Short sentence for gang rape perpetrators sparks outrage in Spain

A Spanish court sentenced five men accused of collectively raping an 18-year-old woman in 2016 to nine years in jail for “sexual abuse,” clearing them of a “rape” charge, which would have carried a much longer sentence.

The court’s decision is partly based on a 96-second recording of the scene, in which the victim appears to have a passive attitude while the five men penetrate her orally, anally and vaginally. The court concluded that the defendants didn’t use violence or intimidation to force themselves on the woman; hence the lesser sentence for “sexual abuse.”

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in several Spanish cities to protest the ruling under the slogans “No is no,” “It’s not abuse, it’s rape,” and “I believe you.”

The alleged rape took place in the northern town of Pamplona during San Fermín, a seven-day celebration that attracts people from all over Spain and abroad. Among the aggressors, who had travelled from Sevilla, was a guardia civil (a member of Spain’s semi-military police).

According to the victim’s account, the men offered to walk her to her apartment. Eventually they cornered her in a narrow doorway and proceeded to sexually assault her.

The sentence acknowledges the victim’s account, and states that she was suddenly “surrounded by five males, much older and stronger than her,” and that she “felt imprisoned and without capacity of reaction.” It also states that “she felt an intense anguish which caused a stupor in her and made her adopt a passive and submissive attitude, doing whatever the defendants told her to do, keeping her eyes closed most of the time.”

She was “orally penetrated” by all of them, “vaginally penetrated” by two of them and anally penetrated by a third one. The sentence concludes that “at least two of them ejaculated inside of her, and neither used a condom.” After the men left, the victim sat on a bank nearby “crying inconsolably.”

The trial was popularly referred to as “el juicio a la Manada,” or the “herd” trial, in reference to the men’s WhatsApp chat group—called La Manada, as leaked to the press. In the chat, the aggressors boasted of “fucking one between the five of us.” “Those are the good trips,” one of their friends replied.

Photo: A feminist rally in Zaragoza, Spain, in March 2018. Source: Wikipedia Commons (Gaudiramone). Filed under CC.