[Cross-posted from Feministing]
This news item made my stomach turn: Cassandra Hernandez, a female Air Force airman was raped, reported her attack and then subsequently became a court-martial defendant, herself.
The story goes down like this: Hernandez was at a party, where she was drinking. She says that three male airman raped her. She went to the hospital and filed a report accusing her attackers. Due to stress and harsh interrogation tactics by the Air Force, she eventually refused to testify against the airmen.
The Air Force then charged her with underage drinking (of which she admits to being guilty, but that’s hardly the point, now is it?) and, along with her three attackers, “indecent acts.” I had a hell of a lot of trouble finding an official definition for “indecent acts,” and the best one I came up with is a “form of immorality relating to sexual impurity which is not only grossly vulgar, obscene, and repugnant to common propriety, but tends to excite lust and deprave the morals with respect to sexual relations.” Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the basic translation seems to be “a sexual act, particularly one that is not generally accepted in society, such as sex with multiple partners.”
So. The woman was raped. By three men. She reported her rape. She was harassed by her superiors, to the point where she became too afraid to testify. The Air Force took this as meaning that the sex was therefore consensual (which isn’t what it means at all), and charged her in the case of her own rape. If she loses her case, she could be publicly registered as a sex offender.
Sounds like it couldn’t get any worse, right? But it does. How? The three alleged attackers were offered sexual assault immunity to testify against Hernandez on the indecent acts charge. Having at least half a brain cell among them, they accepted.
Hernandez is writing to her congresspeople and her Governor, Rick Perry, in a desperate plea to end this madness. Once you finish throwing up, crying, breaking things, etc., I strongly suggest that you write, too.
IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Apparently, the correct action to take is to write directly to YOUR congresspersons. You can find the information to write to your Representative here, and the information to write to your Senators here. It is a good idea to include one of the links to articles about the case, so that they know specifically what you are referring to.
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For some reason, feministing’s server is down, and I wanted to make a comment, so I figured I’d do it here. Sorry. :)
Wow, I am supposing the military cares so much about rape and treats it so severely that it would rather side with the rapists rather than victims, as to ensure not to ruin any careers.
But this certainly isn’t the first time this has happened. The Air Force has a long history of sexual assaults. But it’s not such a new theme, is it?
I KNOW for a fact, having spent a few years in the military as a journalist, that underage-drinking is not a crime worthy of UCMJ actions, or whatever “acts of indecency” she might have engaged it.
I still have many contacts in the military and will be giving the base’s public affairs officer a call as a freelance journalist tomorrow and report back.
And if anyone would like, I’d encourage you to call his office as well. I’d be happy to supply you with a number.
My jaw literally dropped. There is no fucking way they can be that stupid, can they? Consider me spreading the word on message boards.
Do you by chance have other sources on this? I was only able to find a few more articles on it which didn’t answer the questions I’d had about what you wrote.
For example you said that she refused to testify as a result “stress and harsh interrogation tactics by the Air Force” and that “She was harassed by her superiors, to the point where she became too afraid to testify”.
Nothing I found made mention of her superiors having anything to do with it, and the questioning she underwent was by a defense attorney for the three accused. Though one article does point out that it was done in violation of UCMJ policy because she didn’t have her own attorney present at the time.
I don’t mean to imply that those superiors necessarily didn’t have anything to do with it, but rather that I’ve not seen anything implying that they did.
More to the point however, I can only hope to that this is all the result of utter incompetence rather that outright malice. I’d sleep better at night believing that the Air Force is just run by retards than I would thinking that this is how they respond to rape accusations (accusations backed up by a full rape kit no less).
Aside from all the obvious outrage, it’s absolutely ridiculous that someone could be old enough to be in the military, but not old enough to drink alcohol.
This is shameful — it’s nothing more than the Air Force’s attempt to silence this woman and send a clear message to any other victim of rape and/or sexual assault who dares make a claim against their serviceMEN.
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