The founder of the NGO BarakaCity recently dissolved by the government, Idriss Sihamedi, was sentenced on Friday March 12 in Évry (Essonne) to a 10-month suspended prison sentence, found guilty of harassing an RMC radio columnist online.
He will also have to pay a fine of 5,000 euros.
Read also: Dissolutions of the CCIF and Baraka City: what do we know about these associations targeted by Darmanin?
Mr. Sihamedi, whose real name is Driss Yemmou, admitted to investigators that he published 133 tweets in September implicating Zohra Bitan.
The founder of BarakaCity accused the columnist of "
pouring out his hatred on Muslim women
".
On September 11, BFM published the video of a student in the hijab giving cooking advice.
The columnist of RMC had reacted by declaring publicly that this choice to wear the veil corresponded to "
an ideology from which arise innumerable inequalities between women and men.
".
On Twitter, Idriss Sihamedi then challenged the columnist and his two sons about alleged criminal offenses, pushing users of the social network to ask them for explanations, via the hashtag #BalanceZohraBitan.
The defendant had also published a photograph of the family mailbox as well as a stolen registered mail.
During the trial in February, the prosecutor lambasted a logic of “
intimidation
”, evoking “
defamatory remarks
” and the “
repeated and degrading nature
” of the facts.
Mr. Sihamedi's lawyer, Mr. Samim Bolaky, had argued that his client had not intended to engage in cyberstalking but wished to "
highlight the
supposed
contradictions
" of Ms. Bitan.
Experts had estimated that the victims presented with anxiety-depressive disorders and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mr. Sihamedi had previously appeared for similar facts.
In January, the Paris Criminal Court acquitted him of the online harassment lawsuit against former Charlie Hebdo journalist and activist Zineb El Rhazoui.
An acquittal which the prosecution appealed.
Last week, however, he was sentenced by the Paris court to a 3,000 euros fine for racist insults against Zineb El Rhazoui, in a separate file.
The BarakaCity association was dissolved in October by the government, which accuses it of links with the radical Islamist movement.
