{"id":1763,"date":"2005-08-03T16:34:42","date_gmt":"2005-08-03T23:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/08\/03\/linda-loaiza\/"},"modified":"2005-08-03T16:34:42","modified_gmt":"2005-08-03T23:34:42","slug":"linda-loaiza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1763","title":{"rendered":"Linda Loaiza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda Loaiza, a Venezuelan woman, was abducted, beaten, mutilated, torturued, starved, and rape several times over for four months by a man would later on be acquitted for the crime. This is her story….<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In July of 2001, 18-year-old Linda Loaiza was rescued by the Caracas police in Luis Carrera Almoina’s apartment. She had been repeatedly raped and brutally tortured for four months; she was found in a state of severe malnutrition, with her earlobes destroyed, a nipple cut out, cigarette burns all over her body, multiple cranial fractures, and bruises and cuts on her face and genital area. After undergoing nine operations, Linda is still recovering. The lifelong physical effects of her ordeal include cataracts, impaired hearing, reduced movement, facial scarring and an inability to bear children.<\/p>\n

The accused perpetrator, Luis Carrera Almoina, had been previously arrested for torturing his then partner in 1999. He is the son of a Gustavo Carrera Damas, who at the time was president of a major university in Caracas. After being detained and put under house arrest, Carrera Almoina attempted to flee with the help of his father. He was captured the next day, and his father was later charged with obstructing judicial action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Awe, thanks daddy. It must be nice to be a rapist and have a parent that would help you flee the country.<\/p>\n

[…]In an attempt to exploit an outrageous piece of the Venezuelan Penal Code which calls for a reduced sentence for crimes against sex workers, Carrera Almoina’s defense claimed that Loaiza was part of a prostitution ring. If sentenced to jail time, Carrera Almoina would have only have had to serve a fifth of the normal sentence. No evidence was presented in support of these claims, and Loaiza has consistently denied them. Nevertheless, on October 21, 2004, the judge acquitted Carrera Almoina and his father of all charges, citing a “lack of evidence”\u009d, and ordered an investigation of Loaiza, her father and sister for prostitution.[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because if a woman was raped, she must have been a lying prostitute and had it comin’ to her, right?<\/p>\n

Loaiza and her attorney immediately appealed the ruling. In a statement, Loaiza affirmed, “I’m determined not to give up and to keep fighting for justice. I think many women in Venezuela and in the whole world have been through similar experiences and keep their suffering in silence for fear of the torture they will have to once again undergo, this time in the hands of the judicial system.”\u009d The district attorney supported the appeal, and had already noted irregularities during the trial, including illegally submitted evidence by the defense.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan women’s movement, including PLAFAM, IPPF\/WHR’s member association in Venezuela, mobilized to raise awareness of the case and to provide legal and emotional support to Linda Loaiza in her fight for a new trial. On April 12, 2005, the seventh court of appeals annulled the verdict and called for a new trial. PLAFAM continues to raise awareness in the media and in public forums so that the same delays and corrupt measures will not be employed again.[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rape victims sometimes don’t even come forward to report the hideous crime committed against them. Rapists aren’t always convicted (like this piece of shit) and some rapists aren’t always captured. But all of these things could be made even worse by a Rape Culture, a justice system that tries you–the victim who has been lefted physically mutilated for the rest of your life by this crime–rather than the accused perpetrator, who was fortunate enough to have an influential parent, and a legal system that metes out lesser sentences, because the Defense attorney makes you out to be a sex worker in order to get an acquittal. And some final words from Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon….<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Patching this together, I thought about the inevitable whining of anti-feminists who say that women in the U.S. should be grateful that our society is more benevolent when trying to hush rape victims. Of course, that accusation presupposes that we’re not, and of course we are. I do think it’s a step forward that Kobe Bryant’s accuser, for instance, was simply smeared in the press as a slut rather than encouraged to kill herself. But it occurs to me that the real meaning behind the exhortions to be grateful for our relative levels of justice is to encourage American women to “other” women in other countries instead of calling for solidarity against injustice worldwide on every level. The irony is not lost on me that Kristof, who used to whinily cover women’s issues in other countries in no small part to pick at feminists here in just this way, has become a major advocate for justice for victims of sexual assault.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Loaiza, a Venezuelan woman, was abducted, beaten, mutilated, torturued, starved, and rape several times over for four months by a man would later on be acquitted for the crime. This is her story…. In July of 2001, 18-year-old Linda … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-issues","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}