Polanski’s Arrest Sparks An International Outrage

Roman Polanski was arrested yesterday in Switzerland on a 1978  US arrest warrant for unlawful sex with a minor. Polanski came to receive a prize for his life’s work at the Zurich Film Festival, but instead was arrested when he landed at Zurich airport. The arrest was carried out on instructions from the Swiss Federal Justice Department in such a way that it almost qualifies as entrapment. The festival director said he had received the news “with great consternation and shock”.

One of the few real master of cinema still alive and working, Polanski was born in France in 1933. He returned to Poland with his family 3 years later. Polanski barely escaped the Nazis from the Jewish ghetto of Krakow in 1940. His mother didn’t, and eventually died in Auschwitz gas chambers.

Among his best films are: “Knife in The Water”, “Repulsion”, “Cul De Sac”, “The Pianist”, and of course the major film noir classic “Chinatown”. In 2003 Polanski won an Oscar for “The Pianist”.

Back in January 2009, the victim in the Roman Polanski statutory rape case had urged prosecutors to drop the decades-old case against the director.

“I was the 13-year-old girl Roman Polanski took advantage of on March 10, 1977. I have urged that this matter come to formal legal end, I have urged that the District Attorney and the court dismiss these charges. True as they may be, the continued publication of these details cause harm to me, my beloved husband, my 3 children and my mother. I have become a victim of the actions of the District Attorney,” wrote Samantha Geimer, now a 45-year old mother of 3 in a brief filed with the court in Los Angeles.

Roman Polanski had enough tragedies in his lifetime, prosecuting him now seems to be not only pointless, a waste of tax payers’ money, but ultimately cruel. Especially considering that the victim wants the case dropped altogether. One as to wonder why the Swiss Federal Justice Department was so eager to arrest Polanski. Did they make a deal with US prosecutors in order to be able to continue their dubious  and secretive banking practices?

Polanski’s arrest has sparked an international outrage. France and Poland are to ask the United States to drop the charges and consider a Presidential pardon over the case. French culture minister Frederic Mitterand condemned the arrest of the filmmaker, and said he had discussed the matter with President Sarkozy.

“We know the conditions that this happened in, and while there is a generous side of America that we like, there is also a scary side of America, and that side has just showed us its face,” Mitterand told reporters.

The Swiss film screenwriters and directors association called the arrest “a judicial scandal which will tarnish Switzerland’s reputation around the world.”