The incident took place in February 2020 in the Swiss city of Basel, where two men raped a 33-year-old woman in the entrance of her apartment in Elsässerstrasse. 

The sentence, which was handed down at the start of August, has caused controversy not only due to its lenient nature, but due to the mitigating factors cited by the judge in the case. 

#BS0808 11Schweigeminuten als Anklage gegen das Skandalurteil. 11 Minuten dauerte die Vergewaltigung. Laut dem "Gericht" eine kurze #Vergewaltigung pic.twitter.com/dsK5Mi5lWb

— element (@__investigate__) August 8, 2021

One of the men was a minor and as such will be sentenced in juvenile court. The other, a 32-year-old man, had his sentenced reduced from 51 months to 36 months on appeal and as a result will be released from detention in a few days due to time already served. 

In reducing the sentence for the 32-year-old man on appeal, justice Liselotte Henz said there was only “moderate fault” for the perpetrator in the context of Swiss criminal law. 

While the court report has not yet been released, Swiss media has reported several aspects of the judgement seemed to blame the victim rather than the perpetrator for the attack. 

Several factors came into account in the reduced sentence, including that the attacks – which lasted 11 minutes – were “relatively short” and that there were no permanent physical injuries to the victim. 

The judge said the victim had been “playing with fire” in the lead up to the attacks. 

The judge also appeared to blame the victim for “the signals she sent out to the men”, referencing behaviour in the club where they met where the woman had withdrawn to a toilet with another man. 

As both men are Portuguese nationals, the sentences will include a period of deportation from the country, which is expected to be six years for the adult offender and is not yet set for the minor.

Protests and outcry in Switzerland

On Sunday, August 8th, around 500 people protested outside the appeals court in Basel where the verdict was handed down. 

Protesters at the rally, which police said was unauthorised but peaceful, carried signs emphasising the need for consent and chanted “11 minutes is 11 minutes too many”. 

Signs carried by the protesters said “there is no such thing as a short rape” and complained that the legal system “was sending the wrong signals” to the general public. 

The victim’s lawyer said she was shocked by the verdict. 

Agota Lavoyer, who runs a victim assistance organisation in the canton of Solothurn, said the “shameful” verdict “cements rape myths”. 

The verdict has attracted condemnation from across the political spectrum, with both left and right-wing political groups speaking out against it. 

Ronja Jansen, president of the Young Social Democrats (Just), said the verdict was likely to make women less willing to report sexual violence. 

“The fact that the woman is portrayed as an accomplice because she may have entered into contact with other men is a harmful mixture of consensual acts and rape.”

Marcel Columb, from the Basel Social Democrats, said it sent the wrong signals to victims of sexual violence. 

“A four year sentence was already mild, but now to imply the woman was complicity due to her behaviour to someone uninvolved with the crime is unbearable. What a sign for all victims of sexualised violence.”

4 Jahre waren ja schon mild, doch nun auch noch eine Mitschuld aufgedrückt zu kriegen wegen dem Verhalten gegenüber einer unbeteiligten Person, ist unerträglich.
Was für ein Zeichen für alle Opfer sexualisierter Gewalt. https://t.co/UTyVxsDvdo

— Marcel Colomb (@MarcelColomb) July 31, 2021

Jérômie Repond, from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, asked “What kind of society do we live in?” after the verdict, while party colleague Pascal Messerli said the sentence was too short when the victim would have to live with it her entire life. 

Ein Vergewaltiger kommt in Basel nur 1.5 Jahre ins Gefängnis, weil das Opfer "Signale an Männer" aussendete. In DE kommen Männer nach einer brutalen Gruppenvergewaltigung zuerst nicht in U-Haft, da "keine Gefahr für die Allgemeinheit". In was für einer Gesellschaft leben wir?!

— Jérômie Repond (@JeromieRepond) August 1, 2021

Eigentlich bewerte ich Gerichtsurteile ohne Dossierkenntnisse eher ungern. 1.5 Jahre bei einer Vergewaltigung sind aber immer (!) zu wenig, wenn man bedenkt, dass das Opfer ein Leben lang leidet. Eine Mindeststrafe von 5 Jahren wäre gerecht. https://t.co/moe6obGvhF

— Pascal Messerli (@MesserliPascal) July 31, 2021

The victim and the Basel public prosecutor have said they will wait for the publication of the written ruling before deciding whether to appeal to the Swiss Federal Court.