Gere faces Indian arrest warrant

[ziggysego]

An Indian court has issued an arrest warrant for Hollywood actor Richard Gere after he kissed Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in public.
Gere, 57, kissed Shetty, 31, several times on the cheek at an Aids awareness event in Delhi earlier this month.

The court in Jaipur in Rajasthan state called it "an obscene act", after a local lawyer filed a complaint.

It was not immediately clear how the warrant could affect Gere, who is a frequent visitor to India.

Shetty, who found fame outside India as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, has also been asked to appear before the court.

But her spokesman, Dale Bhagwager, said the actress had not received any court order or summons and was currently away visiting temples.

He said Shetty had not done anything wrong.

Bigger issue

"What is there to comment? They were three innocent, natural cute pecks on the cheek," said Mr Bhagwager.

"What can one say, when three pecks can be made into an issue in the land of the Kama Sutra? People should concentrate on the bigger issue of Aids, rather than this."

Photographs of the clinch were splashed across front pages of newspapers in India.

Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protestors in Mumbai (Bombay) set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident.

Dance scene

Shetty has defended Gere saying that it was all done "in good humour".

"He especially told me to tell the media that he didn't want to hurt any Indian sensibilities," she said.

She said Gere had only been re-enacting a scene from his film Shall We Dance.

Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine or both.

Gere, star of films such as Chicago and Pretty Woman, is a Buddhist and travels to India frequently to visit the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in the north of the country.

Sourced BBCi: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6596163.stm

For f*ck sake!!

[pintsofguinness]

Jesus Christ!
I'm amazed they're not on for stoning her.

[Bord na Mona man]

Are there companies who manufacture effigies for burning?
They seem to be able to get them into production very quickly.
Usually within hours of some Western person causing insult, angry mobs have posters and dummies of them on bonfires.

I'd say any effigy company's business model and success depends on a fast turnaround of customised icons for destruction. Or else they have a huge inventory of every prominent celebrity and world leader in their warehouses.

[Armagh4SamAgain]

For Gods sake! Those Indians are nuts!! What would they do if the saw what happens in Keady on staurday nites?? 

[his holiness nb]

Jaysus, I'll be in Jaipur in June with the missus.
Must remember to keep my distance from her!

[thejuice]

Apparently Gere "transended the depths of vulgarity" according to the India Police. I think Jenna Jameson should do a tour of India showing of her catalogue of movies. That might give them a fresh perspective of the depths of vulgarity. All Gere did was kiss her. This was at an AIDS awareness convention, after all, they were talking about sex, an then they get upset about a kiss.

[Hardy]

All the same, I hope they arrest him. Just for the crack, like and it'd be entertaining to see a Hollywood prat doing time on bread and water in some smelly dungeon in India.

And it would serve as a warning to the boorish tourists of the world (American and Japanese papers especially, please copy) that a nod towards the norms and conventions of the host population is nothing more than good manners (as they feckinwell insist on when you go to their country).

I remember being in Notre Dame in Paris one day. A little old lady was kneeling in front of a side altar, praying. A herd of Japanese tourists arrived and started walking around her, gawking at her, some of them taking flash photos of her and the rest of them cackling at high decibels. I know xenophobia is not good mostly, but surely we could make the odd exception to allow, say a short burst of machine-gun fire in a situation like this?

[stew]

Apparently raping a young woman on a bus is ok as long as there is multiple rapists (inc the driver) but a kiss on the cheek? clean fcuked!
These people need shot!

The man is a felcher and has had a guinea pig up his arse, no charges preferred but a kiss on the cheek, stone the mofo!!! Th

[AZOffaly]

Wha?

[ludermor]

Apparently raping a young woman on a bus is ok as long as there is multiple rapists (inc the driver) but a kiss on the cheek? clean fcuked!
These people need shot!

The man is a felcher and has had a guinea pig up his arse, no charges preferred but a kiss on the cheek, stone the mofo!!! Th

This needs to go on the WTF? thread!

[J70]

Apparently raping a young woman on a bus is ok as long as there is multiple rapists (inc the driver) but a kiss on the cheek? clean fcuked!
These people need shot!

The man is a felcher and has had a guinea pig up his arse, no charges preferred but a kiss on the cheek, stone the mofo!!! Th

[moysider]

For a country that had/has some weird ideas about sex, respectability and treatment of women  - as the children's mass graves around the country shows - we re hardly in any position to have a go at India or anybody else about their crazy beliefs and customs. People in glass houses and all that.

Still they are mad as eggs. No doubt about it. Do they still have that quaint little custom where the wife is cremated with her dead husband - she being still alive of course?

[Denn Forever]

4 women hanged in the last few weeks.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27807539