Gay rape orgies shock the Netherlands
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Gay rape orgies shock the Netherlands*
By Alix Rijckaert in The Hague
June 01, 2007 01:21pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
A GAY gang that allegedly raped victims lured on the internet, drugged
them and infected them with the AIDS virus has shocked the Netherlands
and raised questions over its liberal sex culture.
A date rape drug known as "Easy Lay" and ecstasy were allegedly involved.
Health Minister Ab Klink called the case "horrible", as the press
splashed the news across its front pages today.
The matter came to light yesterday, when police said they had arrested
three men two weeks ago after four victims, men aged 25 to 50, accused
them of rape and premeditated bodily harm.
Ronald Zwarter, the police chief in the northern town of Groningen,
where the alleged crimes took place, said two of those arrested, a
couple aged 48 and 33, had confessed.
"Their stated motive was that it excited them - and also that, the more
HIV-infected people there were, the better their chances of unprotected
sex," he said.
"They considered unprotected relations to be 'pure'."
A fourth man who allegedly supplied the three suspects with several
litres of the date-rape drug GHB and ecstasy tablets was also arrested.
The gang risks up to 16 years in prison.
According to police and prosecutors, eight more victims have come
forward since the case was publicised.
Officials said the three HIV-positive men invited gays contacted on the
internet to private homosexual orgies.
When the victims turned up, they were allegedly given ecstasy and GHB
(which is undetectable when mixed in drinks), leaving them helpless and,
in some cases, with no memory of what happened.
The three suspects - one of whom is a male nurse - were said to have
raped the men, and even injected some of them with a mix of their
contaminated blood.
The case has deeply unsettled the Netherlands, and caused it to cast a
hard look at its easygoing views on sex, with some figures suggesting
that frequent homosexual orgies posed a public health risk.
"That homos organise orgies is nothing new, but this is something else.
This is unimaginable," said Frank van Dalen, the president of a gay
rights group called COC.
He stressed that the illegal use of GHB (gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) -
known on the street by such nicknames as "Easy Lay, "Gay Home Boy" and
"Liquid Ecstasy" - also posed a danger in heterosexual circles.
Said Henk Krol, the editor of homosexual magazine Gaykrant: "These
people were drugged, it's therefore rape, pure and simple. It's
shameful, disgusting and terrifying. Those who did this are crazy."
Health officials pointed to a recent rise in the number of HIV
infections in Groningen - from 14 in 2005 to 25 last year, out of the
town's total population of 185,000 - as significant.
"This doesn't mean that the rise is entirely explained by the orgies ...
but it's probable that part of the rise has been caused by them," Marco
Ter Harmsel, of Grongingen's municipal health service, told the Dutch
newspaper DRC.