A 20-year-old woman in Hamburg, Germany, has been sent to prison after making "hateful" remarks towards a migrant who was involved in the gang rape of a child. The woman is just one of 140 people being investigated for making "harmful comments" towards the rapists. The horrific assault took place in 2020, and involved multiple

Can we all agree that rape is worse than offending people?

  • janonymous@lemmy.world
    1·
    5 months ago

    Yes, we do agree on that.

    The assailants were minors and thus mostly got probation sentences. That’s due to German law. This was criticized widely.

    Are you allowed to find out the mobile number of the perpetrators and harass them on WhatsApp? Well, not under German law. Two wrongs don’t make a right and so on. It’s true that she did not get the leniency the assailants got, because she is not a minor (and had been caught stealing before). She was sentenced to a weekend in jail. That is 3 days.

    Are both cases comparable and allow us to draw larger conclusions from the differences in their sentencing? I don’t think so. They are completely different and only linked by the victim of the latter being a perpetrator of the first.

    It does make for a sensational headline, though!

      • janonymous@lemmy.world
        1·
        5 months ago

        I never said harassment was worse. In the first sentence I agree with OP’s statement.

        However, the reason most of the assailants are not in jail is not because their crime wasn’t worse, it’s because they are minors. The 19 year-old assailant got 2,5 years jail-time and no probation. The others got between 0,5 and 2 years on probation, which is arguably worse than 3 days in jail.

        So, no the headline is not accurate.

        Edit: I just reread your post… you think the victim got jail time over harassing her assailants?! That’s what these rage-bait headlines do. It’s not about what actually happened. It’s about triggering the preconceptions of the consumers and pushing them farther into the extremes.