Telegraph
October 1, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/6250011/Roman-Polanski-child-victims-group-calls-for-film-boycott.html
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| Roman Polanski's life has been tumultuous since childhood |
A child victims group on has called for a boycott of Roman Polanski films, after the Oscar-winning director was arrested in Switzerland on charges related to a decades-old sex scandal.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said support for the filmmaker – who fled the United States after being convicted in 1977 of having sex with a minor – encouraged the crimes of sexual predators.
"What matters most," SNAP said in a statement, "is that a child predator is kept away from kids and that criminals learn they can't simply hire smart lawyers, make themselves popular, flee the country and get off scot-free."
The organisation blasted Polanski's supporters "who apparently believe that drugging and raping a 13-year-old child is not a serious crime".
Polanski was arrested on Saturday in Switzerland at the request of US authorities, causing shock waves in political and cultural circles, with many film makers backing their colleague.
The call came as the woman abused by Polanski when she was 13 has had the peace she rediscovered by moving to Hawaii shattered by his arrest, her family have said.
Samantha Geimer, an aspiring teenage model, was drugged, given champagne and then sexually abused after a photo shoot in a hot tub at Jack Nicholson's Los Angeles home in 1977.
Polanski, 76, originally faced charges including rape and sodomy but they were dismissed following plea bargaining and he admitted unlawful sexual intercourse with the girl.
However, on the eve of sentencing in 1978 he fled the US and spent more than 30 years as a fugitive.
He was finally arrested by Swiss police last Saturday at the request of the US authorities after he arrived in Zurich to collect a lifetime achievement award at the city's film festival.
Polanski's victim now lives on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in the Pacific where she works as an accountant for an estate agent.
She is married to David, a 43-year-old carpenter, and lives with him and their three sons.
Few in the area were aware of their neighbour's traumatic past and her friends believed it "ancient history" until the director's arrest renewed interest in the case.
Speaking at the family home on Kauai her son Jesse, 26, said: "She's sick of it. She was at a family reunion when all this blew up again. When she comes back she'll decide what she wants to do about it.
"We have got a kind of 'this is my castle' mentality about it at the moment and want it to go away."
A neighbour said: "She'll be distraught that it's been dragged up again. It should have been finished and she just wants it to go away but by arresting him it's all come back again."
On Wednesday, the Oscar-winning director was being held in one of the city's prisons while the Swiss authorities continued to consider his lawyers' request for him to be freed.
His cell is basic and he is forced to wear a tracksuit but he is given five Swiss francs pocket money a day to spend at the prison, according to reports in the Swiss press.
The US authorities want Polanski to be extradited but international opposition has arisen, with some of Hollywood's most famous names and high-ranking politicians in France, where he lives, questioning the wisdom of the move.
Whoopi Goldberg, star of The Color Purple and Sister Act, said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape.
"He pled guilty to having sex with a minor and he went to jail, and when they let him out he said 'You know what, this guy's going to give me 100 years in jail. I'm not staying'."
Peter Fonda, the actor, who was in Zurich for a film festival, said international authorities had better things to focus on than catching Roman Polanski.
Fonda told local radio Wednesday that "we should have been celebrating the arrest of Osama bin Laden and not the arrest of Polanski."
Fonda says Polanski "is not responsible for killing anyone" and noted that the victim has asked for the case to be dismissed.
Mrs Geimer arrived back in Kauai on Wednesday morning looking tired and drawn. She was visibly upset and declined to comment on Polanski's arrest as she was driven away from the airport by a friend.
Paul Petersen, president of A Minor Consideration, a group which protects young actors, said: "The Hollywood community is protecting Roman Polanski. It makes me crazy."
Polanski's legal team were said to have recruited help from Reid Weingarten, an influential lawyer in Washington, as they attempt to get him released.
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