5mo ago

Dutch beach volleyball player convicted of rape is booed again, louder, in second match of Olympics

apnews.com Dutch beach volleyball player convicted of rape is booed again, louder, in second match of Olympics

The Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in England has won his second match at the Paris Olympics.

Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl, won his second match at the Paris Olympics and received an even harsher reaction from the crowd on Wednesday than for his first match.

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“I was disappointed with the crowd, for sure,” Immers said. “I cannot do anything about his past anymore. I’m here to play with him. … So, yeah, I’m disappointed with it. But I think mentally we’re really strong, and I’m really strong to get through this, together. And we’re going to do that.”
Then:
Immers was asked about the reception and said the two spoke on the court and recognized they would need to be extra supportive of each other. Asked if he understood why they received that reception, he said, “I don’t want to talk about that, if it’s OK.”
So they can removed that people bboed, but he won't acknowledge the reason is he raped a literal child?
Fuck that guy, I hope the whole stadium booes anytime he shows his face.
If he was going to pull the "I'm here for volleyball" then he should shut the fuck up 24/7. Not try to play the victim then refuse to admit why they're booing.
- So they can removed that people booed, but he won’t acknowledge the reason is he raped a literal child?
  Mathew Immers is not the guy who raped the child. That is Steven van de Velde.
  Immers is van de Velde's beach volleyball partner.
  
  He is complaining that the crowd booed his partner. The partner he chose to play with. But he won't recognize that the reason the pair is being booed is that one of the partners is a child rapist. I think it's fair to think that that is bad.
  
  They're all Emmanuel Goldstein during the two minute hate.
- I think it is important to distinguish the innocent partner here. Beach volleyball is incredibly demanding, and at the elite level, a very low population sport. It takes athletes their whole careers to just to make the world tour hoping to one day reach the olympics. For Immers he has busted his ass for years and at some point his national body probably paired him up with the other guy. It’s possible he may not have even known about it until they were partners and had established their dynamic and working relationship. Finding and building a team with a partner you click with on the court is hard-earned. I can imagine that Immers is absolutely distraught at the situation he’s been put in. He has a crappy choice here no matter what. Abandon what he’s spent his whole career building up to, now that he’s made it - because of something he had nothing to do with, knowing he may never get this chance again, even if he were to find another available partner… it takes years to learn how to play as a team; or he sucks it up, focuses on his own journey, cops the reflected criticism and hostility and tries to keep his emotions out of it…
  It’s shitty either way. He abandons his dream because of someone else’s actions; or he chases them and becomes collateral damage.
  Don’t get me started on the poor kid whose life was never the same again, having all this trauma dredged up and shoved back in her face. There’s nothing about this that doesn’t suck.
  
  I think it is important to distinguish the innocent partner here
  Then he can stop removed that people are booing his partner who raped a fucking 12 year old.
  Pick a lane, "no comment" or acknowledge what he did and ask for forgiveness.
  This is literally the Dutch team complaining that people are booing, and refusing to acknowledge an incredibly valid reason why it's happening.
  Fuck em both.
  Like you said, it's a small population of players. Even if this guy was #1 in the Netherlands, if #2 thru 25 said they won't play with a child rapist, the child rapist wouldn't be on the team.
  Don’t get me started on the poor kid whose life was never the same again, having all this trauma dredged up and shoved back in her face. There’s nothing about this that doesn’t suck.
  You think she forgot till now?
  You think she doesn't know his name?
  Why is the issue talking about how he's a child rapist and not that the child rapist is in the goddamn Olympics?
  Quick edit:
  It’s shitty either way. He abandons his dream because of someone else’s actions; or he chases them and becomes collateral damage.
  We don't call people heroes for doing the right thing because it's easy and sacrifice free.
  But we do call people shit bags for doing the wrong thing for personal gain/glory.
  Which is what we're doing here.
  Except you, you're out here complaining people booed a guy who raped a 12 year old.
  Why?
  
  If his buddy has broken his leg before the Olympics they would have found a replacement.
  
  Beach volleyball is incredibly demanding, and at the elite level, a very low population sport. It takes athletes their whole careers
  busted his ass for years
  spent his whole career
  for whatever reason someone might want to dedicate their entire life to earning the "best volleyball player" title for a few years, those were all 100% his decisions. if someone chooses to compete in a system that will even allow rapists to compete, then...sucks to suck? and it seems incredibly douchey to decide to play with a rapist and then try to act like the victim when the crowd boos
  would YOU play on team rapist? if you would, then fuck you too.
  if you wouldn't, then why spill so much ink over trying to justify playing on team rapist?
  to the larger conversation, this is one reason i say fuck the olympics altogether, it does more harm than good
  
  Then when the press asks him about getting booed he can say “i disagree with my partner’s life choices and understand the boos, but I am here to properly represent my country.” Instead of defending a convicted, unrepentant, child rapist.
  
  I agree, this situation is twisted on both sides. Additionally this situation seems like non-statutory rape which makes the 1 year sentence quite lenient.
  
  Denmark are making the choice to shove him in everybody's faces they made the choice to put him on the national team.
- I question what kind of person is willing to play doubles with a convicted child rapist.
  And then openly defend them to the media.
  This whole thing is gross.
- They asked him a question and he answered. If you're going to be mad at him for saying that then you should be mad at the people who asked the question.
  
  He pulled the "no comment" card tho.
  If he won't talk about why they're booing, he shouldn't talk about the booing
  But again, he shouldn't be enabling a child rapist in the first place.

While I think the Netherlands has a commendable approach to prison and rehabilitation, This dude should not be a representative for your country. If you say he's served enough time, we can disagree (because he absolutely did not), but the choice to put him in Netherlands Orange and on international TV was a colossal mistake.
- He should definitely be wearing orange, just not Netherlands Orange...
  
  Not that Dutch prisons actually put people in orange prison clothes

Just booing?
He went to another country, raped a 12-yo, fled and after conviction, his government - the Netherlands, only decided to give him a year of prison.
- There's an important detail that I'm not really seeing here. The UK gave him an 8 year sentence. The Netherlands negotiated to have him transferred to their jurisdiction, which happened after 1 year served, and then the Netherlands promptly let him go.
  
  Not saying it's right, but for context:
  One legal distinction is that Van de Velde is unlikely to have been convicted of rape had he stood trial in the Netherlands rather than England. In England, sex with a 12-year-old is rape, regardless of the circumstances: an under-16 cannot legally consent. But after he was extradited to the Netherlands, having serving almost a year of his prison sentence, he was released after less than a month. Under Dutch law, his crime was deemed to be the lesser offence of ontucht, sexual acts that violate social-ethical norms.
  From https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/30/netherlands-child-rapist-olympics-steven-van-de-velde
- What else should they be doing? Storming the court and dragging him to a lynching tree? I'm guessing the French wouldn't be especially accommodating to such vigilantism.
  
  They could have not invited a convicted child rapist to represent their country at the Olympics.
  
  I'm guessing the French wouldn't be especially accommodating to such vigilantism.
  You are absolutely correct!
  You'd need to use a guillotine.
  
  Holding up signage, shouting rapist, turning their backs...there is a lot of room between booing and lynching.
  
  Not putting him on a pedestal as a representative of your country would be a good start.
  
  There's SO many options between one year in prison and extra judicial killing. Like, in prison for 10 years, just off the top of my head.
  
  Stop putting words in their mouth, there are so many things to do other than booing that are non violent but you just immediately took the most extreme possible outcome and suggested that was what the person you are reply to meant.
  
  Roman Polanski has entered the chat.
  
  Yes?
  
  i think at the very least he deserves an ass whooping. not trying to get into vigilante wierdo justice here but it would be nice to see one less confirmed remorseless pedo in this world since the system has definitely failed in this case.
  
  Throw rocks at him. Large rocks.
  
  Maybe they can start by sitting on the court/field? 😏
- The Netherlands is kind of fucked up when it comes to morality sometimes. I used to work with people from this country, and there were constant issues.
  Edit: look up "Netherlands Santa"
  
  I'm sorry, but this is just really kind of disingenuous to start something like this next to a topic such as this. Your experience with one company or something is purely anecdotal and the controversy around Zwarte Piet is also very nuanced to this very day. The kind of nuance someone not from here will not get from a casual google search. For anyone that cares about actually understanding, here's a rundown:
  Many people attributed Zwarte Piet as a fun and good role model for kids, not some kind of caricature clown to laugh at. Literally almost everyone grew up knowing and having a fond enjoyment of Zwarte Piet, like a childhood imaginary friend that always showed up when you needed a smile the most. And that creates a strong desire to set that positivity forth by continuing the tradition. It takes really good reasons to destroy something most people attribute to be part of the greater good of their lives.
  We try to understand racism, and strive to effectively reduce it rather than just mindlessly treat symptoms. Many people saw the existence of Zwarte Piet as a way to instill positive experiences to kids who might be isolated from having positive experiences with actual people of color. We know that in part racism comes about from not having enough (or too many bad) real world experiences with people of different skin colors. It is a type of fear of the unknown. As such, this still seems like solid reasoning. (Fun note, rats will also not help other stranger rats with a different fur color to escape even with no direct harm to themselves except when they have already lived alongside aside a rat with that fur color)
  Even people of color were not completely on one side, but for the ones that it hurt, it hurt loudly. Black people in the Caribbean (Also part of the Netherlands) still use Zwarte Piet to this day, because they do not care - They do not see the racism in it. Unfortunately there seems to be a correlation between being affected by racism and seeing the racism in Zwarte Piet, as many of us learned as the conversation marched on. And racists definitely did wield Zwarte Piet to make their racism be known. In a world without racism, Zwarte Piet would not be controversial. And many people were not acutely aware of the racism some people of color faced.
  The majority has wanted to get rid of it (since about 2018, actually), and most places have more accepted solutions in place now. But this does not mean that many people agree because we think Zwarte Piet is actually inherently racist. It's because we've heard the concerns of people of color and weighed their burden to be more important to relieve than the perceived benefit of tradition and instilling a positive message on people that look different from yourself. It also didn't help that the vast majority of people that still wanted to overrule those concerns were pretty obviously racist, which pushed even more people over the edge, because we don't want to hold traditions in place that shield racists and bigots. Some countries could really learn from that.
  EDIT: Added a video about the rat study :)
  
  What the actual fuck does that have to do with the current story
  
  The other responder here is either an AI bot trying to cloud the issue wa long answer, or a human doing the same. Right out of the playbook— Not falling for it 💅

The story from wikipedia, since I never see it written down:
"In 2014, van de Velde, aged 19 at the time, corresponded with a 12-year-old girl who sent him a friend request on Facebook. He said he believed the girl was 16 at the time they began to communicate, but he continued despite her telling him her age. In August 2014, he travelled to her home town, Milton Keynes in England, gave her alcohol and raped her near the local Furzton Lake.[12] That same night, van de Velde tried to stay at a hotel with his victim but was denied a room so they slept under a staircase.[13] There were further two instances of rape the next day.[12] During one of the three rapes, the victim told van de Velde that he was hurting her.[14]
Van de Velde returned to the Netherlands after the rapes[15] and told his victim to go to a sexual health clinic for contraception, at which point her age alerted concern among the staff.[14] He was extradited to the United Kingdom and arrested in January 2016.[15] The victim expressed feelings of guilt and had been self-harming and once overdosed, facts that caused the judge to "give van de Velde a scathing rebuke" during the case.[14][16]"
- After his release in 2017, van de Velde complained about "all the nonsense" reporting on his crime in the media, claiming that the term pedophile did not apply to him, without expanding further.
  An unrepentant rapist who only served a whole 13 months for raping someone three times.
  
  a twelve year old, specifically
  
  OMFG I misread things initially and though 12 years was how long he was in prison. 13 months??? That's insane, and I am usually for more lenient punishments and rehabilitation programs. Harsh punishments to a point just equate to revenge eventually, but fuck this guy. He should have served a much harsher sentence. Just reading the description of what happened makes my stomach turn.
- He said he believed the girl was 16 at the time they began to communicate
  he does know that 16 is still underage right?
  
  Not in a lot of countries, like England and the Netherlands.
  And a lot of places in the US.

Honestly fuck him and his teammate. The rapist wouldnt be playing if everyone refused to play with him. Full stop. These calls would be different if he showed remorse but instead he wants to complain. You dont get to complain about other's opinion of you after you rape somebody.
- There's a German saying that I'm going to poorly reproduce.
  If you're at table with eleven others and one's a NAZI then there are twelve NAZI's at the table.
  I think it applies here.
  
  Ive always heard it the reverse but same message. "If you choose to sit at a table with 11 Nazi's then there are 12 Nazi's at the table." Same sentiment though and i absolutely agree.
  
  I've heard it with the word fascist instead of Nazi but I'm not sure if the original saying uses Nazi or fascist. It's true of course either way
- Some people say "these athletes shouldn't have to play politics". That's correct. But if I refused to work with a coworker who raped a 12 year-old, one of us would be replaced. If all of my coworkers refused, the perpetrator of sexual assault would be replaced, no matter how much Management liked them. And we're not even representing our country...

From another article:
There are also those, such as the court reporter Chris Klomp, who have argued that he is not the “sex monster” or “groomer” he has been made out to be in some English-language media.
Klomp wrote on X that, although what Van de Velde did was utterly wrong and punishable, he did not physically force the girl to have sex with him. He wrote: “The absence of coercion (other than the age difference) is also evident from the fact that the British court acquitted him of grooming. It was not his intention to ‘persuade her’ into sexual acts.”
Wow. That reporter just made himself look like a pedophile by defending the pedophile rapist that hard.
- He used the "she came on to me" line? Gross. They're all gross and weird people.
  
  And it 100% isn't true. I know in the past there have been cases of underage individuals doing that but they're usually older than 12. It tends to be school age children who think they know what romance is.
  Not a 12-year-old kid.
- It also leaves out the part where he gave her alcohol
  
  Not gonna lie, no matter how gross the age difference is, I keep thinking about the couples from my high school (in Germany, where the age of consent is 14) where there were 12 and 13 year olds involved with 17-19 year olds. It was rare but it happened and the relationships often lasted quite a while, so it was kind of... consensual, for lack of a better term. And since I don't know the girl or Van De Velde personally and I haven't been there, I wanted to abstain from judging this other than on the legal basis.
  But when I read that he gave her alcohol - a 12 year old - no way. Sorry but no matter how iN lOvE anyone was or whatever, you do not give a 12 year old alcohol, unless it's a sip of your beer and she's your kid (saying this as someone raised in Bavaria). But other than that, no alcohol. And when you end up fucking a 12 year old - which is awful to begin with, worse since they only met - and first intoxicating her, that is just the point at which you cannot argue any kind of maturity, love, attraction, age of consent crap or whatever anymore. You intoxicated and fucked a minor. Period.
  The more details from the case are revealed the more I have to say fuck that guy. But at the same time - fuck the judges double and triple.

He deserved the boos.
- He deserves much worse than that imo. Especially since all he got was a year and now just a few years later he's playing in the Olympics.
- I would be trying to encourage chanting of pedophile.

odd how jk rowling and the "protect children" crew haven't said his name once. it's almost as if jk rowling is pro paedophilia.
- Wtf?

- This is cool functionality.

People seem to find it terribly hard to find nuance when something awful like this happened. But losing sight of nuance doesn't help in any way. Can he participate? Of course he can. Do you need to cheer for him? Of course not, boo as you please, but you're not helping any one with it.
He was sentenced for his crime, first in England but ultimately he served a sentence according to the Dutch rule of Law, which found him guilty of sexual misconduct of a 12 year old, but not of rape, which in Dutch law is an important distinction. He served his time, he's had his punishment. You're more than free to disagree with the Dutch laws and the sentence that he got accordingly. But it's not up to you. One should be judged by a court, not by the media nor by the public.
I read many people claiming that he has no remorse, quoting all sorts of media coverage. If you think you can judge whether there is remorse based on media coverage you're awfully mistaken. I'm not claiming he has remorse, but obviously he'll respond negatively to journalists, and quotes can easily be taken out of context. English media is renowned for being total assholes with zero interest in nuance.
People do horrible things, and this surely is such a thing, but that shouldn't prevent people from ever participating in society ever again. If we would ban people, make them outcasts forever, that is not helping victims nor prevention in any way. What it will do is increase the taboo, people will refrain from testifying against suspects because even though they want them to be punished, they don't want media and public going after them and ruining the rest of their lifes. Despite it emotionally being very understandable, this type of shortsighted public outrage is very counter productive and people should use their brains before they rage.
- Interesting! Thank you for sharing this perspective.
  Personally, I'm anti-rape.
  
  So am I. Good luck with your self-righteousness.
- That’s a lot of words to say “I agree that this dude who raped a 12 year old should be allowed to hang out at the Olympics where a bunch of young teens often compete and then all sleep in close proximity to one another.”
  
  I understand he's isolated from the other athletes so that doesn't seem to be the case. The word rape is a misrepresentation of what happened. He hasn't forced himself on the girl, but it's misconduct because any sexual contact with a 12 year old is obviously a crime. Still that distinction is important in Dutch law, and rightfully so because obviously forcing yourself on a 12 year old is even worse than consensual sex, and it's rather bizarre that this is lost in English law and everything is 'rape'. Again, not defending his actions, but all nuance is lost in this discussion. Yes, to be nuanced you sometimes need more than one sentence.
- Okay so firstly, use some paragraphs, that was a wall of text.
  Secondly, there's a huge difference between releasing someone from prison after them serving their time and letting them go back to their normal life, and having that individual represent your country on the international world stage where they will gain a lot of fame. You see the problem there, he's being put in a position of power, or at least he would be if the general public weren't aware of who he is and what he did.
  
  Fair point about the paragraphs. Other than that I disagree with you.
  In the Netherlands you'll need a certificate of conduct for many positions and if your criminal record is relevant to a position you won't get the position. This is reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Ministry of Justice and Security. So if he applied for a job as a coach for children then he would obviously be refused because of his criminal record, given that there's a direct link to his crime and logically a clear change for recidivism. But his criminal record is not relevant for his position as an athlete. There's nothing that would stop someone with a criminal record to become famous in such a way. This is not a flaw in the system, it's a choice that was consciously made. We choose to only limit peoples freedom where there would logically be a big chance of recidivism. We don't want to ban people to the shadows where they should keep there head down in shame.
  Also you seem to be missing the crucial point here: all of it should be decided by rule of law, not by self righteous media-fueled public rage. The media and the public aren't properly informed nor equipped to weigh these things. The risk of misguided public hatred is immense. That's not something we should want in our society.
  Feel free to disagree but I think we should be very happy that this is the way it is, because this means people actually get a second chance.
- Won't somebody think of the rapist's feelings?
  
  It's not at all about that and I never suggested it is.
- Autocorrect strikes again. Your comment keeps using the word nuance instead of what I imagine must have been nonce.
  Frankly, im fine with us all losing sight of this nonce when he gets tossed in some dark hole.
- I'd probably accept the topic of nuance if alcohol hadn't been involved. Once he introduced that, he's pretty clearly a paedophile.
  But yes - otherwise, I acknowledge there's danger in too quickly labeling anyone and everyone a predator. Just like there's furries that aren't hurting people with weird stuff, if someone has genuinely kept distance and lack of forcefulness in what they do with a minor, it's still BAD - it's just not on the same vein as people who stalk and violently assault people. When I hear the idea of an 18-year-old being forever called predators/rapists for consentually dating 15-year-olds, it just sounds weird and wrong. Again, I'd call alcohol a form of forcefulness since a 12-year-old won't be aware of its effects.
  
  I agree with most of what you say, including what you say about the alcohol involved. Ultimately though the point is that he should be punished by courts, which has happened, and not by public outrage because media and public aren't well suited to judge people fairly.

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