Europe and Women

Europe and Women: A Day in the Life

Cassandra notes a story wherein France stands up for its vision of what a woman's rights are, and should be. As comments note, that right does not include the religious freedom to choose to veil in public; but it does include a freedom from being forced to do so. While not "optimal," as Mr. Axlerod might say, it's better than nothing.

Switzerland, however, has freed Roman Polanski. Their reasons for doing so appear to be that the US Justice Department did not correctly handle the Swiss legal procedure, by failing to properly answer Polanski's claim that he had already served his agreed upon sentence of 42 days of "observation." I'm sure that he did not enjoy his month and a half in jail. The fact is, however, that his offense included raping and forcibly sodomizing a girl who was not only smaller and weaker than him, and not merely a minor while he was an adult, but whom he also had weakened by giving her drugs and alcohol.

The law is rarely just, however, and this case may well have been decided upon the law. I suppose we're meant to feel good about that.