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Cyberbullying of Mila: judgment Wednesday for 13 defendants

2021-07-05T21:11:13.949Z


On June 22, the prosecution requested suspended prison sentences against twelve of the defendants and requested the release of a thirteenth.


She had received thousands of messages of hate and threats after a controversial video on Islam: the Paris court delivered its judgment on Wednesday concerning 13 young people tried for having participated in the cyberbullying of the teenager Mila.

Read also: At the Mila trial, the unlimited violence of ordinary young people

On June 22, the prosecution requested suspended prison sentences against twelve of the defendants and requested the release of a thirteenth.

The criminal court is due to rule around 9 am, fifteen days after a hearing which attempted to define the contours of freedom of expression and the right to blasphemy, and highlighted the banality of harassment in packs on the internet.

"Let her die"

There will be a before and after this trial.

We are in the process of laying down the rules of the acceptable and the unacceptable,

”warned the president of the 10th correctional chamber, Michaël Humbert.

The defendants, aged 18 to 29 and from all over France, were referred to court by the prosecution, as part of an investigation by the new national center for the fight against online hatred.

Read also: Cyberbullying of Mila: up to 6 months suspended prison sentence required against 12 defendants, an acquittal requested

The hearing was also one of the very first devoted to the offense of cyberbullying, created by a law of 2018. It can be constituted when several people attacking the same victim know that their words or behavior characterize a repetition, without each of these people having acted in a repeated or concerted manner.

At the helm, the young men and women, for the most part without a criminal record, mostly admitted to being the authors of the messages.

Let her die

”, “

you deserve to have your dirty whore slit

”, “

that someone crushes her skull out of pity

”, they wrote in particular in November 2020, in response to a new video of Mila criticizing the 'Islam.

But they largely denied knowing that the teenager was the victim of online harassment, and thus their participation in a

digital

"

raid

".

"Lynching 2.0"

For the representative of the public prosecutor, the defendants could not ignore it, ten months after a first video of Mila went viral and the surge of hatred that followed, giving her notoriety.

The teenager, then aged 16 and a half, had in January 2020 responded to insults on social networks about her sexual orientation through a vehement video on Islam but "

within the strict limits

" of freedom expression, recalled the prosecutor.

Target of a "

tidal wave of hatred

", Mila had been forced to leave her high school and live under police protection.

Read also: The Mila trial, the sources of online hatred

She had attracted another round of threats after the publication of a second controversial video, on November 14, in which she launched: "

and last thing, watch your buddy Allah, please. Because my fingers in her asshole, I still haven't got them out

”. Mila has received, according to her lawyer Richard Malka, “

100,000

hate

messages

”.

The public prosecutor argued that the defendants had participated in a "

lynching 2.0

" with "

real consequences

", before requesting "

warning sentences

": three months' suspended imprisonment against the three defendants prosecuted for harassment, and six months suspended against nine others dismissed for harassment and death threats.

To read also: "Mila harassed: the intoxication of power of the little gods behind their screens"

Some of these young people "

without history

" - including many atheists and students destined to become an ambulance driver, accountant or tax officer - pleaded "

the stupidity

" of a message posted "

without reflection

", under the influence of the "

Anger

".

Their lawyers requested partial or total releases, asking not to make "

examples

".

The defense also raised the lack of evidence that some of the tweets, without a hashtag or at sign, were read by the victim, believing that they should therefore be deemed "

ineffective

".

In compensation for the “

digital stoning

” suffered by Mila, Me Malka requested 5,000 to 10,000 euros in damages against each of the defendants.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-07-05

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