Look who agrees that the treatment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn was unfair

When this blog complained last week about the treatment that presumptively innocent ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn received after being accused of rape by a member of a New York hotel's housekeeping staff, I could almost hear the eyes rolling by the usual crowd that thinks we MUST be rape apologizing misogynists because we have the audacity to say the presumptively innocent shouldn't be treated as if they are vile rapists.

Well, look who agrees with us. Naomi Wolf. Here's an excerpt of what she writes about it:

"After a chambermaid reportedly told her supervisor at the elegant Sofitel hotel that she had been sexually assaulted, the suspect was immediately tracked down, escorted off a plane just before its departure, and arrested. High-ranking detectives, not lowly officers, were dispatched to the crime scene. The DNA evidence was sequenced within hours, not the normal eight or nine days. By the end of the day’s news cycle, New York City police spokespeople had made uncharacteristic and shockingly premature statements supporting the credibility of the victim’s narrative — before an investigation was complete.

"The accused was handcuffed and escorted before television cameras — a New York tradition known as a 'perp walk.' The suspect was photographed naked, which is also unusual, initially denied bail and held in solitary confinement. The Police Commissioner has boasted to the press that Strauss-Kahn is strip-searched now multiple times a day — also unheard-of.

"By the end of the second day’s news cycle, senior public officials had weakened the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of any civilized society’s justice system. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was calling for Strauss-Kahn’s resignation from the IMF, and Bloomberg remarked, in response to objections to Straus-Kahn’s perp walk, 'don’t do the crime.' Whatever happened in that hotel room, Strauss-Kahn’s career, and his presumption of innocence, was effectively over — before any legal process had even begun."

Read the entire piece here: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/05/23/a-tale-of-two-rape-charges/