DSK

The arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is quite an interesting event. I heard about this on the radio this morning, then reading the Times this morning I was blown away by the photo on the site of DSK being led out of the SVU unit in NY by NYCC (so many acronyms!) here.

My initial thought was how positive this arrest was for sexual assault victims, as it demonstrates that no matter who you are or what you do, you cannot get away with sexual assault. My second thought, that followed pretty quickly, was a degree of scepticism that this was in fact an actually claim of sexual assault, and not a conspiracy against the potential next French Socialist Presidential candidate. At the moment I’m sitting half way between the two. Having read some of the press today it would appear that DSK has a bit of a history of compromising practices and some aggressive sexual behaviour, which would support the claims, but given his profile and the heat building on his potential Presidential aspirations the story could be a lot more convoluted than what we’ve seen already.

The parallel that I drew, to an extent, was the Fraser-Kirk David Jones experience here. The treatment of the incident in Australian Media was quite poor, and further demonstrated the difficulty that sexual assault victims have when airing their attacks in public (i.e. dismissed, challenged, critiqued). I think that the coverage at present in the world media has been a lot more dignified, and I hope that it continues and maintains a more impartial perspective until the legal process has run its course.