Anonymous ID: eb2bf6 Feb. 16, 2022, 1:06 a.m. No.15640367   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0373 >>0403 >>0596 >>0647 >>0766 >>0896 >>0898 >>0906

Indonesian paedophile Herry Wirawan’s life term, rather than castration, a ‘warning’ to predators

 

An Islamic studies teacher who impregnated eight of the 13 children he raped is to receive a punishment usually reserved for terrorists and serial killers

While prosecutors had pushed for castration and death, experts say the term will act as a deterrent and is appropriate in a case that highlighted systemic failure

 

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/3167254/indonesian-paedophile-herry-wirawans-life-term-rather-castration-warning

 

 

When Islamic studies teacher Herry Wirawan was handed a life sentence by an Indonesian court on Tuesday for raping 13 students aged between 13 and 16, he became the first convicted rapist to receive such a hefty sentence.

 

In Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the maximum recommended sentence for the rape of a minor is 15 years, although judges have the power to hand down heftier sentences as they see fit.

 

Wirawan, 36, had impregnated at least eight of the 13 children between 2016 and 2021 at the boarding school he ran. The prosecution in Bandung, a city two hours from the capital Jakarta, pushed for the death penalty and chemical castration, citing the extent of physical, emotional and psychological harm done to the children. Prosecutor Asep N Mulyana also asked that Wirawan’s identity be made public.

 

The case sparked fury across Indonesia and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has watched its development closely according to government officials. The verdict has prompted great debate online, not least because a life term for a paedophile is unusual.

 

Life terms in Indonesia are usually reserved for crimes such as terrorism or murder cases in which there have been multiple victims or particularly nefarious factors such as mutilation or necrophilia.

 

Ranto Sibarani, a human rights lawyer based in Medan who handles child sexual abuse cases, said the life term for Wirawan was appropriate.

 

“We should reject the practice of the state sentencing anyone to die,” he said, adding he hoped it set a precedent for law enforcers to continue severely punishing perpetrators of sexual abuse.

 

Sibarani recently supported the families in a similar case in which Benyamin Sitepu, a 37-year-old Christian priest and principal of the Galilea Hosana School in Medan, received a 10 year sentence in January for sexually abusing six of his female students. At the time, Sibarani lambasted the verdict as “disappointing” and called for religious and educational institutions to do more to monitor their staff.

 

“In the Herry Wirawan case, there was also a state failure,” he said, pointing out the number of victims and that authorities were slow to follow up on reports of sexual abuse by a parent of a student that Wirawan had impregnated.

 

“[This provided] an opportunity for the perpetrator to find other victims. Law enforcement must be more alert and reactive, and routinely conduct checks on schools to ensure that there is no sexual harassment by teachers or religious leaders. There must be a mechanism aimed at ensuring that these children do not become victims of sexual harassment in schools or houses of worship.”

 

In recent years, Indonesia has seen a spate of child sexual abuse cases linked to educational and religious institutions.

 

On January 20, Lukas Lucky Ngalngola (alias Brother Angelo), a Catholic priest who ran an orphanage on the outskirts of Jakarta, was jailed for 14 years for sexually abusing the children under his care. In 2020, the head of an Islamic boarding school in Aceh province was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting 15 of his male students.

 

Medan-based psychologist, Irna Minauli, who is often called as an expert witness in child abuse cases and gave testimony in the Benyamin Sitepu case, hoped Wirawan’s sentence would act as a deterrent to others.

 

“In learning psychology there is something known as vicarious learning where a person will learn about the consequences of their behaviour by seeing the consequences experienced by other people doing the same actions.”

 

But the problem in Indonesia was that punishments were inconsistent across jurisdictions in the archipelago, which has more than 17,000 islands administered as 34 provinces, Minauli said.

 

“As a result of this inconsistency, even if someone does get a severe punishment like Herry Wirawan, other criminals will consider it just ‘bad luck’. There needs to be legal certainty so that vicarious learning can be formed,” Minauli said.

 

Wirawan had been accused of deliberately exploiting vulnerable children from low socio-economic backgrounds as many of his victims attended the boarding school on scholarships. Minauli said besides trauma inflicted on the survivors of his crimes, there was a possibility the “unwanted” children from the rapes would face emotional and behavioural issues.

Anonymous ID: eb2bf6 Feb. 16, 2022, 1:07 a.m. No.15640373   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>15640367

They were entirely under his control and he used that power and charisma to commit his crimes. His mens rea [intent] was evil Elizabeth Ghozali, criminal law lecturer

 

Elizabeth Ghozali, a lecturer in criminal law at Santo Thomas Catholic University in Medan, said the trauma experienced by survivors was probably one of several factors taken into account by the judge in handing down the life sentence.

 

“The impact of the rapes will be a life sentence for [the survivors] too. Other factors that may have added to the judge’s reasoning in this case were Wirawan’s position as a caregiver to these children and someone who was supposed to protect them,” she said.

 

Ghozali added that Wirawan had reportedly solicited donations from the public to support the Islamic boarding school, which added another layer of complexity to his crimes.

 

“There was also fraud there with the solicitation of funds from the public to take care of his own children and the victims who should have been his responsibility,” she said, adding that the children, who came from less well-off backgrounds, were helpless and away from their parents.

 

“They were entirely under his control and he used that power and charisma to commit his crimes. His mens rea [intent] was evil.”

 

It is not yet clear if Wirawan will appeal his sentence. If the life sentence is upheld, his only chance of release will be as a result of being granted clemency by the president, which is unlikely in the case of a convicted paedophile.

 

“The verdict is a signal to other judges and to the government that we have to monitor these kinds of institutions more closely,” Ghozali said.

 

“This was a systemic failure, not just of the police, but of all the other institutions and social safety nets that should have protected these children including government departments, child protective services and the local community.

 

“This sentence is a warning. Not just a warning to law enforcement, but to everyone.”

Anonymous ID: eb2bf6 Feb. 16, 2022, 1:13 a.m. No.15640392   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0399 >>0403 >>0596 >>0647 >>0766 >>0896 >>0898 >>0906

Infinite boosters and abortions

First woman reported cured of HIV after stem cell transplant

Gene therapy may be the key to an HIV cure

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/16/first-woman-reported-cured-of-hiv-after-stem-cell-transplant

 

A patient with leukaemia in the United States has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant, researchers say.

 

The case, presented on Tuesday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in the US city of Denver, was the first involving umbilical cord blood to treat acute myeloid leukaemia, which starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow.

 

Since receiving the cord blood, the middle-aged woman of mixed race has been in remission and free of HIV for 14 months, without the need for potent treatments known as antiretroviral therapy.

 

The donor was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS.

 

“This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV,” Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement.

 

The two prior cases occurred in males, one white and one Latino, who had received adult stem cells more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.

 

This new approach may make the treatment available to more people, according to researchers.

 

https://youtu.be/Pq7ddbQ4zuI

 

The case is part of a wider study led by the University of California, Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that follows 25 people with HIV who undergo transplants with stem cells for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions.

 

Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells and then receive transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells.

 

Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV.

 

Lewin said that while bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV, the report “confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure”.

 

Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side-effect called graft versus host disease – in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system – played a role in a possible cure.

 

“Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure,” Lewin said.

 

https://youtu.be/nMUIZPRtqVk