The Ghomeshi Trial and the Cult of #IBELIEVEWOMEN

Article here. Excerpt:

'Judge Horkins delivered his verdict last week in the high-profile trial of R vs Ghomeshi in Toronto. He acquitted Jian Ghomeshi, a high-profile radio presenter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), of four charges of sexual assault and one charge of choking involving three complainants, between December 2002 and July 2003. He also tore into the complainants’ evidence, leading to an animated debate about whether the criminal-justice system oppresses victims of sexual violence.

Ghomeshi was sacked by CBC in 2014 following an allegation that he had injured a woman. Perhaps unwisely, Ghomeshi posted a self-justificatory Facebook article after his sacking, insisting that, while he liked rough sex, his encounters had always been consensual.

The floodgates opened. Various women used the media to accuse him of past sexual misconduct, and he became the subject of a social-media witch-hunt. Bill Blair, chief of the Toronto Police Service, then made a bizarre public appeal to women to report Ghomeshi, stating that the police’s hands were tied unless women complained to them. Predictably, some women then went to the police.'