Group-rape of girl cover up in Holland

After the uncovering of the group-rape, it became evident that the girl was repeatedly raped by the group.
Here are two more articles on that subject. The articles were translated directly.

AMSTERDAM - The Amsterdam citydistrict Westerpark has not only tried to cover up the repeated group-rape, but also two group-sexual assault cases of other victims in de Spaarndammerbuurt.

Recently it became publicly known how a 13-year old girl was (as it now seems) repeatedly raped by a group consiting mostly of Moroccan boys, about two years ago, and how the district tried to keep these events hidden from the public. Only some "key-persons" from the district were informed with a "carefully directed communication-stream". As it turns out the district choose to completely hide two group-sexual assaults in the same period from the public.

This is stated in the "Eindevaluatierapport zedenzaak Westerpark" (Final evaluationrapport sexual misconduct Westerpark) that the disctrict counsil had ordered to be made. This rapport made apparent that in the same period as the group-rape two more sexual assaults and public violence were comitted, supposedly by two groups of four boys (mostly Moroccan). citydistrictchairman M. Voster (PvdA) confirmed yesterday that there was more going on. "That's right. Just like there are other incidents were the inhabitants of the district have not been informed about. Because these sort of things happen a lot more often".

After the district discovered that the youths involed were others than the ones who comitted the group-rape of the 13 year old (mentally chanllenged) girl, the sexual assaults were "put aside", according to Voster. "Well, they (the perpetrators) were young, early-teenagers." According to Voster it is "policy" not to inform the neigborhood about group-rapes comitted by childeren with mostly a Moroccan backgrounds. "Because it happens a lot recently. That is the reality." The police was not available for comment yesterday.

ROTTERDAM - The mentally challenged girl Tessa (15), who was (repeatedly) raped by a group of 14 boys, aging 9 to 16 years, in the Amsterdam citydistrict Westerpark in the final months of 1999, has been ordered to be taken into a closed mental institution by the court.

According to the mental institution that holds parenthood of the girl, the William Schrikkersstichting (Schrikkerfoundation) in Diemen, Tessa has been taken into a so called "crisisplace". She was being hold there because of a suicide attempt the girl has comitted on 18 oktober 2001 and the fact that she keeps wounding herself with pieces of glass.

A week ago it became public, thanks to "de Telegraaf", that the citydistrict Westerpark knowingly tried to cover up the group-rape "not to cause public unrest". And while the citydistrict made sure that the "convicted" rapists were being helped by professionals, the girl and her fosterparents were "sort of" neglected.

According to a spokesman from the Schikkersstichting is Tessa still "displaying suicidal tendencies". She has had agressive moods before, but never that serious that she had to be treated in psychatric hospital. "But in the last few months her behaviour has become worse. Tessa has gone thru horrible things; now her behaviour indicates that a volcano is finally about to explode".

The fosterpartent of Tessa, Peggy Termonen the mother), is frusteratedabout the forced placement of Tessa in the mental institution, location Noorderzand van Rijksinrichting (Federal institution) in Heerhugowaard. "It's like a jail there, she isn't allowed to go outside, and I'm not allowed to call her."

Noorderzand is a former woman's prison that is now in use as a "crisisplace" for 30 girls, who "seem to be going down mentally", as it is stated on the website of the foundation. "During her stay she is being observed and she is exposed to a psychologic evaluation to find out what kind of treatment the girl needs."

According to the fosterparent Peggy Termonen that is the problem right now" "They are only observing Tessa, instead of treating her." Termonen also stated that earlier observation has revealed that if Tessa was to be placed in an "othopedic careinstitution", she would progress much better, because they use a "reward orientated treatment" were she will gain from fysically and mentally. "She is beautiful and sweet, but she's being wrecked by all this." There currently is no room in any othopedic instutution for her.

The Schrikkerstichting says Tessa is being treated, but not to help her recover mentally from the group-rape. "To do this, she has to be mentally stable, and that she isn't". Also the Schrikkerstichting admits there "is too little caretaking" for Tessa. Peggy Termonen accused the Schrikkerstichting of total failure in this matter. The Schrikkerstichting denies the accusations, although it admits that there will be an internal investigation about the situation.

It sounds to me that what is plaguing the Netherlands (and Denmark) is a group of religious nutcases who think it acceptable to gang-rape young infidels and to prey on non-muslims generally. It's just that the press is too P.C. to point that little fact out. Perhaps the I-Hate-Holland freepers would point it out, but they seem to have a larger axe to grind with the Dutch.

BTW, here's an interesting aarticle that appeared in the Globe & Mail over the weekend:

Keep on the grass.

The Globe and Mail

Despite, or maybe because of, coffee shops where marijuana consumption is both safe and legal, Amsterdam remains a clean, attractive and cultured city. Vancouver sci-fi novelist SPIDER ROBINSON discovers a future that works.

I've just had a glimpse of the future . . . in a city that was old long before Europeans settled in North America. At the 2001 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam last week, I acquired some sense of what decriminalization of pot might one day mean for us here in Canada. And was reassured.

Signs and portents suggest this may be marijuana's magic millennium. Bill C-344, sponsored by Canadian Alliance MP Keith Martin (a most interesting man, a former corrections officer and emergency room physician) would replace criminal penalties for personal use with civil fines. More than 200 MPs have expressed support, as have the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Council of Churches and, depending on who's doing the polling, anywhere from 47 to 74 percent of the Canadian public. The federal government is currently growing its own stone in a Manitoba mineshaft; a Ministry of Medical Marijuana seems inevitable.

It's in the air. Italy and Spain already handle cannabis possession with fines. This summer, Portugal startled Europe by decriminalizing personal amounts of any drug. A month later, Britain declared its intention to decriminalize pot, and is currently going forward despite some resistance.

Eleven states have already legalized medical marijuana in defiance of the U.S. government. And there's Holland, where as everyone knows, the weed is perfectly legal, smoked openly -- Wrong.

Whatever you've heard, smoking grass in public is not legal or polite in Amsterdam, or anywhere in the Netherlands. If you light a joint on a crowded street (all Amsterdam streets are crowded), you may not do time . . . but passersby will probably glare, may berate you, and the police might haul you before a magistrate for a stern lecture and a stinging fine.

But anywhere in the city, you're within walking distance of one or more of the famous coffee shops, within which you may legally and safely consume as much as you like of the world's very finest marijuana or hashish.

And you are allowed to purchase up to five grams to go, if you're discreet about where you smoke it. Or you can avoid smoking altogether: I saw dozens of edible pot products, including (thoughtfully) throat lozenges.

Twenty-two coffee shops participated in the 14th annual Cannabis Cup, sponsored by High Times magazine (http://www.hightimes.com) and 420Tours (http://www.420tours.com). So did more than a dozen "seed companies," competing to do with cannabis what Bill Gates did with computers, gain control of the basic software: the DNA of the best possible pot. Many firms exhibited pot-related products (grinders, pipes, growing gear), and countless purveyors of non-intoxicating items (hemp products, posters, music) also participated.

So did hundreds of potheads from all around the world. Some came by day to the Pax Party House (Ferdinand Bolstraat 194) to see and hear charismatic counterculture icons of the millennium past -- Paul Krassner, breathtakingly-audacious editor of The Realist in the sixties, and editor of the new book Pot Stories for the Soul; Stephen Gaskin, merry founder of the most successful spiritual community in North American history, the Farm, now in its fourth decade in Tennessee; his wife, Ina May Gaskin, president of the International Midwives Association, who literally wrote the book on home birth, Spiritual Midwifery.

At least as many people came to the huge Melkweg hall (Lijnbaansgracht 234a) each night for the music. Singers, rappers, musicians and DJs from everywhere were headlined by well-known "stoner band" 311 and backstopped by the tireless house group, the Five Points Band. Easily a dozen people came to hear the British Columbia science fiction writer/folksinger the festival had apparently invited on the theory that this was 2001, and he was cheaper than an astronaut.

And, of course, nearly everyone came for the weed. Attendees were given a "passport" and invited to have it stamped in each of the 22 participating coffee shops -- most of which had a house strain entered in competition.

Celebrity judges got 11 different samples, identified only by number -- indica for gentlemen; sativa for ladies -- and spent the week ranking them in five categories (appearance, smell, taste, burn, strength). The Vancouver outfit, Amsterdam Seed Co., came in second for best indica.

There were so many events and exhibits, I managed to visit only a few coffee shops; I particularly enjoyed De Rokerij (Lange Leidsedwarsstraat 41), Barney's Breakfast Bar (Haarlemmerstraat 102), and the dreamy undersea motif of the Greenhouse Centrum (Oudezijds Voorburgwal 191), but for all I know others are even better.

But I hadn't come for the coffee shops . . . or the music, or the notorious Red Light District, or even the ganja. I live in B.C. I came to see Amsterdam.

I wanted to know what a city that tolerates pot and prostitution and considers junkies treatable sick people is like. I had heard conflicting propaganda -- it's paradise/it's seedy -- and wanted to see for myself.

There seems reason to believe Vancouver might adopt something like the Amsterdam model: Both the mayor and the province are considering safe-injection sites, the police have recently begun to feel murdering prostitutes is a crime, and the BC Compassion Club Society (http://www.thecompassionclub.org) provides medical marijuana to the sick with little harassment.

But what happens when a city goes that one step further, and tolerates marijuana clubs? Do the sidewalks fill with smiling tie-dyed zombies with the munchies? Does the quality of tourists you attract change, and if so, for better or worse? Do lenient laws encourage them to think "anything goes," and behave even more obnoxiously than Spring Breakers in the French Quarter of New Orleans?

Do stoners start flooding in from neighbouring countries -- bringing along users or sellers of harder drugs perhaps? Does the city's drug/crime problem get better or worse, net? Beyond that, what happens to its overall look, flavour, sensibility?

Amsterdam first stunned, then awed and finally shamed me. I was born and raised in New York, and have visited every large city in the United States and Canada: We have nothing on this continent that can touch it. Several centuries' head start is no excuse. I have never seen -- rarely even imagined -- a city so consistently beautiful and aesthetically aware, so proud of its public places and supportive of its arts.

The dominant architectural landmarks are vast museums, opera houses and theatres -- all in active, vibrant use. One of our happiest afternoons was spent in the heavily attended Van Gogh Museum (Paulus Potterstraat 7, http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl), gaping at more than 200 of his paintings, plus an extensive collection of other excellent 19th-century art for context.

Another memorable afternoon was an utterly fascinating canal-boat tour of that city of 2,500 houseboats, and a leisurely stroll through the pristine Vondelpaark.

Nor have I ever seen a city so clean and well-maintained, outside Disneyland. Brick buildings that were standing (below sea level!) when Henry Hudson sailed from Amsterdam are, today, in better average condition than most of the buildings in New York. Every streetlight works.

I saw zero potholes, broken windows, spilled garbage, vandalism, graffiti, or abandoned cars.

On the third evening, leaving our charming and comfortable canal-side Quentin Hotel (Leidesekade 89; phone 3120-626-2187; around the corner from the lovely Leideseplein or "Plaza of Lights"), I spotted two grape-sized dog turds on the sidewalk.

"Thank God! A flaw," I cried, pointing, and my American companions grinned. Returning later, we found someone had drawn chalk circles around the offending items, and what I presume was a stern admonition in Dutch.

I had been told that everyone in Amsterdam spoke English. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they enjoy doing so.

What confused me most, though, was what I couldn't find. In a seaport renowned for brothels and bongs, I could not seem to detect one person who scared me. If there are bad neighbourhoods, I missed them. I'm from the Bronx; I have pretty good street sense.I did not spot one jonesing junkie.

Not one pusher or dealer. No muggers, beggars, thugs, dips, crackheads, posturing gangbangers, child hookers, dumpster divers, squeegee kids, winos, abandoned mental patients -- no street people. I take that back: In a week of wandering, I noticed one bag lady, camped inside the archway of the Opera House.

As I followed giggling crowds in and out of public places reeking of THC, I also watched to see what ordinary Amsterdammers thought of their coffee shops -- and of us. Were they appalled by this annual swarm of beaming foreign dopers, ashamed of the thriving soft-drug industry that attracted us? Not that I could see.

Wearing a goofy grin and a large laminated badge identifying me as a Cannabis Cup participant, I never drew so much as a frown. Amsterdam didn't seem to notice us. We drew less attention than a comparable crowd of tourists leaving a wine-tasting festival, because none of us was staggering or acting belligerently. They simply threaded their nimble way through us, by foot, bike, tram or car; if we smiled, they smiled back. And we always smiled . . .

I'll never forget the well-cherished beauty of Amsterdam, the universal civility, kindness and tolerance of its people, or the good sense of its city council.

Back home again, as I drove past the edge of the horrid open sore that is Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, I decided that any way at all in which this city becomes more like Amsterdam will be a long overdue improvement.

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