Mark Saha's Blog - Posts Tagged "misogyny"

Amanda Knox is hosting a series called “The Scarlet Letter Reports” though Vice/Broadly and Facebook. The five 8 minute episodes will explore the phenomena of misogyny and slut shaming of women as Ms. Knox visits victims who share their experiences. An episode will appear each Wednesday starting 2 May 2018. Here are the releases to date --


The Scarlet Letter Reports #1

Wednesday 2 May 2018

The debut episode of Amanda Knox’s Vice/Facebook Watch series for teens looks at misogyny in San Francisco’s videogame industry.

Video: 8 minutes

https://www.facebook.com/TheScarletLe...



The Scarlet Letter Reports #2

Wednesday, 9 May 2018

Amber Rose and Amanda Knox embark on a wide ranging exploration of the various colors and contradictions of the social phenomenon of slut-shaming.


https://www.facebook.com/TheScarletLe...


The Scarlet Letter Reports #3

Wednesday, 16 May 2018

Amanda Knox interviews Daisy Coleman

Coleman was raped at age 14 by a popular athlete, then slut shamed for reporting the incident after police dismissed it for insufficient evidence.

https://www.facebook.com/TheScarletLe...

Knox promotes “The Scarlet Letter Reports” on KIRO radio --

“What I learned from the Scarlet Letter Reports is that it’s not difficult to humanize someone. You just have to be in the room with them and let them be a human in front you. What takes work is dissecting a person and stripping them of their humanity.”

http://mynorthwest.com/990703/amanda-...


The Scarlet Letter Reports #4

Wednesday, 23 May 2018

Knox interviews Brett Rossi.

Rossi's career as a porn star was used to discredit her allegations of domestic abuse against Charlie Sheen.


https://www.facebook.com/TheScarletLe...


This is the last of 5 scheduled episodes ….

The Scarlet Letter Reports #5

Wednesday, 30 May 2018

Amanda Knox interviews Mischa Barton

https://www.facebook.com/TheScarletLe...

The Amanda Knox hate site Perugia Murder File appears to have slipped quietly into the night. The link is dead:

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I posted a comment about this milestone on the Friends of Amanda site “Injustice in Perugia”:

One of the great mysteries of this case to me is why prosecutors and police would chose Canadian psychic Naseer Ahmed [Perugia Murder File] and New Jersey eccentric Peter Quennel [TJMK] to argue their case in the court of public opinion, and supply them with volumes of legal documents (including some English translations). Quennel shared a communication with Mignini on the Knox documentary so we know they spoke directly. John Kercher in "Meredith" endorses True Justice and thanks the anonymous lawyers in both Italy and America who provided translations.

Andrea Vogt and Barbi Nadeau's motives in working with prosecution and police at least make sense. Both were seeking to use a hot story to advance budding careers in journalism. [Vogt produced the official BBC documentary on the case and the 30 minute Lifetime documentary included as a special feature in their DVD “Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy.” Both use discredited misinformation and factual falsehoods that Vogt obtained from the prosecution and refuses to correct.]

But the enormous effort on the part of "anonymous Italian and American lawyers" (Kercher) to turn world opinion against Knox is more curious. The motive is unclear. One senses Mignini and the police were in a desperate scramble to save face after their "case closed" press conference was followed by the inconvenient appearance of Rudy Guede. It would appear they either had the good fortune to discover or else helped create and support these outlets for their propaganda. My sense is there's a huge untold story about TJMK and PMF that is yet to be revealed.

McGirr of Belfast responded to my post:

Injustice Anywhere [Injustice in Perugia] is also a mystery and it's main function was the Amanda Knox case. Whether that was it's sole function remains to be seen. I think that IA may be in the same vain as TJMK and PMF in that Injustice anywhere also has the same mysterious background connections and I think that people like myself and others who do work with and care about miscarriages of justice help give Injustice anywhere a greater legitimacy than say TJMK and PMF could ever have.

My response to McGirr:

If Injustice Anywhere is a mystery to you, it is only because you are too lazy or curious to find out about it.

Friends of Amanda was a grassgroots organization started by Seattle residents -- including local judge Michael Heavey and local attorney Anne Bremmer. Many of these knew Amanda when she was growing up there. They were astonished that she had been arrested as a satanic killer slut scarcely six weeks after she entered Italy. This wasn't the person they knew, and for them the charges were absurd on their face. They did not have access to the legal documents and translations which "anonymous Italian lawyers" showered upon TJMK and Perugia Murder File. TJMK has posted email exchages directly with Prosecutor Mignini and others. FOA's only communication with him of which I am aware is Mignini's lawsuit against the Seattle Hearld for quoting Anne Bremmer's opinion that Mignini is "mentally unbalanced".

Journalist Nina Burleigh wrote of Peter Quennell (TIME 3/29/13):

Researching my 2011 book on the Knox case [The Fatal Gift of Beauty] […] I sat down with TJMK founder Peter Quennell, who has always claimed he started the site to make sure that no one forgot the victim. A stout, ruddy Englishman living in New Jersey, he had been holding out the carrot of introducing me to the elusive Kercher family. He seemed vastly knowledgeable and connected. At the time, I also believed that Amanda Knox could be, indeed, a Charles Manson behind a pretty face. After a month in Italy doing reporting, however, I realized that some of the “facts” on Quennell’s website didn’t seem to be in the police record in Italy. I emailed him to ask where he had found out that Knox and Sollecito met police standing outside the murder house with a mop and bucket in hand. That damning incident was nowhere in the record, not even the prosecutor would confirm it, nor had Italy’s Polizia Scientifica ever tested such items, which would surely have offered up some useful DNA evidence, had they been used to clean blood. Quennell then accused me by email of being on the Knox family payroll, informed me that his sources in Perugia had seen me consorting with Amanda’s mother (I had in fact met with her once, in a public place, by then) and eventually started writing about how he was going to “train his scope” on my apartment in Manhattan, and closing emails with “how are the kiddies?”

Naseer Ahmad aka Ergon aka ManFromAtlan of Peruga Murder File is a Canadian psychic who claims to be Jesus Christ incarnate who traveled to earth from the planet Atlan.

How you can equate these nutcases with Friends of Amanda is beyond me. They are the people Prosecutor Mignini and "anonymous lawyers" in Perugia chose to favor with "inside information", and whom John Kercher thanks in his book "Meredith" for keeping him "informed of the facts."

Injustice Anywhere is a wider organization that grew from FOA and Injustice in Perugia and among several such organizations. I have seen them cite many examples of false accusation and false convictions, but never have they argued that one false conviction proves another in a different case. Some of these people have solid forensic or other scientific backgrounds.

See the PBS video "The Norfolk Four" for a classic example of both false accusations and false confessions:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...

Amanda knox attorney Carlo Dalla Vedova is interviewed on Legal Talk (Chicago) on the anniversary of Knox’s release from prison in 2011.

Carlo Dalla Vedora is fluent enough in English, but sometimes struggles to comprehend or explain his intentions correctly. The main point is Amanda was immediately suspected, and arrested in 4 days, because she was Meredith’s roommate, and because there was enormous pressure on police to quickly solve this murder of a student in a small town economically dependent on foreign students attending its universities. His expression, “A big event (murder) requires a big response (a quick arrest)" intends to convey this.

He only briefly touches on Italy’s cultural fascination with Satanism, and the belief young girls on the cusp on womanhood are prone to it, as reason to immediately suspect her of the murder and to speculate on the basis of nothing about a "sex orgy gone wrong”.

Surprisingly Della Vedova misremembers some details: Amanda was present but down the hall with Raffaele when the door was broken to enter Meredith’s room. Amanda could not see inside. Her roommate Filomina apparently could, and saw a foot protruding from the duvet on the floor, and cried out, “A foot! A foot!” Amanda heard this and somehow imagined Meredith had been stuffed into a closet with only her foot protruding. She told others this, and it was held against her as “something only the killer would know,” though of course it was absurdly false.

Della Vedova also (unintentionally) appears at first to agree with Rudy Guede that the latter picked up Meredith in a bar and took her home to have sex. He intends to agree only that this was Rudy’s story – and it was totally absurd -- as later becomes clear.

Another omission is that Amanda and Raffael were acquitted without remand (to a lower court for retrial) only because Raffael’s attorney requested this. A remand without retrial was so unprecedented that Della Vedora only asked the court to overturn the conviction and remand to retrial. Raffael’s attorney arrogantly demanded the students be acquitted without remand; and amazingly – because this was requested – the supreme court had that option.

-- Mark Saha

October 3 2018
ON THE BAR
Legal Talk Network

In this episode, hosts Jon Amarilio and Trisha Rich speak with Amanda Knox’s lead Italian defense lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, and her media consultant, Alex Guittieres, getting a behind-the-scenes look at the trial that gripped the world.

https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts...

This is something I originally posted on the WGA related chat board “Writer Action” some time back, and came across while cleaning out my desktop…

Satanism and Amanda Knox

Italian misogyny’s theological dimension is even more disturbing -- it is a not an uncommon belief that young girls on the cusp of womanhood are especially prone to Satan worship. The Vatican’s Squadra Anti Sette (SAS) works with police to identify sects as the motive for young people to do evil.


(1) NEWSWEEK: Barbi Nadeau – 21 March 2009

Last month in Perugia, police investigated four satanic-ritual break-ins, including one at the sealed scene of the 2007 murder of U.K. student Meredith Kercher.

Police have noticed such a sharp increase in satanic-ritual crimes that they've started bringing priests along to help decipher crime scenes. The Vatican's Squadra Anti Sette, or antisect police force, has been around since 2006, but in the past year its numbers have doubled. "Satanic sects are proliferating," says the Vatican's chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, who has trained nearly 300 priests to perform exorcisms in Italy.

https://www.newsweek.com/vatican-help...


(2) From Nina Burleigh (Fatal Gift of Beauty, p. 213) --

Mignini always included witch fear in his murder theory, and only reluctantly relinquished it. As late as October 2008, a year after the murder, he told a court that the murder:

“…was premeditated and was in addition a ‘rite’ celebrated on the occasion of the night of Halloween. A sexual and sacrificial rite [that] in the intention of the organizers … should have occurred 24 hours earlier” – on Halloween – “but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organized by Meredith and Amanda’s Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints.”

Eventually, Mignini’s number two, the chain-smoking, no-nonsense Manuela Comodi, persuaded him to drop the references to Satanism But no one forgot about it, not the jury, not the judge, not the press, not the Perugians, not the court spectators, who could never look at Amanda and Raffaele without wondering whether a whiff of sulfur surrounded them. – Nina Burleigh


(3) From official court transcripts, some of the names Knox was called at trial by the prosecutors, and by civil attorneys representing the Kercher family and Patrick Lumumba:

Luciferina, She-Devil, Whore, Witch, Angel Face, Diavola (she devil), Temptress, Lilith, Jezebel, Slut, Half Demon, Dirty inside and out, Diabolical, Party Girl, Evil, Violent, Dangerous, Jealous, Mean, Uncaring, Evil incarnate, Compulsive liar, Evil Fox, Sex crazed killer, Lesbian, Icicle Eyes, Graphomaniac, Demonic, Satanic, Diabolical She Devil, Promiscuous, Witch of Deception, (wears a) Mask of Deception, Mask of an imposter, Cunning, Muddy on the outside, Dirty on the inside, Actress, Likes hot wild sex, Histrionic, Face of a naive doll, Slovenly, coming from a family of Nazi propagandists, Spell casting witch, virtuoso of deception, dissolute, Half Maria Goretti, Half Demon.


(4) Prosecutor Mignini’s closing argument to the jury:

Prosecutor Mignini speculates on the basis of nothing:

“For Amanda, the moment had come to take revenge on that simpering girl, that’s how she thought, and in a crescendo of threats and violence, which grew and grew, the siege on Mez began. By now the unstoppable game of violence and sex. The aggressors initially threatened her and demanded her submission to the hard-core sex game. It’s easy to imagine Amanda, angry at the British girl for her increasing criticism of Amanda’s sexual easiness, reproaching Mez for her reserve. Let’s try to imagine—she insulted her. Perhaps she said, ‘You were a little saint. Now we’ll show you. Now you have not choice but to have sex.’”

Ms. Knox is engaged. Good for her! Novelist Chris Robinson's imaginative proposal was captured on video and posted by the couple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wmex...

FINAL JUSTICE FOR AMANDA KNOX

Yesterday the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Amanda Knox and ordered Italy to pay her 18,000 EURO. Three of the four years she spent in an Italian prison were for her false accusation against Patrick Lumumba. The ECHR ruled that the interrogation which produced that accusation was a violation of her human rights.

While the ECHR cannot overturn her conviction for the offense, Knox can request a revisionist trial in Italy with the evidence obtained by the interrogation omitted; essentially, without the documents she signed as result of an illegal and unrecorded interrogation, the revisionist court would have no choice but to acquit her.

She was acquitted of the murder of roommate Meredith Kercher in 2015, so this is the final step toward total vindication.

From the ECHR press release --

Italy: European court awards €18,000 to Amanda Knox after human rights complaint

Human rights judges in Strasbourg have backed American Amanda Knox in her human rights battle against Italy.

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the European Court held that Italy was to pay Knox 10,400 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 8,000 for costs and expenses.

Today’s European Court of Human Rights judgment concerned the proceedings which lead to the conviction of Amanda Knox for malicious accusation.

COMPLETE LINK W/ LINK TO PDF DOCUMENTS

http://www.humanrightseurope.org/2019...

Amanda Knox released this statement on the ECHR ruling --

http://www.amandaknox.com/blog/?fbcli...

San Francisco Gate – 8 May 2019 / AP:

The 31-year-old American was invited to attend a conference June 13-15 organized in Modena by the Criminal Chamber of the northern city and the Italy Innocence Project, which seeks to help people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Knox will be speaking on the role of the media in judicial errors on the last day of the conference.

"The Italy Innocence Project didn't yet exist when I was wrongly convicted in Perugia. I'm honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time," Knox, who is from Seattle, said Tuesday on Twitter.

"We decided to invite her because we believe she is an icon of the mass media process," said Guido Sola, president of the Criminal Chamber, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

The trials of Knox and Sollecito drew international media attention, with early allegations appearing in Italian media that apparently affected their initial verdicts.

* *

Guido Sola, one of the festival's organizers, told CNN:

"Amanda has been definitively acquitted in court, but in the popular imagination she is still guilty, because she has been the victim of a barbaric media trial."


https://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/art...

Excerpts --

“We’re still stunned that so many years later there’s still this hatred, this loathing,” Mr. Maimone said.

“This does not absolve the state of having tried me for eight long years, with no real proof and on the basis of an absurd theory, and it does not absolve the media who profited from selling a scandalous story,” she said.

At the end, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/wo...