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Five "sons of good family" tried for tweets insulting the Asian community

2021-03-24T21:40:22.109Z


The trial opened on Wednesday at the Paris Criminal Court. The calls for violence from the defendants, all students, had pa


" I am sorry ".

“I would like to apologize to all the people from the Chinese or Asian community who are above all French just like me.

"" I'm sorry I hurt.

"

This Wednesday, in the 17th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court, the defendants "looked at their shoes", summarizes Arié Alimi, the lawyer for the League of Human Rights (LDH), of which the association is part civil society, in support of victims, alongside SOS racism, the Mrap (Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples) and the National Office for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA).

Five young adults were prosecuted for posting hate messages on Twitter, calls for violence targeting the Asian community.

“I call on all the renois and rebeus of France to attack every Chinese they meet in the street.

"

The defendants are at Sciences-Po, law school, business school ...

"These are not zivas with caps upside down", breathes master Franck Serfati, the lawyer of the BNVCA.

“They are the sons of a good family, all students” - Sciences-po, engineering and business schools, BTS, faculty of law.

At the bar, the latter declares that he wants to become a police commissioner or an examining magistrate.

In the room, a few laughs fuse ...

As a preamble to this "historic online hate trial", Asian associations including the AJCF (Association of Young Chinese in France) gathered just before the hearing on the court forecourt, displaying placards and banners. “Stop the hate virus”.

"The public authorities must take into account the gravity of these facts", pleads Me Soc Lam, the lawyer for the AJCF and the victims.

A man lynched while walking his dog

The case dates back to October 28, 2020, just after the announcement of the second confinement.

Hateful and racist tweets had flooded the networks, targeting the Asian community, shared online more than 3,000 times - one of the defendants had 60,000 subscribers - and followed by physical attacks.

Jean (his first name has been changed), victim of this call for violence, was in court.

This famous evening of October 28, the thirty-something was lynched by a complete stranger while he was quietly walking his dog in the 13th arrondissement.

“Sale Chinetoque!

It is because of you that there is confinement!

Jean, his arm fractured, had twenty days of ITT and six weeks off work.

“I don't go out of my house anymore.

I am scared ".

"With a computer, a mouse, you almost have a weapon and you hurt"

At the hearing, the lawyers of the civil parties, who rose up against "this ordinary hatred, this cyberviolence where, with a computer, a mouse, a connection, one has almost a weapon and one injures", demanded the conviction of the five young people, damages for the victims, reimbursement of legal fees as well as citizenship courses in these associations which militate against racism.

The five young people - only one had a lawyer - who, criminally, face up to five years in prison for "public insult of a racist nature and provocation to commit a crime or an offense", visibly shaken by the judicial turn and the media coverage of the case, were up for this internship.

Three of them requested that the conviction, if any, not be entered in their records.

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“These tweets remain worrying, insists Master Serfati.

The five defendants tried to say that originally it was just humor but the

I wish to be put in a cage with a Chinese

and

see any glimmer of hope die out in his eyes,

"shouts is the lawyer humor or racism?

".

Answer May 26.

The judges reserved their decision.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2021-03-24

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