped it was an isolated issue–but apparently it’s an epidemic in the military. Sad, really sad considering the military is supposed to be all about honor.
The Profane Angel
March 19
7:54 am
When I lived in Germany (1997-2002), there was one murder (a friend of mine’s son was beaten to death) and then three more counts of murder (three teenagers dropped bowling ball size rocks off a pedestrian bridge onto the autobahn and killed three people via that ‘mischief.’) In all cases, the convicted were sentenced to seven years. I asked a German friend about it and he said Germans believed in rehabilitation, especially in the young. What I drew from it was if you decide to kill someone, do it in Germany. So I’m not surprised by the sentence in this case – disgusted yes, but surprised, no. TPA
Dawn
March 19
12:38 pm
The whole Austrian thing is screwed up. I heard that he originally said that it wasn’t rape after a while because his daughter stopped resisting him. I was going to say “Can you believe it?” but it seems just typical of him.
And that Brazilian thing? It just beggars belief, but with the Catholic Church anything is possible.
katiebabs
March 19
1:24 pm
The sad thing is, nothing shocks me anymore. Between those assholes at AIG and this, what is this world coming to?
Dianne Fox
March 19
1:52 pm
I think some of the commenters are missing a key piece of information:
The incest charge landed him one year in prison. The rape charges landed him in prison for life. Each charge (incest versus rape) carried a separate sentence. So while it is odd and upsetting that the incest was only worth one year, I find it very satisfying that the man won’t see the outside of a prison outside of a casket.
Seneca
March 19
1:55 pm
Me too, Katiebabs. I’m not phased by it at all. Anger and disgust is there aplenty, but not surprise or shock.
katiebabs
March 19
3:11 pm
MSNBC just announced this monster got life in prison. Hope someone makes him eat his balls in prison.
JulieLeto
March 19
3:54 pm
Yes, I read he got life in prison. Doesn’t seem like enough because his daughter and her children will suffer so much more. And where is the mother in all this? I find it so hard to believe she knew nothing. I suppose it’s possible…but what is she going through? What kind of torture will she undergo until the end of her life.
Seneca
March 19
6:05 pm
There was a hidden room in my house I would know about it.
Did the mother never notice that he would disappear downstairs for hours at a time? Didn’t she ever go down to the basement and notice he had vanished into thin air?
Amarinda Jones
March 19
7:20 pm
I hope ‘justice’ is carried out in prison by his cell mates
Amarinda Jones
March 19
7:34 pm
Ok – just heard on the radio he is in a pysch hospital…so scratch the above comment…stuffed if I know how justice will be served to this creature.
West
March 19
9:13 pm
Wow. I just threw up in my mouth a little.
amousie
March 20
1:46 pm
Crimes against women seem to be considered ‘lesser’ as a whole. Ask yourself why the UN refuses to list rape as a war crime? Look at the coverage sexual crimes get here in the US and see how many inferences they are to what was she wearing? what’s her sexual history? etc. Hell, take a look at the teenage singer couple where the male choked the female until she lost consciousness and then look at the public response. (even before they ‘reconciled’)
Yes, the Austrian case is horrible and an extreme example that we should ALL be able to agree on; however, I bet the daughter’s trials within society are only just beginning.
Until women stop being considered lesser especially by other women then we are doomed to have more cases like this. I live for the day when I never hear society’s whispered commentary blaming the victim instead of the perp. Or even excusing the perp.
Karen Knows Best
April 24
1:33 pm
[…] So it’s a ménage à quatre that involves three brothers. Can we say incest? Yes, yes, we can—and we hate it with the hatred of a thousand suns. […]