Crowd Cheers as Convicted Rapist is Eliminated in Olympic Beach Volleyball
In 2016, Steven van de Velde pleaded guilty to three counts of raping a 12-year British schoolgirl. On Sunday, the registered sex offender was knocked out of the Paris Olympics.
Convicted PEDOPHILE rapist!
Why do so many headlines leave that part out? I swear like half the headlines don't feel that needs to be mentioned when it's really a huge fucking part of the story.
if you're genuinely curious: my bet is to avoid lawsuits. mind that people who use the word pedophile colloquially usually mean people who prey on children.
in reality, pedophilia is not a legal term and not a part of the crimes or charges. it's a psychiatric disorder and in itself not the crime. laws are not concerned with the disorder so long as the person does not act on it.
on the legal side, crimes like statutory rape, child sexual abuse, or whatever it may be, are independent of the disorder and i would imagine a lot of people who engage in it might not have it; as sexual abuse is more often than not about power, not attraction.
so i imagine shit stain perpetrators like this can technically say they're not pedophiles as they aren't legally found to be so and sue for defamation. so media sticks to the legal terms.
that being said, even if they don't use the word, they should mention that the victim was a 12 year old. so instead of pedophile rapist, it can say rapist of 12 year old. afaik that's legally and technically true and shouldn't be a legal liability.
disclaimer that these are opinions of a layman, and I'm not a lawyer.
because he’s probably not a pedophile - I read somewhere that a lot of child rapists aren’t actually pedophiles. But it should say child rapist.
As a Dutch guy I feel compelled to apologize for our national olypic committee selecting and sending this douche nozzle to Paris.
He's still going to be representing the team in the next competition. You guys need to make sure your government knows it's not ok to send child groomer rapists onto the world stage to represent you. And his teammates seem to be ok with playing aside him again.
“If I can speak for him, after the match we lost, we were disappointed,” Immers said of his teammate Van de Velde. “But we said to each other: ‘Look what we did together. Look how hard we fought with all the attention.’ We stayed together. We cried together off the field and said, ‘OK, let’s just enjoy this moment.’ And we did that. So I’m happy we did it that way.”
Van de Velde and Immers will play together next in the European championships in the Netherlands right after the Olympics, and then the Dutch championships.
Sorry, but this is kind of fucked up. No offense to you personally, but my opinion of the Dutch just took a nosedive.
Let's do politicians next.
Fucking finally. Price of shit rapist. Maybe the Dutch will reform their legal system in-time for the next Olympics?
Im not sure if any legal system would say a felon cant join the olympics. Unless you mean having draconian punishments like the US. Then no, I hope they dont damage their legal system to become that corrupt.
People seem to be more outraged that a rapist is allowed to play sportsball than rapists being allowed to become president.
only if booing was able to remove pedophile and rapist politicians from power too
I mean, using your voice to influence the outcome of politics is kind of how a democracy works. Ideally, at least. But I agree with your sentiment.
Also, for a second I imagined a scenario where voting is done by small groups in booths, booing for the politicians they don't like and clapping for the ones they like, and then someone would watch the tapes and just count how many people booed and clapped at every politician.
I'm very conflicted about this whole thing. On the one hand, yeah it's kind of a scandal and people have every right to be booing him every time he touches the ball.
On the other hand, he was convicted, sentenced, did time and is now back in society apparently showing remorse. People are calling for his career to end and various wishes of death on him. Why can't he continue his life?
Are we supposed to lock up all criminals forever? Kill them? Just not allow them to follow their chosen career after getting out? Or is it just sports they shouldn't be allowed to participate in?
apparently showing remorse
He showed no remorse. He called it nonsense. He said he made mistakes as a youth. He has not even bothered to offer anything in the way of an apology.
He did barely a year of prison... I personally don't quite think it's enough for raping a kid, but hey that's just my opinion
It seems like a lot of criminals who "did their time" really didn't do much at all.
Compare that to a lifetime of hurt caused to the victim(s) and their families, and it just doesn't seem good enough.
Enough for what? Your sense of vengeance? I don't know, only you can tell... Enough for rehabilitation? I don't know, but it is possible. Time needed for rehabilitation varies widely. It's quite possible the year was enough. One thing we do know is that the Netherlands is heavily in favour of rehabilitation over punishment, since rehabilitation actually forwards society
While I agree this seems extremely small. The netherlands is not the US. The specifics of court cases are not made public. We have no idea about them. It might be a very ambiguous case that barely fit the definition of rape or whatever.
Not trying to defend rape or rapists, but we may need more context before we can judge the length of a sentence.
Edit: I just read a less opinionated in depth article on him, and from the details I see, man he fucked up bad, in my opinion he deserved more than 13 months. He got sentenced to 4 years at first but that got cut short.
It's a good thing the court of public opinion still has a voice and doesn't approve of child rapists quite so heartily as the Dutch government. What "time" did he do - like 11months? And he was never remorseful in the slightest. If his only real punishment is going to be him and his country getting booed by the world at the Olympics, I'm happy there's at least that.
did time and is now back in society apparently showing remorse.
Nope, neither of those.
What do you mean? He served 13 months and got out on parole. He's publicly expressed remorse, but that isn't exactly conclusive. I assume there would have been some genuine remorse inside, otherwise there would be no parole.
My point is, if you stop anyone who has been to jail returning to normal society at all, then why let them out at all? You might as well just put every criminal in jail for life, or just kill them straight away.
On the other hand, he was convicted, sentenced, did time and is now back in society apparently showing remorse.
He hardly did any time at all. Frankly you do more time for a parking ticket. Also when did he show remorse like whenever has he ever shown any remorse at all?
he can continue his life, but get the fuck out of public positions like this if youre a fucking pedo rapist
How about "not put them representing your country, where other people might understand that as an endorsement as see him as a role model".
There is shades of grey between "killing him" and "send him to the Olympics".
I'm not conflicted. I'm not saying he should be in jail forever. But I'm also saying it's clear that he shouldn't be representing his country on the world stage. That's a privilege you should lose forever when you rape a child. Cause remember, going to the Olympics is a privilege, not a right. It's like yeah he served your time, would you let him babysit your daughter now then? Or let him hang out at schools? You gotta forgive, but you're stupid if you forget
There's a system in place for that. It's called 'verklaring omtrent gedrag'. For many jobs and positions you need this certificate of conduct in order to apply. The ministry of justice will not hand out the certificate if your crime is related to the position you apply for. This means he would probably never be allowed to work at a school for instance.
On the other hand, he was convicted, sentenced, did time and is now back in society apparently showing remorse.
He flew to England, raped a 12 yo, got convicted by the English for 4 years. He was deported back to Netherlands, they dropped it to 1 year.
This isn't justice.
I agree with you pretty much on all points.
I am also conflicted.
It's up to courts and parole boards to determine what punishments are appropriate, given the context of the crimes.
I don't like the guy, and of course his crime was repugnant, but I can still acknowledge that he's one of the best volleyball players in the world. These two opinions are incongruous and yet, they exist at the same time.
My thought is more along the lines of, "Regardless of his talent level, is this really the kind of person that his country wants representing them on the world stage?"
Like, okay even if he's the absolute best by an order of magnitude...if he were from my country, I'd rather lose every match than win on the talents of someone like that.
For me, there's a difference between rehabilitation and letting someone represent your country at the olympics. Athletes don't have to be perfect but to a certain extent they are ambassadors of their country and role models.
This paired with him not staying in prison for long because the Dutch legal system is fucking abysmal is reason enough for me to celebrate that he's out.
First of all, not all crimes are the same nor should be treated equally.
Secondly, he raped a 12 year old, and that's unredeemable in a lot of people's book.
That doesn't answer their question though. Those people don't have to be friends with the guy, but wishing him death or homelessness etc is not only horrible but solves nothing other than making them feel like they're "better".
It's simple really.
His judgement, sentencing and punishment satisfy the needs of the law. the law has done it's part (arguably terribly in this case) and is at rest.
This is vastly different than the judgement bright forth by the court of public opinion. They are not so forgiving.
Perhaps that's something the dude should have thought about before doing what he did
Why can’t he continue his life?
Because he raped a child. The only olympic event he should have been allowed to participate in was competitive shooting, as a target.
He's only 29, this is gonna haunt him for a LONG LONG time.
Not necessarily, fingers crossed.
Not if he stayed home and got a job and lived his life. But being on the world stage and representing your country is a choice and a privilege. It's not owed to him. He can fuck off to obscurity any time he wants
Good for the crowd.
Every time a rapist is sad or something bad happens to them, I smile. The worse the event, the happier I am. Death should be their only release from torture. I accept no less and grant no pity, no matter how bad it gets for them.
And it goes double for Trump.
I agree with your sentiment, but nobody deserves torture, no matter how terrible they are or what they’ve done. I can totally accept an argument that society is better without some people in it, but torture isn’t good for anyone, ever, and we should never, ever endorse its use, even when speaking figuratively.
If our goal is to minimize suffering for everyone, intentionally inflicting needless suffering on others is antithetical to that goal, and makes us no better than those we oppose.
Sad. Hope he doesn't fall into a wheat thresher on his way to the loser's bunks.
ELIMINATED
That would be a shame. Threshers aren't designed to grind up trash and it might cost the owner a bit in maintenance
How is there no mechanism to remove him? I mean, ideally he shouldn’t have been selected in the first place but under the insanely charitable assumption that it was sloppiness and not active negligence that recruited him.
It's not the Olympic organizers' job to disqualify someone based on how immoral, criminal, of poor character or despicable a person is (on who's laws anyway?). This is a major failure on the country's olympic committee selecting these people to represent themselves to the world.
On what grounds would he be removed though? Is there a reason countries shouldn't select athletes that have been to prison?
Isn't volleyball a team sport? How are his teammates okay with being on a team with a child molester? How are his opponents okay with playing in a game against him? Even if there's no official mechanism, couldn't all the players just be like "Nah, fuck that, he goes or I do". The only time I've every knowingly ran into one I couldn't have been civil towards them if I wanted to let alone actually work together on something.
The olympics have athletes competing from countries where being gay is a crime, like the girl from Algeria, it's not on them to be the world police.
yay!
Theres a typo in the article where they refer to him as "Ban de Velde" which is hilariously appropriate
I'm on the fence on that. He raped a minor which is not excusable, he possibly ruined her life. How can a person like that be redeemed? Or does he not deserve redemption? He was 19. When I was 19, I was an irresponsible child. There is no proof that he is a pedophile.
Dunno about you, but when I was 19 the thought of raping a child never crossed my mind. He's spent less than a year in prison, and hasn't repented for what he did. Redemption has to at the very least come with an understanding that what he did was wrong.
Edit: slightly more than a year; 13 months
I was stupid at 19 too, but for me that meant letting my at-the-time boyfriend finish inside even though I didn't know him nearly well enough. Turned out he was slutting out it with randos and never got tested before our relationship. That's around the stupid I expect at 19.
Rape is a bit fucking beyond that, don't you think?
No. People who don't even bother offering anything in the way of apology for their atrocities do not deserve redemption.
he raped a minor
no proof that he's a pedophile
Are you stupid?
The majority of child molesters are not pedophiles. It is more about power dynamics / them being an easy target.
Did you know most child rapists don’t fit pedophilia diagnostic critia?
Edit: I read an article on him and he has a 2 year old son. I really hope he isn’t a pedophile.
There is no proof that he is a pedophile.
Not entirely sure where you're going with this. He's not an irredeemable asshole because he might be a pedophile, he's an irredeemable asshole because he raped a child and that's indisputable.
Get help before you hurt someone.
Hi, friend. I’m sure you have well-meaning intentions by making this comment. As someone who was a survivor of a similar situation such as this, and who also grew into a 19 year old, I can tell you that from a non-clinical perspective, if you are attracted to a child of early puberty age as a 19 year old adult, I don’t think making this assumption is too far off the table. I’m sick and tired of coming on here and listening to this discourse about this volleyball player. Thank you for your two sides to every story, attempt at nuance and empathy for a rapist here. As a survivor of CSA, this has never been granted to me or anyone else I know of that has survived something like this. We need a different reaction to people who do these acts to innocent children.