Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

Arrest in Zürich
On September 26, 2009, Polanski was arrested by Swiss police at Zürich Airport while trying to enter Switzerland, in relation to his outstanding 1978 U.S. arrest warrant. Polanski had hoped to attend the Zurich Film Festival to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. The arrest followed a request by the United States that Switzerland apprehend Polanski. U.S. investigators had learned of his planned trip several days earlier, which had given them enough time to negotiate with Swiss authorities and lay the groundwork for an arrest. The United States had been seeking his arrest and extradition worldwide since 2005. While there had been a U.S. arrest warrant for him since 1978 and he had been on the Interpol "red notice" wanted list for several years, an international arrest warrant was issued in 2005. The United States must make a formal extradition request within 40 days to have Polanski extradited and stand trial.

The Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was put "in provisional detention." An arrest warrant or extradition to the United States could be subject to judicial review by the Federal Criminal Court (Bundesstrafgericht) and then the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgericht), according to a ministry spokesman. Polanski announced that he intends to appeal extradition and hired lawyer Lorenz Erni to represent him.

Reactions to the arrest
In reaction to the arrest, the foreign ministers of both France and Poland urged Switzerland to release Polanski, who holds dual citizenship of both countries. The arrest provoked particular controversy in France, where over the years many had downplayed the severity of Polanski's crime, highlighting instead his achievements as a film director and the many years that had passed since his flight from the U.S. In Switzerland, the arrest caused widely varying reactions in the media and in politics, while Swiss minister of justice Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf defended the arrest as legally required under the Swiss-U.S. extradition treaty and as a matter of equality before the law.

French minister of Culture and Communication, Frédéric Mitterrand, was especially vehement in his support, all the while announcing his "very deep emotion" after the questioning of the director, "a French citizen" and "a film-maker of international dimension ": "the sight of him thrown to the lions for an old story which doesn't make much sense, imprisoned while traveling to an event that was intending to honor him: caught, in short, in a trap, is absolutely dreadful". Polanski, Mitterrand continued, "had a difficult life" but had "always said how much he loves France, and he is a wonderful man". There is, he added, "a generous America that we love, and a certain America that frightens us. It's that America that has just shown its face."

Daniel Cohn-Bendit criticized these statements by Mitterrand, mainly on the grounds that it was a "matter of justice" in as much as "a 13-year-old girl was raped", adding "I believe that a minister of Culture, even if his name is Mitterrand, should say: I'll wait and read the files [myself]".

Marc Laffineur, vice president of the French National Assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right party, criticized government ministers for rushing to judgment, saying the charges against Polanski should not be minimized. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk also responded to early reactions by urging his Cabinet ministers to exercise calm and reminding them that it is a "case of rape and of punishment for having sex with a child." Poland had only the day before his arrest approved a new law that made chemical castration mandatory for people convicted of having sex with children. The law was supported by the Prime Minister, who referred to people convicted of such crimes as "degenerates".

Another figure in the French blogosphere, legal blogger Eolas, severely criticised F. Mitterand's position as well as the stance of Roman Polanski's proponents. M. Eolas pointed out that no one should be above laws, not even a celebrated artist, and that this was an hypocrite behaviour among this circle of people. He accused his supporters of doing pure corporatism defending someone accused of rape, and at the same time defending a highly controversial law against illegal downloading (HADOPI 2), a law that is perceived as challenging people's most elementary right of presumed innocence. There would then be a logical fallacy in defending Roman Polanski and at the same time defending this law. This stance is, according to this analysis, increasing the gap between popular opinion and this artistic social class, which has been losing popularity because of its strong support of this law.

A number of celebrities, most of them French, expressed their support for Polanski by means of a public manifesto, whose concluding statements were "Roman Polanski is a French citizen, an artist of international reputation, now threatened to be extradited. This extradition, if brought into effect, would carry a heavy load of consequences as well as deprive the film-maker of his freedom". The signatories concluded: "we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski" Not all assessments coming from the French film-making mainstream have been openly partisan, however. Luc Besson, for instance, remarked: "I do not know the history of the process. (...) I feel a lot of affection for [Polanski], he's a man I really like and I know him a bit, our daughters are very good friends but there is one justice, [and] it is the same for everyone". British writer Joan Smith wrote "Now the past has caught up with him, and Polanski is facing extradition and the prison sentence he deserves. His supporters urgently need to locate their moral compass and stop making excuses for an unrepentant sex attacker."

A Polish opinion poll published on September 29 showed that less than 25% of Poles want to see Polanski escape another trial.

Fellow filmmakers including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch, and Guillermo del Toro have signed a petition calling for Polanski's release.

On 30 September, the French government dropped its public support for Polanski, on the grounds that he was not "above the law." Government spokesman Luc Chatel said: "We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job," adding: "One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the arrest, have caused."