prince15 wrote:
> hallier wrote:
> >
> > Rather than seeing this as an opportunity to be a contrarian or win a debate,
> why not
> > just try to be kind? It's not that hard.
> >
> > Be nice.
>
>
> fo·rum: a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can
> be exchanged.

Did the read the context in which I made this statement?

This is a very unique situation that I believe requires a degree of sensitivity and civility - unlike, for example, a discussion about IB vs AP, or teaching in the Middle East vs teaching in SE Asia.

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Cheery Littlebottom
>
> You can believe whatever you want, some people believe a spaghetti monster
> seeded the earth with humans. It doesnt change that you werent there, you
> dont know what did and did not happen, and you could just as easily be
> advocating for the release of a child sex offender.
> More importantly no one in the Indonesian government cares what some IT or
> group of ITs who are armchair quarterbacking their judicial system thinks
> feels or believes.

Does it bother you that this person may be a teacher at JIS who is suffering unbelievable stress and grief over what has happened? Try to walk in their shoes and imagine how they felt getting to work on Thursday morning and finding out what the court had decided - especially as they feel Neil and Ferdi have done nothing wrong.

Rather than seeing this as an opportunity to be a contrarian or win a debate, why not just try to be kind? It's not that hard.

Be nice.

If you want to support a fellow international school teacher, here is 1 Facebook page you may want to join.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1510822339131020/

wntriscoming wrote:
> No need to bait any posters.
>
> Let's rejoice in the freeing of Neil and Ferdi, and continue to support the
> janitors who have not yet been acquitted.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33924162

Agreed - today is a day for celebration and to renew the focus on achieving justice for the cleaners.

Thank goodness - sanity and justice is beginning to prevail.

At this point, the charges have been debunked by civil courts in Singapore and Jakarta, and now a criminal court in Jakarta.

All that remains is that the cleaners win their appeal.

Concur with previous comments about JIS.

Although apparently, a few of their new recruits have changed their mind, causing some late recruiting this year.

Actually think JIS is a terrific option (toxic nature of bureaucracy/judicial system aside) for young families, as child-care, nannies, cooks, cleaners etc are easy and cheap to hire, housing is great for families, and there is a lot to do in the JIS community for younger children.

Once they get to the end of middle school, I'd head for other locations, as I am not sure Jakarta is a great city for raising teenagers.

I agree with most of the posts about the IASAS schools - however, I am not sure that IS Manila has that great a package. I know that a few years ago, their salary was well below the other IASAS schools. Although the cost of living there is certainly low, I am not sure the savings potential would match JIS, ISKL, TAS and ISB.

For savings potential (not standard of living), my guess would be:

JIS
ISB
TAS/ISKL
SAS/ISM

A lot would depend on lifestyle, of course. Have a friend at SAS who only eats at Hawker places and has an apartment that is within his housing allowance. He is saving heaps.

Thx to AuntieSocial for the post.

PsyGuy's - try to get the facts right.

You say that the other medical testimony was paid for by the defence. This is untrue.

The parents went to these different doctors. The medical examinations were requested by them, not the defence. In fact, the treatment was requested by the them, and the diagnoses received, before any accusations were made against the 2 teachers.

It can only be assumed that she 'doctor-shopped' because she wanted a particular diagnosis - which she only got when she went to the police hospital.

When the Ambassador refers to a "lack of credible evidence against the teachers" and that "in light of this, we are deeply disappointed by the outcome" it can hardly be described as "a poignant statement and remark of the Indonesian judicial system" but as clear a declaration as diplomats can possibly give about the innocence of the accused. They were found guilty. He stated that we are deeply disappointed by the outcome.

Your efforts to justify the "magic stone" story is really quite exemplary. You'd have been an exceptional high school debater.

However, the judge (and the prosecution) did not refer to the "magic stone" as a mythical, imaginary, object. They referred to it as something that was real - that actually exists. It is a shame they did not get you on their team, because your explanation of the boys' coming up with this 'stone' story is far better than their one, where the stone is real and was actually inserted into the children to deaden the pain, and was not produced in court because Neil made it disappear. I think this is one thing the US Ambassador was thinking of when he spoke of the "lack of credible evidence."

You did get one fact right - as of now, they are convicted child sex offenders. However, that has never been debated - what has been debated is the fairness of the trial and the legitimacy of the verdict.

And it's not a game for me. It is a tragedy.

PsyGuy - I know you seem to be playing games here, but at least play fair.

You know that the medical report came from the police's own hospital, which hardly makes it independent. The other reports that you refer to were independent, including one that was certified by the High Court of SIngapore - a nation that does have rule of law. All of this has been stated in earlier posts that you read and critiqued.

Surely it would be fair and honest to state that the report that was accepted by the court came from the police hospital and was only made after the child was taken to three different facilities, including one in Singapore, that found no evidence of trauma to the victim?

Your rationale for the child citing the case of the 'magic stone' is an interesting one - however, I do wonder what the odds are of two different children both coming up with the same 'magic stone' explanation in reaction to their trauma - unless of course, they were coached and/or there was some sort of collusion.

There was a difference in their stories - child 1 said Neil produced the stone by clicking his fingers. He did this after the child refused to drink the blue liquid that the Principal (who was not charged) created using the blender. Child 2 said the stone was taken from the sky using an airplane.

Another problem with this rationale is that the 'stone' story was used by the prosecution to explain why those in the area of the alleged assaults did not hear the children crying etc when they were raped - the stone was used to deaden the pain, you see.

The different statements of the children are taken from police reports of the interviews that, in this country, are freely shared with the media.

One of the children also mentioned that the perpetrators had skull tattoos on their arms and back. This was not raised in the actual trial for obvious reasons - the accused do not have tattoos.

The only people who seem to be arguing that this evidence would secure a guilty verdict in a 'best practice' court of law seem to be posters on the Internet.

I would suggest that it is unlikely that the US Ambassador to Indonesia would agree, after he made this unusually (for a diplomat) strong statement:

“ ... Serious questions have arisen in this case regarding the investigative process and the lack of credible evidence against the teachers. In light of this, we are deeply disappointed by the outcome ... We look forward to the next step in the legal process in which we hope all the available facts in the case will be considered."

(http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015 ... spUhw.dpuf)

Perhaps I will close with an extract from the editorial in yesterday's Jakarta Post:

"If we want to show our seriousness in building a country of our own and persuading foreign investors to help, then we must guarantee them a stable business and political environment, underpinned by legal certainty.

Joko’s first six months have enabled laws and court verdicts so dubious as to cause investors concern. How can we expect to attract foreign firms to come and stay if we’re unable to ensure fairness and safety for their investments and their people?"

http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/o ... ing-first/

Thx for that post IAMBOG - there has been a lot of support for the cleaners from the JIS Community, esp. from many of the parents. My understanding is that this is covering legal fees as well as supporting their families who have lost their source of income. Posters may be interested in this article - http://indonesiaexpat.biz/other/observa ... onviction/ - written by an ex-JIS teacher.

You can get accreditation from the Council of International Schools:

"CIS School Evaluation and Accreditation is an evaluation process that drives a school’s continuous improvement, through:

- rigorous evaluation against internationally-agreed standards;
- a blend of support and challenge, focused on a school’s development; and
- a peer-based model that brings together international educators from across the world of CIS-accredited schools.

CIS is a non-national, non-regionally affiliated organisation and the status of CIS Accreditation confers an international recognition to stakeholders all over the world ...

... The CIS protocol has been reviewed by the National Association of Independent Schools Commission on Accreditation (US) and deemed in compliance with the criteria for effective accreditation practices. This facilitates acceptance of student transcripts with colleges and universities in the United States.

http://www.cois.org/page.cfm?p=1906

ExpatinAsia99 wrote:
> I interviewed with them a couple of months ago, they asked me in the
> interview if I was aware that there would be 30 students in the class and
> how I would feel about that. Even in the 5-6 year old class which they call
> Year 1, Kindergarten in other schools, they said would have 30 students.

30 5-6 yr olds in the one room. Wow!

I have a colleague who secured a job at one of these schools to teach 3rd grade. I said, "did you ask them about the class sizes?"

He said, "umm, no ... oh, I am sure they are similar to our school."

Yikes, I thought. I don't think he'll be teaching 21 3rd graders next year.

Is it a generalization to say that schools set up on the British model (primarily staffed, administered by folks from the UK) have higher class sizes (and make men wear ties!!)? Maybe I am wrong about the class sizes - more confident about the ties;)

Hettie wrote:
> Contracts are 2 years.
> Salaries range from 400000 hkd - 700000 hkd / year for teacher. Leadership
> scale is additional and separate.
> 20% taxable gratuity at end of each contract
> Housing is approx 8000 a month and won't cover rental costs
> Flights are only provided at the start of contract
> Medical is ok - used to be excellent with bupa now it's ok with good
> coverage but co-payment
> Tax levels out at approx 15%
>
> I worked for ESF for 6 years and left a couple ago. Professionally it was a
> great experience and I loved HK.

Hettie, you're a star:) Thx for this specific information. I did meet a teacher who was working as a G2 teacher at an ESF school who told me the class size was over 30. Did u find that class sizes were that large?

Would be terrific if an ESF teacher could give some specifics re. the packages.

Starting salary? Max Salary?
Housing Allowance for singles/couples?
Annual airfare?
Is health insurance comprehensive?
etc.

This info is so useful for teachers making their initial plans - I find even the Search site can be terribly vague.

PsyGuy wrote:
> Too the IS admins/management:
>
> Knowing what you know, and the fact that the parties were found guilty and
> convicted would YOU personally hire the accused for your IS?
> Defend them to your ownership, parents, students, faculty, community, and
> to your accrediting bodies inspectorate?

I am not an administrator.

Will administrators hire Bantleman if he is released? Many will not.

However, a lot of heads of school in this region have publicly stated their support for him.

And the school was just re-accredited by WASC and CIS. In their report, the bodies commended JIS for their handling of the crisis and publicly supported the accused men.

Bantleman has also been publicly supported by both the owners and administrators of his former school in Canada, Weber Academy.

Does that mean they'd give him a job? You'd hope so, but you may be right. I would hope that schools that espouse the values of justice, compassion, integrity and resilience would employ him (and his wife) and make the case to their stakeholders. However, as we have seen in the many reports of schools on this site, the behaviour of administrators is often very different from the values they stick on their schools' websites.

However, I imagine employability is the least of the poor man's problems right now.

I am not trying to convince PG - his mind is made up.

However, I thought I'd summarise with 5 reasons why I am convinced the verdict is wrong. I will later describe the evidence that was cited by the judge in her reasons for the verdict.

I think this is important, because the idea of fellow international school teachers not throwing whatever support they can behind these innocent teachers makes my stomach churn.

None of what follows is conjecture - it was all presented in the court. Anything that I claim that the prosecution used as evidence was read out by the judge when she gave her verdict.

As you may know, the judge refused to let any of the media, human rights representatives and consular officials enter the court room. She also gagged anyone from commenting publicly on the case. So the only way we can know what evidence she heard is from what she read out at the end of the case (she took about 8 hours, counting breaks) or what the defence at the end of the case presented to the media.

Basically, from her speech/presentation, the world got to hear the complete prosecution case against the 2 men. There is nothing that happened in the court that was used to convict the 2 men that we do not know - the judge told us in her closing presentation.

Here, first, are my 5 reasons why I think the verdict was wrong.

1. The location of the alleged assaults was in a public space. At first, the police claimed publicly that the assaults took place in Bantleman's office and the faculty lounge. It then emerged that these spaces had glass walls and were in some of the busiest sections of the elementary school. According to the police, the assaults took place during the school day.

Later, the police tried to speak of there being a ‘secret room'; however, they were seen on CCTV camera being shown by one of the victims where the assault took place. Watch this clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaDvrPsqs-s

It would be impossible to commit multiple assaults in such a visible, high traffic, location during the school day.

Unless you want to believe that the police and the mother of one of the children mis-spoke and meant to say they took place in the so far undiscovered secret room.

In her summing up, the judge referred to a secret room, an office and a toilet (in the case of Tiong).

For the record, not one person who works in the space shown in the video were interviewed by the police. Testimony of those who work in that space during the trial was rejected by the court.

2. The police said the accused produced a ‘magic stone’ from the air and inserted it into the child so that the child would not feel pain when raped. This stone was never produced. Nor was any evidence given of any pills or tablets in existence that would anesthetize a child from the top of the legs to the stomach.

The judge accepted the existence of the magic stone as part of the teachers' modus operandi, stating that the stone was used exactly as I described - to anesthetize the victims. In this way, the men could rape the boys without the children making any noise.

3. The only medical examinations that found signs of abuse were at the Police Hospital in Jakarta. The child whose mother initiated the case was examined in 2 other facilities in Jakarta, as well as one in Singapore.

These places found no evidence of rape. Consider the physical damage that multiple rapes would do to 5-6 yr old boys.

The court rejected the medical evidence of all the hospitals bar the police hospital.

The court also rejected medical testimony that such rapes (one child was found by the court to have been raped by 5 cleaners and the 2 teachers over a period months) would cause extreme physical damage and possibly cause the death of a child - they would certainly prevent the child from returning to the classroom without showing any physical/emotional distress.

The judge did not explain why she rejected the other testimony, except to say that the Singaporean evidence was not permissible for use in an Indonesian court - this was despite the fact that it was certified by the High Court in Singapore and used in a defamation suit by the teachers against one of the mothers that the teachers won.

4. The boys attended school during and after the times of the alleged rapes (the police never specified an exact date for the rapes; rather, they said the rapes occurred over a period of many months). At no time during those months did the children show any physical or emotional distress or fear about being at school. They were captured on film and in images being happy and playful at school.

Testimony was given by the boys' teachers, as well as parents of their classmates, attesting to this. All of this evidence was ignored by the court. The judge offered no explanation for ignoring this evidence in her explanation to the court for the guilty verdict.

5. Peer reviewed expert psychologists (I think one was from Oxford University) were called by the school to talk about the best practice methods necessary to interview children about suspected sex abuse. A lot of these methods arose after the fiasco in the USA of the McMartin Trials in the 1980s when "suggestive questioning" by well-meaning counselors and psychologists led to children claiming they had been raped when in fact the rapes did not occur. The McMartin case has terrible parallels with the JIS case, right down to the existence of secret rooms.

This expert testimony was ignored by the court - when they were giving evidence, the judges questioned their expertise. When announcing her verdict, the judge did not explain why she did not accept their opinions.

However, she did accept the evidence from the local psychologists – including one who claimed that the fact that Bantleman only had sex with his wife once a week was a possible explanation for sodomising little boys. His ‘rationale’ was that normal men needed to have sex 2-3 times a week, and he would be seeking a ‘release’. The judge stated this when announcing her verdict.



To Mr DepTrai, welcome to the ISR Forum - I would suggest it is highly unlikely that the Canadian authorities will pursue Bantleman. Both the US and British embassies have publicly criticised the verdict. Although the Canadians have been silent, I would think that their prosecutors would only proceed if they had confidence in the evidence used to convict Bantleman.

This was the evidence. There is nothing else:

1. Three 5-6 yr old boys said they were assaulted. This is certainly the most credible evidence produced by the prosecution. However, the major problem with this evidence is that (1) the stories changed over time, including in the court room and in published witness statements (2) the methods used to interview the children did not follow the procedures currently used in the USA or Canada (or any nation that uses contemporary methods to interview suspected victims of child abuse).

In most jurisdictions, the testimony of children that young can not be used as evidence without corroborating evidence.

2. One piece of corroborating evidence was the medical testimony from the police hospital. As I outlined earlier, the mother who initiated the case against the teachers went first to two doctors in Jakarta who did not find evidence of rape. She then went to Singapore and got the same response. She got the diagnosis she was looking for at the police hospital (who also subsequently found the other 2 victims were raped. Surprise surprise.).

3. In Bantleman's office, the police found some rope and an orange sash. They claimed the rope and the sash were used to tie the victims up. This was the only physical evidence used against the 2 men.

The police did take a blender from Bantleman's office and a picture taken of the court room did show the blender being in the evidence box (with the sash and rope).

Here is an extract from the Sydney Morning Herald which might explain why the blender was presented in the court room. The journalist directly quotes from the witness statements in this extract (I do not know whether these exact words were used in court).

"One of the boys alleges that school principal, (I am removing the name) mixed a blue-coloured drink to drug the children, then videotaped sex attacks. XXXX has been questioned a number of times by police but has never been recategorised as a "suspect," remaining a "witness" only. One boy said in his statement that, when he refused to drink the blue drink, "the boss" (referring to Mr Bantleman), snapped his fingers and a magic stone appeared in his hand.

"The boss would get a magic stone that the boss would take from the sky," the boy said, according to the report of the witness statement. The stone would be inserted into the boy to anaesthetise him before he was raped."

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/bizarre-det ... 0hww3.html

Bantleman's defence was that he used the blender to make blueberry smoothies. However, the judge did not bring the blender up when she announced her verdict, preferring the explanation that the stone was used simply as a suppository being inserted into the childrens' buttocks.

It has been suggested that the judge ignored the blender because the prosecution did not want to pursue the Principal, who was a US citizen and female.

4. Bantleman only had sex with his wife once a week. The Indonesian psychologist saw this as a reason why he would rape little boys. This was used as evidence to prove Bantleman's guilt.

5. Is the 'magic stone' evidence? It was mentioned 4 times by the judge when she announced her verdict. Of course, an example of such a stone was never produced in the court as evidence.


Mr DepTrai - I suspect that when Bantleman returns to Canada (hopefully soon), he will be fine. Any prosecutor who tried to convict him on that evidence would not only be laughed out of court, but would also probably lose their job.

I was bemused to read PG's statement that the 2 men "were convicted by a seated jurist in a internationally recognised court of competent jurisdiction, not just "someone"?"

In reality, Indonesia is 'internationally recognised' for having an incompetent and corrupt judicial system. It took me a couple of minutes to find this. You can also find out more at https://www.transparency.org/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157073/corru ... nesia.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/world ... d=all&_r=0
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/joko-wido ... mdawv.html

I did laugh out loud when I saw the reply to @pds86 post.

Here is the poem, written by Pastor Martin Niemöller about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

This did become a rather long post and probably far too verbose for you English teachers out there - sorry about that.

Well done for getting to the end of it:)