A video that reportedly shows Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse like “an elephant in the circus” has also led to her suspension from competition for at least six months.
“A Dutch beach volleyball player who served time in prison for raping a child 10 years ago will represent the Netherlands at this year’s Olympics.
Steven van de Velde, who is now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 for raping the girl who was aged 12, according to British media. He was released in 2017.”
Oh fuck off. This happened 10 years ago. He was arrested, sentenced, made to serve his sentence, put through therapy and rehabilitated. He makes constant efforts to avoid being with young girls (alone or otherwise), despite him believing he wouldn't reoffend anyway. He exhibits an abundance of caution to make sure he won't do that shit again. He has repeatedly publicly stated that what he did was wrong and that he should never have done it. The NOC-NSF has extensively researched him and found he matches all the stricter criteria for participating as an olympic athlete after a conviction. There's zero reason to believe he's still a risk.
What message are you sending by claiming he's irredeemable? That we don't care if a pedophile makes one victim or if he makes 100? Not giving these people a way back to society and allowing them to safely rehabilitate puts more people at risk due to a higher chance of recidivism.
It's ridiculous how tabloid media has dug up this case and claimed sudden moral outrage. Said outrage has been mostly met in the Netherlands by confusion. Almost no one cares here.
Either fully vegan games with only vegans allowed to compete and spectate, or allow this incident of abuse to go unpunished. Any other stance is unacceptable. It's not possible to make progress without doing it all at once. I find this article about a single incident to be so insulting to me as a vegan, because it doesn't address a more global issue.