Woman Who Sued Prada For Sexual Harassment Fights $780,000 Countersuit

A petition urges the fashion label to drop its suit against Rina Bovrisse. Prada alleges that her complaints about harassment in the Prada Japan office damaged the Prada brand.posted on April 5, 2013 at 3:37pm EDT

Amy OdellBuzzFeed Staff

Rina Bovrisse.

Soon after starting at Prada Japan in April 2009, Rina Bovrisse says she witnessed Prada Japan CEO David Sesia demoting and transferring 15 female employees whom he called "old, fat, ugly, disgusting, or did not have the Prada look." When Bovrisse spoke out against the attacks, she says faced similar abuse and was asked to resign from the company. She filed a complaint with the courts at the end of 2009. In early 2010, Bovrisse's complaint became a full-fledged lawsuit, garnering headlines around the world. A few months later, Prada filed a $780,000 countersuit against Bovrisse, accusing her of damaging the brand with her very public accusations. A campaign just launched onChange.org urging Prada to drop the lawsuit.

"They're basically saying anything they find that is negative about Prada — people blogging about Prada's bags or anything — I'm making them write," Bovrisse said Friday. "They're going really crazy." As of publication of this post, the Change.org petition only has about 200 of 10,000 desired signatures. Prada declined to comment for this story.

In October of last year — nearly three years after Bovrisse filed her initial complaint — a judge finally delivered a ruling in Japanese court. It held that that although Bovrisse and her colleagues were subjected to harassment and discrimination by Prada Japan, the company's behavior was acceptable and employees of a certain rank should be able to handle it. Bovrisse and her lawyers were perplexed by the ruling, which they believe violates the Japanese constitution.

In court testimony, Prada Japan admitted to requiring Bovrisse and the salespeople she supervised to maintain a certain body shape and hair style. Bovrisse provided BuzzFeed with English translation of portions of the Japanese testimony from a senior HR manager, which reads, "I did receive an order by Sesia CEO, that I told her to 'lose weight.' This is from our perspective to maintain PRADA brand image, we expect the store staff are supervised on the body shape."

Bovrisse says she thinks Prada admitted to the behavior because the company and its legal team didn't understand the full definition of sexual harassment. "They thought sexual harrassment was raping — they didn't know verbal abuse can be considered sexual harassment," she says. "Later it became big news globally, and they realized it was considered sexual harassment."

Bovrisse's fight will continue at the United Nations in Geneva on April 30, when the U.N.'s High Commissioner of Human Rights presents a counter-report on the case's ruling to Japanese Parliament. The report, provided by the Working Women's Network, recommends establishing "explicit provisions for penalties on sexual harassment in the Equal Employment Opportunity Law." It also reads:

This case shows that there are few gender-sensitive-judges who can understand human rights issues including sexual and other harassment cases. The case took 3 years, and the economic and emotional burden on the plaintiff, who was a single mother, was huge. Prada is now suing Ms. Bovrisse for 72 million yen damages for protesting gender discrimination in the company. Prada should withdraw its suit.

Bovrisse is not sure if she'll appeal the ruling since her lawyers told her those legal proceedings could drag out for another decade. But she's going to the U.N. because, "I really wanted to fight for female rights here, especially in the fashion industry," she says. "Prada is not doing the right thing. They're making profits from women, meanwhile all these women working for Prada are suffering."

Via buzzfeed

Stop Tony 2012

This man must be stopped

He totally set up Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator

People are citizens on the internet too

I used to be a blogger

Penis mightier than the sword. What a funny Velociraptor

You can tell Monopoly is an old game

Text from a tweet by @gknaus (Greg Knauss)

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Stop SOPA of the day

An important reminder from blackout participant The Oatmeal of all the wonderful things at stake in sitting idly by while SOPA/PIPA are allowed to pass.

Look it up.

[via oatmeal.]

It's been so long since I found these that apart from the xkcd comic, I've forgotten where I stole these from...

SOPA condemned by web giants as 'internet blacklist bill'

from The Guardian by Dominic Rushe

Google, Twitter and eBay say controversial Stop Online Piracy Act would give US authorities too much power over websites. Internet giants went on the attack on Wednesday, claiming legislation aimed at tackling online piracy would create an "internet blacklist bill" that would encourage censorship, kill jobs and give US authorities unrivalled powers over the world's websites. Internet firms including Wikipedia owner Wikimedia, eBay, Google, Twitter and others protested as Congress discussed the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now passing through Washington. The act aims to tackle online piracy by giving the US Justice Department new powers to go after websites, both domestically and abroad, that host disputed copyright material. The act would allow the US to effectively pull the plug on websites and go after companies that support them technically or through payment systems. A vote on the bill could come as early as next month.

Maria Pallante, register of copyrights, told the committee: "As we all know, the internet harbours a category of bad faith actors whose very business models consist of infringing copyright in American books, software, movies, and music with impunity.” She said these "rogue" sites were the "dark side of the internet", and that while American authors, publishers, and producers had been asked to invest in online commerce, "in critical circumstances we have left them to compete with thieves." SOPA would redress the balance she claimed by "ensuring that our law keeps pace with infringers." She said the act would requires "all key members of the online ecosystem, including service providers, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks, to play a role in protecting copyright interests".

Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat and one of the bill's sponsors, dismissed as "hyperbolic" charges the bill "will open the floodgates to government censorship." He said the comments belittled "the circumstances under which true victims of tyrannical governments actually live." The act has powerful support from the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and drug companies keen for a crackdown on online pharmacies undercutting US sales. But it has met with almost universal criticism from the tech community. Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser, blacked out its name on its home page in an anti-SOPAprotest, as did Reddit, the social news site. Tumblr launched a page attacking the act, and firms including AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Zynga criticised SOPA in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. "We support the bills' stated goals – providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding US internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites," the firms wrote. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cyber-security."

In a blog post, Google said: "We strongly support the goal of the bill – cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods – but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression." Art Bordsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public policy group, said SOPA was "the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop" and that the bill as it stands would have "terrible consequences" for the internet. "The international aspects alone are very worrying," he said. "It appears that the US is taking control of the entire world. The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to potentially take action against it."

At present, if Facebook, YouTube, or other leading websites are found to be holding copyright material without permission, then they are told to take it down. SOPA would make it possible for the US to block the website. Such far-reaching powers could kill smaller firms and put off investors from financing new companies, said Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Fight For The Future, a lobbying group. "Everybody uses the internet every day, these days. Everyone realises how important freedom is online. This isn't just for geeks anymore," he said. "The worst part of this bill is that the vast majority of the damage will be invisible – it will be all the companies that never start because this bill has effectively killed them."

Many of you have heard of a bill that may be passed in the U.S.A. that will effectively take away many of the privileges of the internet.

What does this mean for you?

Well basically, if this bill goes through, you can say goodbye to this blog.

I won’t fill up your dashboard with another lengthy explanation about what this bill does, but you can read about it here and read it in full here.

For more information:

American Censorship Day
The White House Petition 
Tumblr’s Protect The Net
Change.org

Rebecca McKinnon in NYT: SOPA will strengthen the Great Firewall of China

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

James Losey from New American Foundation says, "Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Beijing Bureau Chief and now a researcher focusing on the intersection of the Internet, human rights, and foreign policy warns that the Stop Online Piracy Act introduces Chinese style censorship to the United States in a New York Times op-ed:"

China operates the world's most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China's Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.

The legislation (the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act) has an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world."

Stop the Great Firewall of America

School suspends student for refusing to remove personal animation from YouTube, threatens other students for petitioning on his behalf

Jack Christie, is a grade 12 student at Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario, who has been indefinitely suspended for posting surreal, crude, humorous videos to YouTube. The videos were first shown in his Economics and Politics classes, where they were thoroughly enjoyed, but when he posted them to YouTube, the school principal gave him a one-day suspension and ordered him to take the videos down. When he refused, he was given an indefinite suspension. Gavin Russell, the student government's prime minister and members of the school's student government took up a petition for Christie's reinstatement, but were ordered to stop collecting signatures or face punishment.

"They've unfairly judged me and judged my character based on something I made for entertainment," Christie said on Wednesday. "I have the right to post videos on the Internet on my own time." A spokeswoman for the Durham District School Board refused to discuss the case, citing confidentiality laws, but obliquely explained the school's actions: "If something is considered detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school, it doesn't necessarily have to happen inside the school [for us to get involved]," said Andrea Pidwerbecki.

Christie has made an appropriately funny and profane rebuttal to the student council, which I have embedded above for your viewing pleasure.

Student cites freedom of speech after suspension for online videos

Your rights

IS TV too Gay?

Is TV Too Gay?: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

Questionable Question of the Day: Fox 26, a Houston-based TV station owned and operated by Fox, asks the question that’s on every homophobe’s mind: Is TV too gay?

Stupid School Decision of the Week

Say What Now of the Day: Wasilla High School’s symphonic jazz choir was all set to perform Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” at their graduation ceremony, when Principal Dwight Probasco abruptly put the kibosh on the arrangement citing complaints for “at least one parent” who deemed the song inappropriate due to Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s sexual orientation.

Choir member Casey Hight reached out to a gay and lesbian support organization in Anchorage for advice and was directed to the ACLU. Shortly thereafter, principal Probasco had a sudden change of heart, deciding to allow the song to be performed, minus the lyrics “about killing a man.”

[frontiersman / gawker / photo: flickr.]

How to write a Manifesto

Police kettling challenged in court

from The Guardian by Vikram Dodd

Case arises as police prepare to handle protest march against government cuts through London on Saturday Police officers used punches to the face, slaps and shields against demonstrators whom police chiefs accept had nothing to do with violence, the high court will hear today. The case relates to the G20 protests in London on 1 April 2009 during which Ian Tomlinson, a bystander, died after being struck by an officer.

The court action is a test of the police tactic of kettling, used to detain a mass of people at protests. The case precedes Saturday's march through London to protest against government budget cuts that will again test how effectively Scotland Yard can manage protests. According to court documents seen by the Guardian, police in charge of the protest ordered a climate camp to be kettled and then cleared, but officers were left to decide how much force they should use.

Video shot on the day shows demonstrators trying to avoid being beaten by raising their hands in the air and chanting "This is not a riot" at police clad in helmets and riot gear. Officers on the videos are seen to strike demonstrators, who cannot be seen on the video to be engaged in any violence. Notebooks secured from some officers contain admissions they used violence, but officers said this was to protect themselves or colleagues.

On 1 April 2009, there were several demonstrations in the area, but the court case deals with a climate camp in Bishopsgate. A police chief accepts it was peaceful but decided it should be contained to avoid potentially violent people joining it. Officers were told they were containing or detaining those in the climate camp to prevent a breach of the peace. Protesters would be held for hours.

The case has been brought by three protesters, one of whom says his girlfriend was beaten by police and then denied medical treatment. The protesters bringing the case say police were indiscriminate in detaining and isolating the peaceful climate camp. In documents setting out their case, their lawyers say: "The police took action against the climate camp as if it were a violent crowd … That is how the instruction to impose containment was interpreted by officers on the ground."

Extracts from police notebooks record the force they used. One officer said he saw a man trying to get near officers "so I punched him in the jaw and he moved backwards … I delivered a baton strike to the shoulder of a male trying to push into officers." Another officer said: "To get the protesters who would not move back, I needed to hit the flat part of my shield to get them to move back. I also used open handed palm strikes." Another wrote: "I used my round shield to push back the crowd, which was 15 people deep." The officer claims the crowd resisted and some punched and shoved back "so I retaliated with shield strikes both flat and angled. I also delivered open palm strikes to a number of individuals and fist strikes as well." Police chiefs say officers were expected to use their "discretion".

Lawyers for the protesters claim the actions of the police broke the law: "There was no lawful justification for violent force being used on any of these occasions. Accordingly, its use and any associated instructions … were unlawful," they allege in court documents. The solicitor, John Halford, said: "This case exposes the shameful fact that many police officers lack even a basic understanding of their proper role which is to facilitate non-violent protest, not suppress it using violence. That problem extends from the officers on the ground that used force on a peaceful crowd as a first resort to their senior commanders, who gave no guidance that doing so was unacceptable. "What the courts have held to be an extreme step – particularly because of the risk of fundamental rights being compromised – has now become routine."

I am a little upset

Installing Freedom

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What's the difference between Assange and Zuckerberg?