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"Kill your senators": a New York lawsuit tests the limits of freedom of expression

2021-05-01T17:09:21.123Z


An American was sentenced Wednesday for calling for the killing of elected officials on social networks. He faces up to ten years in prison.


Freedom of expression may well be sacred and protected by the American Constitution, we do not call with impunity to kill American elected officials on social networks: this is what a popular jury decided in New York on Wednesday April 28, after a week of hearings which rekindled the memory of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Brendan Hunt, alias "X-Ray Ultra", 37-year-old court worker, was accused of

"threatening to kill"

elected members of the US Congress - including Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and young Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) - with

"the intention to interfere in the exercise of their functions"

or

"to take revenge for having fulfilled them"

.

He was found guilty after just three hours of deliberation, and now faces up to 10 years in prison.

Read also: How Donald Trump witnessed the assault on the Capitol imperturbably

We have to get back to Capitol Hill, and this time we come with our weapons ... What you have to do is arm yourself, go to Washington, probably for the nomination (...) and put them bullets in the head.

"

Brendan Hunt

Brendan Hunt was implicated for messages posted on various networks: the first, dated December 6, 2020, on Facebook, called on Donald Trump, then president, to organize

“a public execution of Pelosi, AOC, Schumer, etc.”

and to

"Bring down these communists"

.

"If you don't, the citizens will."

The last dated January 8, two days after the attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, who rejected the certification of Joe Biden's presidential victory. Brendan Hunt then posted an 88-second video on the popular far-right BitChute platform titled “Kill your senators”, in which he said, facing the camera:

"We have to get back to Capitol Hill, and this time we come with our weapons ... What you have to do is arm yourself, go to Washington, probably for the nomination (...) and their put bullets in the head. "

It was because of the latter message that the jury found Brendan Hunt guilty, a spokesman for prosecutors said after the verdict.

After the

"insurrection"

of January 6, the FBI deploys its nets in all directions to stop the rioters.

Among the thousands of calls then received by the federal police, one alerted him to the existence of this video.

Brendan Hunt, son of a retired judge who presents himself as an actor, musician and journalist, was arrested on January 19, the day before Joe Biden's inauguration, at his home in the New York neighborhood of Queens.

But the agents found no weapons or proof of involvement or communication with an extremist group at his home.

And prosecutors admit that Brendan Hunt was neither on Capitol Hill nor even in Washington.

"Diatribes"

So, were the threats of this man who quoted

Mein Kampf

in a text message and said that Donald Trump should take power

"like Hitler"

serious, did he really intend to attack the elected officials? The court-appointed lawyers said no, that they were mere

"diatribes"

, opinions he had every

"right to say"

,

"as shocking as they are"

, under the First Amendment. of the US Constitution. His remarks were all the less serious, according to them, as the accused had alcohol problems, had just 99 subscribers to his video channel. One of the lawyers, Leticia Olivera,had argued in his plea Tuesday that

"nobody took"

his messages seriously, and that he himself had withdrawn his video on BitChute the next day, after several reviews from Internet users, the last of which called him a

"clown"

.

But withdrawal or not,

"the First Amendment does not protect"

from such threats, prosecutor David Kessler retorted in his indictment on Wednesday.

"The government does not need to prove that the accused tried to kill"

an elected official, the mere fact of

"uttering the threat is an offense"

, he stressed. Even if it is launched on social networks, and not addressed directly to the people targeted, he added. To make the jurors feel that the threat was

"real"

, prosecutors replayed during the trial a video of the attack on the Capitol, and cited as a witness a police officer from the Capitol, who testified about the

"surrealist"

day

of the 6th. January.

Read also: Capture of the Capitol: the day the American democracy fractured

Will the verdict be contested in a country where the First Amendment is sacrosanct?

"I am sure that on appeal, the issue of freedom of expression will be raised,"

Dimitriy Shakhnevich, professor of criminal law at New York City University, told AFP.

More than 400 people have been arrested by the FBI in the United States for participating in the attack on the Capitol.

This federal trial was the first to evoke these events.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-05-01

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