BBC headlines with "French drop Polanski release call."
Speaking to reporters, French government spokesman Luc Chatel said: "We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job."
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner have written to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton calling for Polanski to be freed.
But the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has distanced himself from the move by asking his ministers to show "greater restraint" in defending him.
He added that despite a "leading Polish director" being involved, it is still a "case of rape and of punishment for having sex with a child".
A member of the British parliament has called on the Council of Europe, of which he is also a member, to support Polanski's extradition to the US.
Denis MacShane said the film-maker "should be held accountable" for his actions.
French film-maker Luc Besson, who directed the 1994 movie Leon, has also refused to lend his support.
Speaking to French radio station RTL, he said: "I have a lot of affection for him, he is a man that I like very much ... but nobody should be above the law.
What the BBC neglected to mention is how on an online poll, with over 30,000 participants in France showed that 70 percent of them believe Polanski should face justice for drugging and anally raping a 13 yr old child, then fleeing the country before being sentenced.
Perhaps the backlash against the politicians that condemned the arrest, but not the crime, had something to do with France deciding to drop their "release Polanski" demands.
Related is an editorial in the Washington Post, titled "Justice for Mr. Polanski."
Sub header "Sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl isn't 'a little mistake.'"
Roman Polanski's apologists -- as typified by the comments of Swiss filmmaker Otto Weisser, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, film and TV celebrity Whoopi Goldberg -- don't let basic facts, or even simple decency for that matter, get in the way of their defense of this notorious director. Ever since Mr. Polanski's arrest Saturday in Switzerland on a fugitive warrant in a case involving sex with a 13-year-old girl, a number of Hollywood luminaries -- Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, David Lynch, to name but a few -- are demanding his release. This follows the equally misguided defense of Mr. Polanski by European political and cultural authorities. Thankfully, a backlash is developing, fueled by the public getting a clear understanding of Mr. Polanski's sordid crime and his cowardice in evading justice.
What matters is not that Mr. Polanski is 76 or that he has a talent for filmmaking or that his own life has been filled with unspeakable horrors or that the case is decades old. It doesn't even matter that his underage victim, now grown up, forgives him. What matters is that this man admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old whose undisputed testimony details how he gave her champagne and Quaaludes, got her naked in a hot tub and wouldn't listen as she -- terrified -- said no. He was originally charged with sodomy and rape but agreed to plead to a lesser offense. He jumped bail and fled the country out of fear the judge would give him more prison time than the paltry 42 days supposedly promised by prosecutors. He has been living with impunity and in luxury ever since.
Hollywood elites may be showing that they have no morals or sense of right or wrong, but the public certainly does have a problem with a 40+ yr old man raping a 13 yr old girl and never being punished for his crime.
Hopefully the public remembers exactly which Hollywood elites stood up in support of a child rapist.
Over at Huffington Post, who has had many pieces defending Polanski and outraged at his arrest, while ignoring his crime, something the comment sections have shown has angered many of their readers, there is a piece today, written by Eve Ensler, that is a must read because she calls out the Hollywood elites clearly.
When I saw the petition protesting the recent arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland was signed by some of my most cherished artists -- the likes of Pedro Almodovar, Ariel Dorfman, Costa Gavras, Jonathan Demme, Sam Mendes -- men who I believed to be champions of women's and human rights, frankly, I was shocked. It made it distressingly clear to me that all our years of work have not yet penetrated or changed the culture so that it understands that rape is a legal crime and a crime against the soul....
Later in the piece she lays out the facts, undisputed facts and then she asks very simple questions:
Let's review the facts:
1. A 13-year-old girl is lured to a house by promise of a job by a famous and powerful director.
2. She finds herself in a hot tub.
3. She has an asthma attack.
4. The director says he will help relieve her asthma attack and offers her (unbeknownst to her) half a Quaalude as a remedy.
5. Once the Quaalude takes effect and the girl is sufficiently pliant, he rapes and sodomizes her without consent.
6. When charges are pressed, the director later pleads guilty to "engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor."
7. After spending 42 days in prison, the director flees the United States to avoid the threat of further imprisonment.
What about this clear-cut case isn't criminal? Does Roman Polanski's undeniable brilliance as a filmmaker somehow not make him a rapist? Does his talent give license to violence? Does the brotherhood of fame endow you with a lifetime exemption from accountability?
Nicely done Ms. Ensler.
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