The name of the victim

[Lord Saru]

In my place, we recently had an incident that stirred up a lot of debate regarding the morality of the press and the politicians. A lady was raped by a man that belonged to a prominent political party and he was also occupying a high position in their ranks. This lady appeared on the media and she named the person who was responsible for the assault.

The media went into a frenzy and covered the case widely which forced the political party to call for a emergency meeting so as to discuss about the course of action and damage control measures. After the conference, another politician addressed the media and inadvertently named the victim and the perpetrator. A journalist pointed out that the name of the victim should not be revealed so as to give her social security over the stigma associated with such an incident. In reply, the politician told that ' if the name of the alleged can be publicized through the media before proving him guilty, then the name of the victim can also be used while addressing the media'.

What do you say?

 

[Fiona1964]

Nether names should have been published until the truth was known as she could have been tell lies
and the mans life is in tatters by time the truth is really known

 

[Lord Saru]

Nether names should have been published until the truth was known as she could have been tell lies
and the mans life is in tatters by time the truth is really known

I have the same opinion too.

 

[Fiona1964]

Nether names should have been published until the truth was known as she could have been tell lies
and the mans life is in tatters by time the truth is really known

I have the same opinion too.

My reasoning for this is I know some one who got arrested for rape even though after 6 months he was found innocent but by then his wife left taken their children he lost his job and lots of friends papers named him before the case even got to court it took him years to rebuild his life but he never got his kids back he died not knowing where they are or if they were still alive as his ex wife vanished with them

 

[John]

Nether names should have been published until the truth was known as she could have been tell lies
and the mans life is in tatters by time the truth is really known

I have the same opinion too.

My reasoning for this is I know some one who got arrested for rape even though after 6 months he was found innocent but by then his wife left taken their children he lost his job and lots of friends papers named him before the case even got to court it took him years to rebuild his life but he never got his kids back he died not knowing where they are or if they were still alive as his ex wife vanished with them

This is actually a pretty big issue in the US.

I don't have a huge issue with it, though. I think a lot of it is the media hyping it up, however. I mean... when some women gets raped, I don't want to hear the asshat's name who did that, and the women who had to go through that is probably going through enough at that point. I really don't even think that's much of "news".

 

[VirusZero]

I don't think the names of either victim or accused should be published. The only exception should be if the accused is a repeat offender, is a danger to others and is out on bail or has escaped custody. Then yes, the police should name them. (Not the victim though.) Otherwise they should not be named.

The reason I say that is because it's too easy for people to make false claims and ruin lives. They don't even have to provide evidence, they can fabricate everything and they'll be believed. (It's been used as a tactic to get custody of kids in vicious divorces, get revenge, and more.) It's so easy to use a rape accusation to destroy someone's life. An accusation can be made years afterwards. Even if the charge gets dropped and the accused declared innocent people either won't hear about it or won't care (and still think that the accused is guilty anyway) and they'll forever retain that stigma.
To further add insult to injury, unless someone is making a lot of false claims the chance of them suffering any penalty is slim. So they're very much free to make a false accusation without any kind of worry that bad things will happen to them. So not only do they get to destroy someone's life, they can do so without being accountable and potentially stand to gain from it.

Plus the media has been pretty crap about accurate reporting on these cases. In the Rolling Stone case they ran that story without even asking questions. And it's not just them. Columbia University, Ohio University, Duke University, Occidental University, and more. So they can't even be trusted to give a fair report of the situation.

 

[Myers]

If he is found guilty and actually did it, yes, his name should be publicly shared