Epstein files are not just regular case files or tell-tale diaries; in fact, millions of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein suggested the existence of a “global criminal enterprise” that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.
According to a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, crimes outlined in documents released by the U.S. Justice Department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption, and extreme misogyny, reports Reuters.
The crimes, they said, showed a commodification and dehumanization of women and girls.
“So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” the experts said in a statement.
The experts said the allegations contained in the files require an independent, thorough, and impartial investigation and said inquiries should also be launched into how it was possible for such crimes to be committed for so long.
While the U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to the inquiries or demands initiated by experts.
A law, approved by Congress with broad bipartisan support in November, requires all Epstein-related files to be made public.
The U.N. experts raised concerns about “serious compliance failures and botched redactions” that exposed sensitive victim information.
More than 1,200 victims were identified in the documents that have been released so far.
“The reluctance to fully disclose information or broaden investigations has left many survivors feeling retraumatized and subjected to what they describe as ‘institutional gaslighting,'” the experts said.
The Justice Department’s release of documents has revealed Epstein’s ties to many prominent people in politics, finance, academia and business—both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges, including soliciting an underage girl.
He was found hanged in his jail cell in 2019 after being arrested again on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors.
Every day there is a new file and new trauma of fearing what’s coming next.
The images and the graphic contents are so intense that no one can absorb or process it easily.
People around the globe are raising serious concerns about why Epstein’s files have been released and why they have been exposed to people when these could have been discarded or removed by authoritarians or powerful resources?
And if Epstein was even alive, knowing that his death was ruled a suicide.
