In Polanski case, Clinton must side with girls

Last week, Secretary Clinton was promoting a U.N. resolution to protect girls from sexual violence. Yesterday, she received a letter from the French and Polish foreign ministers requesting that the United States drop its extradition demand for Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland Saturday for sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977 (a crime to which he pleaded guilty back in the 1970s).

Clinton must protect the interests of girls (and children, more generally) and do all she can to bring this child molester to justice.

The legal process for extraditing Polanski is primarily in the hands of the state of California, where the crime occurred, and the U.S. Justice Department, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley at yesterday’s press briefing. The State Department’s role will simply be to ensure that California’s formal extradition request meets the terms of the United States’ extradition treaty with Switzerland, Crowley added.

For more about why Polanski must be brought to justice, check out Eugene Robinson’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post.

Photo: SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty Images