BC More Lenient on Sexual Assault?

The case of rapist Fernando Manuel Alves's conditional -- no jail -- sentence got me wondering about sentencing for sexual assault in Canada in general, and BC in particular.

At the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, I found this:

According to Statistics Canada, the median sentences for sexual assault and for other sexual offenses are both 360 days. To compare, the median sentence for robbery is 540 days. This seems deeply flawed—to violently steal property is given more weight in sentencing than to violate the sexual integrity of another human being.

I went to the StatsCan link and found sentencing data by province for 2006/2007. Here, for example, is the table for BC.

Now, if I haven't goofed up the math, it appears that BC has a significantly higher rate of conditional sentencing for sexual assault than either Canada overall or Ontario.

In BC, there were 187 convictions for sexual assault: 68 of those resulted in prison time, 48 in conditional sentences, and 102 in probation.

For Canada overall, the numbers are: 1519 convictions, 753 prison sentences, 244 conditional sentences, and 999 probation.

For Ontario, 535 convictions, 236 prison sentences, 85 conditional, and 427 probation.

(The sentences don't add up to the total convictions, I'm guessing, because probation might go with a lot of other sentences. I am not a lawyer and sit to be corrected.)

In Canada overall, 49% of convictions for sexual assault result in jail time; in Ontario, 44%; and in BC, 36%.

For conditional sentencing, Canada has 16%, Ontario has 15.8%, BC has 25.6%.

OK, this is just one time period. There may be anomalies in the types and numbers of crimes.

But, it's odd, doncha think, that Ontario and Canada line up pretty well, while BC seems quite a bit more lenient?

Just asking. . .

O-o-o-Oklahoma: Where law and reason came sweepin' down the plain.

And The Fetus©™ fetishists were smacked down again.

From the NYT, by way of Broadsides 'State-utory Rape':

On Tuesday, Judge Vicki L. Robertson of the Oklahoma County District Court ruled the omnibus abortion bill - which lawmakers passed over the veto of Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, in 2008 - violated a clause in the State Constitution requiring that bills deal with only one subject. Judge Robertson did not rule on whether the law, which rolled together five separate anti-abortion measures, violated constitutional protections of privacy and freedom of speech. ...

In recent years, several states have passed laws requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion and at least three - Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi - require doctors to offer the woman the chance to see the image. But Oklahoma’s Legislature went further. ...

In early stages of pregnancy, when the fetus is tiny, the law would have required the ultrasound to be done vaginally to get a clear image, providers said. No exceptions were made for rape and incest victims.

Imagine that. Abortion criminalizers were seeking to pass a law that would force every girl or woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy to submit to these invasive procedures. All in a zygote zealot day's work.

Oklahoma's is the not the only state legislature in the US beset with obstructive, fundamentalist religious, right-wing conservatives busy-bodies. The Centre for Reproductive Rights called this tactic "Most Extreme Ultrasound Law" in the US. But this war is being waged in other jurisdictions as well.

In Canada, The Fetus©™ fetishists do not currently own the ears of Stevie and his Harpocrites. But that doesn't mean they're not planning their next lunatic overstatement or MASSIVE tactic.

They're Not Mad, They're Opportunists.

When you know fundamentalist judeo/christian conservatives and The Fetus©™ fetishists can command MASSIVE financial and legal resources to "protect" pregnant adolescents from their pro-choice parents, you wonder why they're wringing their hands and standing by passively while anticipating this particular girl will be murdered by family members.

A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say, despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents' faith.

Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to Ohio. ...

"Anyone who converts from Islam is considered an apostate, and apostasy is a capital crime," Chesler wrote FOXNews.com. "If she is returned to her family, if she is lucky, they will isolate her, beat her, threaten her, and if she is not persuaded' to return to Islam, they will kill her. ... "She escaped from her family's brutal tyranny and shamed her family further through public exposure," Chesler said. "Muslim girls and women are killed for far less."

Republicans and religious conservatives are loudly lamenting Rifqu Bary's plight but will they take up her cause to the Supreme Court? Bary is far more useful to them - if she is killed as FOXNews claims she will be - because she would be a political and religious martyr that can be used to justify and fuel their rightwing attacks against all Muslims.


Much like the deaths of Zainab, Geeti and Sahar Shafia and Rona Amir Mohammed have been exploited in Canada by ReformaTories to attack feminists and progressives, Chesler and her acolytes are willing to sacrifice Bary to further their cause. I think that all this shrieeeking is bullshit rhetoric fluffed, fanned and promoted by FAUXNews. Otherwise they really are the depraved political opportunists I believe they are.

Action Time: Alves's Sentence Needs to be Appealed

Dr Dawg has the goods on the person we can contact to urge that the no-jail sentence for convicted rapist Fernando Manuel Alves be appealed by the Crown.

The decision maker is:
Mr. Grant B. Wong
Deputy Regional Crown Counsel
222 Main Street
Vancouver, B.C.
V6A 2S8

FAX: 604.660.4347

Dr Dawg says that Mr Wong will not be back in his office until September. But that's no reason to delay writing.

It should be a letter, mailed or faxed (lawyers seem to like faxes). A nice, polite letter from a concerned citizen worried about policy implications. Letters from British Columbians would be double-plus good.

Alves needs more than a slap on the wrist. Would-be Alveses need to get the message -- rape = jail.

Let's get this done.

Background here and here.

Rightwingnut haters howl and shrieeek.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud and her lawyers have given legal notice that they are going to Federal Court to sue the Canadian government as well as to demand a public inquiry and to secure a formal apology. From here:

An inquiry must be called to investigate whether Mohamud's race and culture played a role in how she was treated, said one of Mohamud's lawyers, Julian Falconer.

Falconer represented Maher Arar in his lawsuit against Ottawa. "If a Caucasian person had been in Suaad's position in Kenya, would she have received the callous and reckless treatment she did?" he said.

"We don't know the answer. We need someone to look at it and answer that question, because frankly, I find it hard to believe that a white, Anglo-Saxon person in her position would have been treated the same way."

Read the irrational loathing spewed in the 300+ comments at the CBC website following the news item from supporters of Stevie's Harpocrites if you have the stomach for it.

As we observed here and here, there's a certain selective political opportunism at play when anti-feminists shrieeeek "Where are the feminists?"

Though it's possible a few fundamentalist christian, rightwing religious conservatives just might support the legal rights of brown-skinned women if they're dead, pregnant, or a fetus. Even then, not so much.

'Untruthful and Misleading'

Or, in laywoman's terms, 'lying bullcrap'.

Fetus fetishists' wet-dream laws are dropping like flies.

A federal judge ruled today that a South Dakota law requiring doctors to tell pregnant women that abortion increases the risk of suicide and suicide ideation is “untruthful and misleading.”
. . .
On the suicide issue, [Chief District Court Judge Karen] Schreier was convinced by multiple studies showing women who get abortions have no increased risk of suicide. The state provided arguments, but no evidence, to the contrary, she said.

No shit, Sherlock. Study after study after study -- you get the idea -- finds NO connection between abortion and aberrant mental health.

The judge did not strike down the bit of the law that requires doctors inform women that an abortion will kill the fetus which is human. Yeah, unless the slut has been fucking aliens.

I-See-Dead-People: Palin and her sycophant.

Last year, The Fetus©™ fetishists went on the rampage, claiming that recipients of the Order of Canada would return their snowflake medals in the hundreds, as a protest against Morgentaler's award. To date, the convergence of various astroturf zygote zealot organizations has produced 10 returned medals, including one from a priest convicted of physically abusing 2 children in his care, and three deceased recipients. Those who presume to defend the interests of the "pre-born" now also speak for the post-dead.

In a recent post, Blob Blogging Wingnut yammered:

"I recently read the story of someone I knew who told me his mother almost aborted him, but at the last minute decided against it. I was rather blown away by the thought that he might never have existed-- all those years, he would have been non-existent. You might object: but you would not have been none the wiser. But the truth is, just because you don't know something doesn't mean reality has not been altered. His person would not have been around to enrich his world. The world would have been poorer without his presence. More and more of these people will be coming to prominence."

As always, SUZIE ALL-CAPS's ideological glurge has the capacity to stun, with all the finesse of a RCMP-wielded Taser™. Someone with a secret Magisterium decoder might understand the above tirade.

In this SHE ressembles HER idol, Sarah Palin who has a similar way with words.

Funny how Sarah and Sainte-Nitouche never "see" any of the hundreds of thousands of women who have died as a result of AIDS, ectopic pregnancies, and self-administered or illicit abortions.

They may “see-dead-people” but only the ones that it is politically expedient for them to see.

And furthermore: Go read Ann Leary, a US citizen who provides a heartwarming/hearwrenching first-person account of her experience with the UK National Health Service when she went into premature labour, here.

Merci to BlastFurnaceCanada for that!

Is gender an absolute M/F category?

South African athlete Caster Semenya is being scrutinized to determine whether she is "truly" a woman.

Semenya, a newcomer to high level competition, blew away her rivals with a dominant run in last night's track final in Berlin, but was already aware that she may have to return her gold medal if she fails a gender verification test.

Comments after the race from her beaten rivals emphasised the unpleasant situation in which she now finds herself. Russian Mariya Savinova, who came fifth, questioned Semenya's gender while Italy's Elisa Piccione, who finished sixth, was more damning. “For me, she is not a woman,” she said.

More about this.

How many forms have you completed that had two boxes - one male, the other female - for which you had to tick only one?

Post-birth the bodies of every human being at various stages of their development can produce female and male hormones - even though the blastocyte which can be affected by the hormones produced by pregnant women during the course of its development is either XX or XY.

But like the official forms that need to be completed when every baby is born, there are social and cultural institutions that require un-ambiguous categories. Such as sports competitions.

Olympic trivia: Anne the Princess Royal, only daughter of Elizabeth II, was not was obliged to submit to gender-testing when she competed in the 1976 Montreal Games.

It's official. . .

Yves Bolduc definitely wants to get re-elected.

Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc said Tuesday he will remove abortion clinics from a controversial bill that sets strict standards for private surgical clinics.

My, that was fast. On August 7, deBeauxOs blogged about the new standards applying to abortion clinics.

The very next day, Bolduc seemed to be climbing down.

And today? Fffffft! All gone! Never happened. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

How stoopid do those fetus fetishist thanks to gord and celebrations look now?

Fetus fetishists -- in all kindsa denial. Including basic political sense.