Roman Polanski, the famous Oscar-winning director, citizen of both Poland and France and friend to young and old, sat in a Swiss jail over Thanksgiving, waiting to be released on a multi-million dollar bail. Polanski is battling extradition to the U.S. to face charges for raping a teenage girl more than 30 years ago.

I hope people realize there is something wrong with the former sentence. How is it possible that this man hasn’t been in prison for the past 30 years? The answer is just as bizarre — after confessing to his crime, Polanski escaped the clutches of the law and vamoosed to France to live in secluded luxury.

I am not sure which is worse, the fact that Polanski fled from his due punishment, or that people are actually demanding the charges against Polanski be dropped and he be made a free man. It’s a timeless scenario — whenever a celebrity or someone of any importance does something wrong, all they get is a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back. By virtue, what he did was horrendous, whether it happened yesterday or three decades ago.

The world is on Polanski’s side — at least, this is the tone conveyed in an article that appeared in The Los Angeles Times the day after Thanksgiving. According to the article, Polanski was treated like a king in jail ever since his arrest in Switzerland two months ago. The director “was able to regularly call his wife … and was equipped with an emergency button he could use to summon guards.” Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the point of a prison guard was to make sure that criminals stay in their place, not to be at their beck and call.

The article went on to convey how stressful the situation has been for Polanski — that “his fear of the U.S. verges on panic and he has lived with that fear for so long that it’s become obsessive.” This is nothing but a sugarcoated explanation of a man who is on a serious guilt trip and doesn’t seem to want to accept the consequences of his actions.

The media coverage of this whole fiasco has focused on this beloved director, his feelings and how wonderful a person he is, not on the victim.

Another article published by the Daily News at the end of September expressed the outrage and surprise of Polanski’s friends in France, who were “furious that California authorities [were] pressing the case, even though the victim … wants the charges dropped.” The victim’s name was not even mentioned, and regardless of how she feels, one cannot escape the fact she is still referred to as a “victim.”

One of the arguments calling for the freedom of the Oscar-winning director (the news will never fail to remind us of this bit) is that the request of the victim, Samantha Geimer, should not be ignored.

No woman, whether she is 13 or 35, should ever be raped. However, there is something particularly heinous about this crime. Not only was the girl molested at only 13 years old, but on top of that, she was given alcohol and drugged. I am truly baffled as to why Polanski was able to get away after a pitiful 42 days in jail and live as a free man in France all these years. Then again, I should not be surprised. The total sum of Polanski’s money and his movies will always weigh more than a 13-year-old girl.

Shame on all the newspapers out there who are calling it Polanski’s “tragedy.” Calling it a tragedy implies that some celestial being mercilessly placed this undeserved misfortune in Polanski’s life; it is a tragedy, but it is Polanski’s own doing. As Chris Rock succinctly put it when he appeared on The Jay Leno Show, “It’s RAPE!”