Here's a news update on this case: Reuters - Fri Feb 24, 2012 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-crime-rutgers-idUSTRE81N1HE\ 20120224 <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-crime-rutgers-idUSTRE81N1H\ E20120224>
and here's Hindustan Times reporting it: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/816758.aspx <http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/816758.aspx#> Press Trust Of India New York, February 25, 2012First Published: 09:16 IST(25/2/2012) Last Updated: 09:19 IST(25/2/2012)Rutgers web spying trial: 'Indian student immature'The lawyer for an Indian student accused of spying on his roommate's homosexual tryst on Friday said his client acted in a "childish and immature" manner but prosecutors countered saying his acts were "mean spirited and criminal", and aimed at exposing his fellow freshman as gay. The trial of 19-year-old Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University student, began in New Brunswick, New Jersey near New York, with both sides making their opening statements. Ravi has pleaded not guilty to charges of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy of his roommate Tyler Clementi, 18. He had used a webcam to spy on Clementi, who later jumped to his death from the George Washington bridge in September 2010. The most serious count against him is bias intimidation, a hate crime, which carries a potential sentence of 10 years in prison. If convicted, Ravi could also face deportation to India. Ravi's lawyer Steven Altman told the court his client had no intentions of intimidating Clementi and neither did he have any dislike for gays. "We do stupid things, we make mistakes, especially when we're young it doesn't mean we're hateful, we're bigoted or we're criminal," Altman said. "In fact, Dharun never intimidated anyone. He never committed a hateful crime. He's not homophobic. He's not anti-gay." Altman stressed that Ravi was a young person just out of high school and is "a boy, childish, at times immature. He was 18." Closing his 30-minute opening statement, Altman said Ravi is "not hateful. He's not a bigot. At 18, he didn't have enough experience in life to know about being gay or homosexuality. When we get done here, you are going to see he might be stupid at times, he is certainly not a criminal." Prosecutors, however, countered saying Ravi acted on purpose and wanted to "brand Tyler as different from everybody else... as gay to set him up for contempt. "The defendant's acts were not a prank, they were not an accident and they were not a mistake," first assistant prosecutor for Middlesex County Julia McClure told the jury in her opening statement. "These acts were purposeful, they were intentional and they were planned. They were mean-spirited, they were malicious, and they were criminal. Those acts were meant to cross one of the most sacred boundaries of human privacy, engaging in private sexual human activity." McClure said Ravi's conduct is not about him having to like his roommate's sexual orientation. "This is about Dharun Ravi having the decency to respect it and to respect Tyler's dignity and privacy and the defendant did not do that." Altman argued that the spying through the webcam lasted just two to five seconds, and it showed nothing more than two men kissing. "Nobody ever broadcast anything. Nobody transmitted anything. Nobody recorded anything. Nobody reproduced any image of anything," Altman said. "Nothing." Altman stressed Ravi never harassed or ridiculed his roommate, and nor did he say "anything bad" about Clementi. He added that Ravi thought Clementi was a "nice guy. He never had a problem with him." Deep --- In gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, "vgd67" <vgd67@...> wrote:> > An absolutely must read story from the New Yorker that goes in depth into the tragic story of Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi: > > http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/06/120206fa_fact_parker > > People may remember this story from about a year and a half back. Tyler Clementi was a freshman student at Rutgers in New Jersey who was sharing a room with another freshman Dharun Ravi. Ravi discovered that Clementi was gay and when he requested use of their room to have sex with another guy, Ravi set up his webcam to capture them and tweeted about it like it was a joke. Clementi found out and committed suicide. > > The story provoked huge sorrow and outrage at what people saw was misuse of techonology by uncaring and unfeeling young people to out someone closeted. As it happened the suicide happened just when Dan Savage was launching his It Gets Better video campaign aimed at persuading gay kids not to commit suicide, and the campaign got a huge boost from this. > > Ian Parker from the New Yorker goes into the story to show that it was a bit more complex than it seemed, though none the less tragic. Clementi wasn't quite closeted, but he was socially awkward and shy, especially compared to the much more outgoing and confident Ravi. But Ravi wasn't entirely the homophobic jock he was made out to be, though certainly rather stupidly unthinking and brash. > > At the time there was also something of a racial subtext to the story since Ravi, and the friend he roped into this, were both fairly privileged Asian 'model minority' kids, while Clementi was from a not that well off white family. Again here Parker shows that this was a simplification, though some class angle probably did play in - he shows that Ravi had a rather ugly prejudice against 'poor' people. (Ravi, incidentally, has Indian citizenship, so one reason why he is refusing to accept a guilty plea bargain is probably because that would lead to deportation). > > But overall what comes out of this story is how shockingly normal so much of it us, but also how normality can so easily spin out of control. You can easily identify with Clementi, the shy gay boy who struggled to make friends (though, interestingly, he seems to have been more sexually confident than Ravi). > > But you can, if not exactly identify, you can see where someone like Ravi is coming from - confident, brash, self centred, but also young and with so much to learn. Can everyone here say unequivocally they were never in a position where they bullied someone a bit? I can remember I was and I'm not proud of it, but I grew out of it without, I hope, causing much harm. Ravi wasn't so lucky. > > All this really makes the story worth reading, and I'm curious what people feel about it. Where do your sympathies lie - obviously with Clementi, but is any due at all for Ravi? What sort of punishment would be fit? And what does the story say about the role technology now plays in our lives? > > Vikram >