Indian Diplomat strip searched in NYC

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More facts:

• Khobragade was not arrested in front of her children. Instead, agents arrested her in the most discreet way possible, and after she had dropped her kids off at school.
  
• She was not then handcuffed or restrained.
  
• She was allowed to keep her phone and make calls to arrange personal matters, including child care.
  
• The agents let her make those calls from their car and even brought her coffee and offered to get her food.
  
• She was fully searched by a female deputy marshal, and in private, which is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or not, in order to make sure that no prisoners keep anything on themselves that could harm anyone, including themselves. This is in the interests of everyone's safety.
  
• Khobragade has been moved to India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, where she is likely to be granted full diplomatic immunity.
  
• The housekeeper/nanny has been identified as Sangeeta Richard.
  
• Richard has been granted temporary legal status that allows her to remain and work in the United States until the matter is resolved.

The allegations against Khobragade on Richard's behalf highlight the exploitation of foreign-born domestic workers around the world.

The Indian government itself has been aware of this ongoing legal issue, and that its diplomats and consular officers have been at risk of of arrest for violating the law. The question then may be asked: Is it for U.S. prosecutors to look the other way, ignore the law and the civil rights of victims; or is it the responsibility of the diplomats and consular officers and their government to make sure the law is observed?

Source: CNN Article

It all comes down to the matter of immunity. If she has diplomatic immunity, then the treatment that she received was outrageous, & the U.S. must drop all charges & issue an apology forthwith. (So far, Sec. of State Kerry hasn't gone so far, only expressing "regret" to Indian officials.) Whether or not such treatment was "standard procedure" is completely immaterial. This affair involved a diplomat, & no, diplomats are not treated just like everyone else by a county's criminal justice system. If the U.S. attorney (the prosecutor) had a problem with her conduct, the proper route would have been to present the complaint to the Indian consular officials or to the Indian government, which could have chosen to waive her immunity or not. If they had refused, then she could have been declared "persona non grata", escorted to the airport & put on the next flight to India. That's it.

I know the analogy isn't perfect, but let's imagine a case in which a female U.S. diplomat in, say, Egypt, violated that country's law by having contact with members of a banned political organization. If the authorities proceeded to arrest her & treat her according to their "standard procedure" & the jail officials subjected her to the "virginity test" that female arrestees often get in Egypt. There would be outrage aplenty here in the U.S. Our government would demand that the charges be dropped immediately, ordinary Americans would be stirred to anger, politicians would preen before the cameras, & retaliation against that country's diplomatic staff would swiftly ensue.

This incident also highlights the breathtaking hubris of American prosecutors. In the American federal count system, prosecutors are all-powerful, & the odds are stacked heavily against defendants. 97% if cases are adjudicated with guilty pleas; if a defendant dares exercise his/her right to trial, the prosecutors will stack more charges on top of what the defendant already faces, & after the guilty verdict (there are very few acquitals) the defendant will face a sentence twice or three times as long. Even if one is fortunate enough to win acquittal, the prosecutors would then simply bring new charges under a different statute, thus negating the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. That's the way the system works here, & U.S. Attorney Bharara apparently has concluded that his authority exceeds even that of the State Department & won't hesitate to exercise it, even at the expense of the U.S.'s relations with another country.

Seriously, I suspect that humiliation might have been the U.S. attorney's motive all along. For he had to know that in the end, the worst thing that will happen to this lady is to be sent back to India, so he decided to go ahead & have her arrested & subjected to all that sexual humiliation just to make a point about power & authority. We Americans always have drilled into our heads this notion that American Justice reigns supreme over every person & every thing, within our borders & beyond,. The prison must never be robbed of its prey, & American Justice must always have the final word. Well you know what - sometimes it doesn't.

This was a customs official not the US government. Having said that the US seems to have always strategically sided with Pakistan against India because of India's former (not so bright) pro-Soviet stance. Of course Pakistan thanked the US (rather ungraciously) by helping support the 9-11 attacks and the Taliban. The rest as they say is history. You reap what you sow.

Another fact: Your f*****g stupid jetpilots, have as well no diplomatic immunity, when they are too dumb again to turn in time, when flying from their german Rammstein-Airbase, and cross accidently austrian territory. According to international laws, they are terroristic renegade, flying without authorization of your country, declared warmachines illegaly in our country.

You wont get it, but instead of pissing us like sissies, and using the stupidity of your pilots as excuse to behave ourselves as worst as possible as it was allowed to us, they simply get accompanies by our jetfighters, laughingly told to care for their f*****g GPS and get shot by a photocamera as evidence. ^^ And thats it. By theory, we were allowed to shoot every one of them down, without even needing to excuse ourselves, because of them illegaly flying as renegades, without anyones authorization in an war-machine in our countries territory. Only because you are allowed to act like an ass, does not mean that you would be forced to do so, or had no other opportunities, or would not need to feel responsible for doing so.

I am not in love with her, and I do not condone her actions in the slightest. My issue is that she was treated with much less dignity and respect than any representative of a foreign government has been or should be treated. In a time where the US is rapidly losing the support of allies and angering nations who already distrust and/or dislike us, these actions will only accelerate the world abondoning their support of our country.

As for violating our laws, the same could be said for many of our diplomats abroad. Prostitution, drug use, abuse of power, bribery, and blackmail have all been documented behaviors of our representatives in other nations. They are either sent from the country never to return or their crimes are ignored. This whole situation just serves to alienate and isolate the US from the rest of the world even further.

And as for concern for the girl being exploited, have you ever bought an Apple product? Have you ever bought a T-shirt? Have you ever shopped at Wal-Mart? How about Nike, GAP, Old Navy, "American" Eagle Outfitters, Home Depot, Lowe's. Do you own a computer, laptop, smart phone, TV, gaming console? If so then you are likely supporting the exploitation of workers who earn less in a day than that woman was being paid in an hour. I'm not saying that that it is ok, just that you may be focusing on the wrong thing.

Strange ... I find no mention of the Austrian government filing any formal objections to this practice -- please provide an appropriat and valid link. This may have something to do with NATO treaties, or the abundance of foreign aid given by my government to yours ...

For the rest of you, Schneekugel's post is an example of a "Red Herring" -- an emotion-laden statement of an unrelated nature to the original topic, and that serves to derail the original topic and muddle any further replies in a sea of vitriolic invective.

It doesn't really derail the original topic, just veers off further than it should. But other than that I agree.

You mean your government is not proudly announcing in television to you, when your 2 years before proudly to public presented high tech "stealth-fighters" get catched up, by some mountain-jodlers in in outdated flying cucumbers? *rasp* Feel free to search reliable sources in english (I simply dont know, which english sources are reliable), there should be enough information in english about the incident in the following english link (whose information agree with the official page of austrian military), so that you can proove information sources you know. https://www.worldwide-military.com/Mili ... awk_EN.htm In year 2002 there were alone 54 incidents, that were mentioned by our military. (That was when you were using the german airbases for preparation of Irak war.)

To proove the good camera quality of austrian airpilots: Oh look, its an Hercules AC-130 of the CIA airline "Tepper Aviation" with an escort, coming from Germany in 21th January 2003, flying above Austria.

And no, we have neutrality. By law we are forbidden to give any aid to any kind of military of another country, with exception of UNO or NATO troops on mission. Which your CIA guys are not. We are simply a really small country that lies directly in the center of europe, surrounded by tons of US airbases in our neighbor countries of germany, france, italy, hungary, and dont know if your pilots simply get weird up by the tons of small countries and borders in europe or your guys dont get the turn correctly. Which isn´t normally the problem, as mentioned we are not so horrible sissies, that we must overreact the moment, only because of us being allowed to do so, the named incidents simply caused troubles because of them not being the usual accidental training pilot failures that our pilots like to use as training, but them being declared on purpose wrongly, the CIA airplane as "civil private flight" and the KC-10 Extender as an cargo machine, who was trying to hide the two nighthawks in the "radar-shadow" of it. Which hardly happens on accident.

YOU were adding to the topic, declaring this information as "Here is a fact that is worthy of note", that the person actual had no diplomatic immunity, so COULD have been officially treated the way she was threatened by your authorities. If this information is of so "worthy of note" then I see nothing wrong of the additional information, that being allowed to be an ass, and being forced to be an ass, are two different shoes. If you think that responding directly to your post was unrelated to the original topic, then it only can be because of your post being like that instead of being oh so worthy.

It looks like American justice isn't going to have the final word.

[url=america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/9/indian-diplomat-indictedexpectedtoleaveus.html]Indian diplomat indicted, expected to leave US[/url]

In summary, the U.S. asked India to waive diplomatic immunity; India refused; U.S. attorneys handed down 2 indictments, for which Devyani Khobragade was not present; she has been asked to leave the United States. End of story.

That lu lu was keeping a slave in her quarters.

*Shock Horror* It seems Saudi Arabian nationals also get diplomatic immunity when they are sprung with slaves in the good O'l US of A

It's rather unfortunate that Sangeeta Richard (the alleged slave) approached the US authorities she did not receive any form of assistance. Perhaps with all the Hispanic domestics exploited the line between slavery and humane treatment is still being sorted out in your country.

When I enjoyed consular immunity in the United States, it was absolutely clear to me that my diplomatic passport and my consular corps ID card would not protect me from arrest and detention in the event that I was accused of a felony.

Furthermore, even when I held diplomatic immunity abroad, my government made it absolutely clear to me that my immunity belonged to the government, not to me, and that any attempt to abuse my privileges and immunities would be what is colloquially referred to as, "a career limiting move."

So far as I can see, the. United States and its authorities did absolutely nothing wrong in this matter.

It is not the legality of the incident that bothers me. It was not done illegally. It is more the dignity/respect/foreign relations aspect. Plenty of consulates (US and otherwise) have abused the laws of the country they were in, with the result usually being sent home and barred from that country, not a public spectacle and lack of respect all around.

In a time where the US is rapidly gaining a somewhat justified reputation of being an overbearing bully of a world power, this kind of situation (and the way it was handled) only damages the reputation of the US in the eyes of most of the rest of the world even further.

With respect, I disagree.

Simply declaring her persona non grata would not have sent the clear message to the consular corps in New York (and throughout the United States), that there are laws which the United States will not excuse.

To my mind, the conduct alleged of the Deputy Consul General demonstrated an egregious departure from the conduct properly expected of a foreign representative.

If this is how Indian foreign service officers conduct themselves while posted abroad, then what does that do to our opinion of India?