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L'auteure examine le role des medias lors du meurtre de Reena Virk et veut attirer l'attention sur le manque de couverture dans la presse et sur l'absence d'une analyse critique du racisme qui sont une forme de violence traduite par l'exclusion, l'utilisation du bouc emissaire, le ciblage des "autres, "le tout porte par l'inferiorisation de la difference vue comme une deviance.
On November 14, 1997, 14-year-old Reena Virk, a girl of South Asian origin, was brutally murdered in a suburb of Victoria, British Columbia. Reena was first beaten by a group of seven girls and one boy between the ages of 14 and 16. She was accused of stealing one of the girl's boyfriends and spreading rumours. Her beating was framed as retaliation to these alleged actions. According to journalistic accounts, the attack began when one of the girls attempted to stub out a cigarette on her forehead. As she tried to flee, the group swarmed her, kicked her in the head and body numerous times, attempted to set her hair on fire, and brutalized her to the point where she was severely injured and bruised. During the beating, Reena reportedly cried out "I'm sorry" (The Vancouver Sun A10). Battered, Reena staggered across a bridge trying to flee her abusers, but was followed by two of them-Warren Glowatski and Kelly Ellard. The two then continued to beat her, smashing her head against a tree, and kicking her to the point where she became unconscious. They then allegedly dragged her body into the water and forcibly drowned her. Reena's body was subsequently found eight days later on November 22, 1997, with very little clothing on it. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy noted that Virk had been kicked 18 times in the head and her internal injuries were so severe as to result in tissues being crushed between the abdomen and backbone. She also noted that the injuries were similar to those that would result from a car being driven over a body. The pathologist concluded that Reena would likely have died even if she had not drowned.(f.1)
This chilling murder of a 14-year-old girl was singled out by the news media and heavily reported in the local, national, and international press. The media's initial framing...