It seems to me that some sorting is in order when it comes to the great mediatic storm born from the sentence of Fortezza da Basso — that’s the name that every journal has picked up for their articles, many of which were very lacking in terms of journalistic detachment and impartiality.
We all read the reasons (or should I say the rant) of the girl, the answer of one of their lawyers, we followed the great public uprising in her favor when she openly accused the judges of clearing the defendants because of her bisexuality, unleashing a massive reaction. Bossy has produced and released content for the #nessunascusa campaign as well, since it’s perfectly aligned with our aims, and you’ll keep finding similar messages here even when this all matter has disappeared from newspapers.
It’s just now that we’ve turned to reading the detailed list of reasons of why the judges took their decision in regards of the six defendants. I found them unabridged here, on the same website where the girl’s letter appeared.
You can find a detailed enough synopsis here, in this article with quite the telling title published by ‘Antisessismo’.
We think it’s really necessary to read the reasons of the ruling linked above for anyone who wishes to read this article until the end, unless they wish to draw the wrong conclusions.
Let’s start.
I didn’t take any Laws & Rights classes in my life, so I generally trust what judges decide in court. So, first of all, I accept the ruling.
Then, since I’m not a stupid, I go and read the reasons, so that I can have a clear idea on what they say happened that night and how these facts have been considered in court.
Once I went through both the girl’s letter and the advocate’s notes, I read the article published by ‘Antisessismo’ that was passing through our online writing room. Then I started having some doubts over the tale that came out from the first sentencing and that is all over the news.
When I read the complete motivations for the absolution in the second sentencing I finally concluded that yes, the six boys are guilty of a series of weaknesses, vulgarities and mistakes given their behavior, but they’re not guilty of rape. Rape is a very serious charge that’s just not standing, not with the lies told by the prosecution— carefully debunked by the defense— not with all the clinical tests made on the girl, not with the very huge differences between her telling of the facts and the cell towers her phone was connected to.
Established this, I think I need to remind you that I do not mean to dump the blame on the girl. At all. Here at Bossy we talk of feminism, social equality, and it’s exactly in these lines that we want to place this article. I must remind to you all, and to myself, what I mean by feminism using Giorgio Fontana’s words, and why I was so interested in this fact to be willing to go right at the bottom of it to be able to form a decent critic. My aim is to find a way out of a very serious situation that seems only to be getting harder and harder outside of the courtroom for everyone involved. I don’t want to set off a witch hunt. I want to avoid one.
Going back to the judges’ motivations, they all seem very precise and rigorous in considering these acts without any kind of sexual prejudice and through the immense mediatic pressure (as seen at paragraph 19)— for example, while all medias talked about the red underwear the girl was wearing, these were mentioned by just one eye witness (one of the six defendants’ ex, at paragraph 4), talking about the overly euphoric atmosphere of the night. And so they do not appear in the judges’ final notes— another reason why we can’t compare this trial to the infamous ‘jeans sentencing’ like many journalists and activists did.
As for the matter of the girl’s sexual orientation, things are a bit more delicate here.
First of all, we must say that it was the girl herself who introduced this detail in court, and that this element remains secondary in the general discussion of the facts. When it’s mentioned in the judges’ notes, it’s to underline the girl’s strength, «since she’s capable of managing her own (bi-)sexuality». Sure, it really bothered me to see a girl’s sexual orientation judged in a courtroom, but this detail was brought into the first sentencing as to add to the charge of the six defendants. Altogether with her drunkenness, in the eyes of the prosecution it was supposed to be a sign of the girl’s weakness. What really happened is that the girl’s sexuality was first used by the prosecution to add to the defense’s charges, and then got shifted in the second sentencing and put back again in a more general description of the situation. I don’t think any of these two was the right thing to do. The whole matter shouldn’t even have been brought to the attention of the court.
Still I can’t help but notice how when these very personal details were used to prolongate the possible incarceration of the defendants they caused no scandal at all. When they do create scandal, it’s when they reappear in a putting of the facts that clears the defense of all charges.
This is a very increasing prejudice not just towards the defendants, but in all those trials where men are accused and then cleared of charges.
My opinion after reading all the pages of judges’ notes is that it’s a very rational sentence, impartial and understanding of all the parts involved.
These judges have understood that they’re dealing with a very insecure girl who’s battling her own demons on a path that needs care and respect. On the other hand we have a bunch of very drunk and very hormonal twenty-year-olds that managed to gain composure only enough to walk the girl back to her bike after she escaped out of the blue. A faint beacon of decency in a night of vulgarity.
I think this is the only possible way of seeing the whole situation— there’s a huge difference between rape and adolescence when it comes to twenty-year-olds unable to handle themselves in front of a girl, but also when it’s a girl who can’t handle her more than legit doubts and ambiguities.
I wish her all the best, sincerely.
