Dear friends, time is running to vote at http://www.wh.gov/NM1 to support Dharun Ravi who is a bright student from Rutgers and is being victimized by the judiciary system. Please read this petition text and details below and forward to your friends. I am deeply concerned by the fact that injustice is being done repeatedly as follows. Now is that time again for all the communities to come together and support Ravi. If we don’t sign up for petition, he is going to be jailed for 10 years and his career is at stake. Everyone knows that whatever was reported 2 year back was not ture but we have to follow the legal system to support him as community and relieve him.
Check his exclusive Star Ledger interview report and http://
The prosecutor’s office has taken advantage of a faulty law that can prosecute any citizen for the thoughts of others along with misplaced political pressure from activist groups to convict Ravi on Bias charges, a law that even the judge admitted was muddled.
He now faces up to 10 years in jail.
Every single witness testified unequivocally that Dharun Ravi had absolutely no hatred towards with gays/homosexuals, however the prosecution decided that he did, they decided what was in his mind despite all the evidence saying otherwise.
This is not the precedence we want to set.
Instead of drawing lines in the sand and taking sides, let’s come together as people and prove that we can make tough decisions and show some compassion, understanding, and sympathy. Please sign this if you believe that equality and tolerance should be achieved through honest, open communication and not through a vicious and vengeful prosecution that only serves to fuel tempers and alienate us even further.
Here are more details along with videos etc on Dharun Ravi case that are really heart breaking. While we do not want anyone from any community to go through this, I wonder if the outcome would be same if it happens to another community child?
The five youngsters who brutally murdered Divyendu Sinha in front of his wife and children were not charged for bias crimes and are even out of bail (one of them committed crime again!!) and Dharun who did not accept plea bargain that carried no jail time because he did not want to say on oath that he hates gay people, was charged with bias and sentenced to 10 years jail!! Mind you, this is the same prosecutor, in both cases, who got swayed away with media frenzy?
Is not the punishment this young man got not enough already? What would happen if this happens to our own child? Who will speak up? Who will stand up? We owe to ourselves to stand up.
Follow simple steps to sign petition, and for heaven sake, call your NJ assemblyman and senator, prosecutor’s office (all details below). Tell them, this is not American, this is not fair, tell them that the community is outraged and distressed on the way this is being handled and it is imperative they take a stand and take immediate remedial action. If the family and friends arrange a rally (one or more) take time to participate. NUMBERS MATTER.
Dharun Ravi Case Trail
Dharun Ravi has been wrongfully accused of hate crime, convicted and victimized in the so-called Rutgers University webcam spying case.
The webcam viewings (one accomplished for few seconds, the other aborted by Dharun Ravi) were wrong and immature. There were two incidents, one on September 19th 2010 and the other on September 21st 2010. On Sep 19th 2010, Tyler’s brought in a male guest he found online for intimate encounter at the dorm room shared by Ravi and Tyler. Ravi was asked to leave the room after the arrival of the male guest and Ravi was very concerned about his belongings in the room based on the scruffy look of the male guest and his demeanor. He went to his friend’s room and activated his cam in the room to see if anything suspicious was going on. Dharun and his friend were shocked and speechless to view Tyler and his male guest kissing each other. In 2 seconds of seeing the incident they closed the computer and went on with their business. The second viewing party (Sep 21st) claimed by the media never happened as Dharun realized that it is inappropriate and turned the camera away and put his computer into sleep mode. These facts came out in the trial. In essence there was no recording, no transmitting to 3rd party or online posting such as Youtube. The only thing Dharun did wrong was that he Tweeted about the 19th and 21st incidents to his friends. New Jersey’s Middlesex County Prosecutors argued that Dharun had hatred in his heard towards gay people and that’s why he planned both September 19th and 21st 2010 webcam spying, which is totally not true.
But Dharun should not be sent to prison for using extremely poor judgment. Dharun, a teenager like Clementi, likely thought of the viewings as nothing more than a prank in a world where more and more of our lives, thoughts, and images are played out online.
An immature prank played by an 18 year old kid does not make him a hate bias criminal. The bias intimidation crime is basically when someone acts violently against another person because of his race, religion, gender, religious belief or sexual preferences. The outrageous invocation of bias-crime charge against Dharun Ravi and the subsequent verdict were fuelled in large part by the media frenzy that followed the event. In a rush to publish, most news organizations carried semi-truths and outright falsehoods. The media connected the webcam prank and Tyler Clementi’s suicide without even taking a cursory look at a hundred other plausible scenarios that could have made Tyler act the way he did. When the prosecutors found there were no dots to connect Dharun to Tyler’s suicide, they were forced to trump up other charges against Dharun, lest they seem weak.
Dharun is like any other kid whose family came to the US with an American dream. The family originally hails from the state of Tamilnadu, India. Dharun has always been an extremely smart and talented boy and is a computer wizard as well an active sports enthusiast. Dharun has never had any misplaced feeling to any person because of their sexual orientation. Several of his friends and family testified to this effect during the trial. More importantly, all of the prosecution witnesses confirmed that Dharun never exhibited any bias.
The prosecution deftly avoided any charge linked to Tyler’s suicide depriving Dharun the opportunity for producing evidence that would exonerate him. However, that must have sat heavily in the minds of Jurors in coming up with the harsh verdict. One can only wonder if the jury deliberated whether there would have been a court case against Dharun had Clementi not committed suicide. With the jury’s guilty verdict, Dharun, it appears, has been turned into the proverbial sacrificial lamb for society’s collective guilt about its own bias intimidation against homosexuals, a condition that probably drove Clementi to commit suicide.
Is it fair to treat this kid like a criminal for his immature actions?
However, the main issue at the heart of the matter is the bias intimidation law in the State of New Jersey. The extent of his punishment including the prison sentence does not match his actions and the particulars of the incident he was involved in. He is facing an extremely harsh punishment due to ambiguity in the legal statute surrounding the bias intimidation crime and how it got interpreted. Dharun has been convicted not for any feelings he might have had towards his room-mate, but he has been convicted for what his room-mate might have thought about Dharun Ravi’s actions. This is first time in US legal history that someone has been convicted for what another person might have thought about the defendant’s actions.
This law is in fact so confusing that even the Judge during the trial stated that the law is ‘muddled’ and not clear. This conviction, if left unturned, would also embolden prosecutors to tack on bias charges on more such misdemeanors. Can we be sure it can’t happen to our children in future for simple acts like pushing and shoving?
There are many who feel Dharun should have accepted the plea deal offered with no jail time.
The first plea deal, offered in October, gave Ravi an option of significantly reduced jail time, if he pleaded guilty to bias intimidation in conjunction with invasion of privacy. Under that deal, he would have only faced five years in jail.
The second, offered in December, was the same as the first, except the prosecution promised to recommend only probation, and no jail time.
Dharun Ravi, quietly, but firmly, told Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman that he will go to trial rather than accept the charges that he was biased against gay people.
Ravi Pazhani (Dharun’s father) said “My son was not raised to have hate in his heart. We are not hateful people. My wife and I are not like that. We have not raised our family to be like that. I know my son, and he is not a hateful person. Whatever he did to Tyler was not out of bias toward him.”
Clearly, taking the second plea was the easy thing to do. But Dharun Ravi family chose to do the right thing instead.
Some facts:
– There was no recording, streaming or posting online of the event as reported the media (The New Yorker Magazine)
– His roommate’s suicide note was not presented publicly in Court as the Judge and prosecutors insisted it’s irrelevant to the case
– Every single witness testified unequivocally said Ravi has no hatred towards gays
– At least one of the jurors doesn’t even know what ‘bias intimidation’ law is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Videos
http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/
You Tube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_
http://blog.nj.com/
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_
http://blog.nj.com/njv_
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_
http://www.northjersey.com/
http://www.northjersey.com/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/
WHAT YOU CAN DO?
1) by signing this petition to the white house – http://www.wh.gov/NM1
Enter the URL http://www.wh.gov/NM1 (The URL is case-sensitive) –
Select Create an Account button – Enter your First Name, Last Name and email address (other information are optional) –
Enter the security code displayed as scrambled letters –
Select Create an Account button in the bottom – You will receive the email shortly, to your provided email –
Follow the link in the email, it will take you to the petition page again – In that page you will see “Sign the Petition” button. –
Press the button, you are signed, your name will appear in the bottom along with all the signers.
2) Call your state assemblyman and senator
Both assemblyman and senators are listed at:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/
3) Call Prosecutor’s office
Prosecutor is Bruce Kaplan 732-745-3332 Press 1 + Ext 3333, Prosecutor@co.middlesex.nj.us, bruce.kaplan@co.middlesex.nj.
Fax: 732-745-2791 (fax)
4) Like the Facebook page –
https://www.facebook.com/
Also:
www.twitter.com/
www.youtube.com/
Sign White House petition to support Dharun Ravi
We need your help ASAP in support of Dharun Ravi.
We have opened a Petition that reaches out to President Obama directly and asks for his interjection in this matter. By signing this petition you are supporting this cause and we thank you for that. Please share with as many friends as possible:
Detailed Reasoning Behind This Petition:
In 2010, Dharun Ravi, an 18 year old Rutgers student was alleged to secretly record a video of his roommate Tyler Clementi while he was with another man and posted the video on the internet for everyone to view. Until 2012, before trial started, this is what the world was told by every media outlet, politician, and activists worldwide and we accepted it as the truth. Dharun was prejudged.
Two years later (March 2012), we know none of this is true; nothing was ever recorded/broadcasted over the internet. Yet Dharun was robbed of one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution: presumption of innocence. No one treated Dharun as though he was innocent until proven guilty.
The prosecutor’s office has taken advantage of a muddled law that can prosecute any citizen for the thoughts of others along with misplaced political pressure from activist groups to convict Ravi on Bias charges, a law that even the judge Glen Berman admitted was muddled. Dharun now faces up to 10 years in jail.
Every single witness testified unequivocally that Dharun Ravi had absolutely no hatred towards gays/homosexuals; however the prosecution decided that he did, they decided what was in his mind despite all the evidence saying otherwise.
This is not the precedence we want to set in United States.
Instead of drawing lines in the sand and taking sides, let’s come together as people and prove that we can make tough decisions and show some compassion, understanding, and sympathy.
Please sign this if you believe that equality and tolerance should be achieved through honest, open communication and not through a vicious and vengeful prosecution that only serves to fuel tempers and alienate us even further.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter:
www.facebook.com/
www.twitter.com/
www.youtube.com/
Procedure to Sign the petition:
– Enter the URL http://www.wh.gov/NM1 (The URL is case-sensitive) – Select Create an Account button
– Enter your First Name, Last Name and email address (other information are optional)
– Enter the security code displayed as scrambled letters
– Select Create an Account button in the bottom
– You will receive the email shortly, to your provided email
– Follow the link in the email, it will take you to the petition page again
– In that page you will see “Sign the Petition” button.
– Press the button, you are signed, your name will appear in the bottom along with all the signers.