Posts Tagged ‘roman polanski’
Friends of Amanda
The Seattle Times published an article today about the supporters of Amanda Knox, a 22 year old American female convicted of murdering her English roommate while on her junior year abroad in Italy. The group of supporters includes friends, scientists, and judges who claim that the recent verdict sentencing Knox to 26 years in prison is the result of a witch hunt. The trial has been the object of intense speculation in Italy since 2007. A West Seattle translator, Peggy Ganong, fears that the supporters of Knox who are campaigning and raising money on her behalf are uninformed and warmongering. Knox’s supporters accuse the Italian court of being anti-American. However much of the evidence her supporters have raise criticizes the Italian’s themselves, suggesting their forensic science and lawmaking is inferior to America’s.
And there are many who believe that Amanda Knox’s case has been overshadowed by the media’s perception of it. The perception of media has provoked the intense debate that has little connection to the case itself. Whether painted as an innocent American girl or seductive “Foxy Noxy,” neither seem to be fully accurate.
Read the full article here. More about Amanda Knox’s sentencing here.
UPDATE: Prompted by an article published in The New Yorker, the feminist pop culture blog Jezebel, posted a comparison between Amanda Knox’s case and the ongoing case of Roman Polanksi. The post questions whether celebrity is an advantage or disadvantage in these cases. It also offers criticism to those who blindly supports or demonize Amanda Knox knowing little about her or her case, while there is little support for non-celebrities who face unfair treatment in their cases.
Knox and Polanski became ’cause celebres’ to different people, for different reasons, but both now enjoy the benefit of supporters far beyond their own families and defense teams. Sadly, many people indicted in America and worldwide don’t even have that much support. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll be hearing a lot about both Knox and Polanski. We won’t be hearing about the countless men, women, and teens represented by overworked public defenders, who will be convicted during that time of crimes they didn’t commit, or given unfair sentences for crimes they did. The pressures of celebrity justice may sometimes work against famous defendants, but the pressures of racism and classism and unenlightened tough-on-crime-ism work just as steadily against the anonymous, and the problem that gets less media attention may actually be the more important one.
Read the full article here.
Posted by hcdmedia