The animalist association L214, which regularly publishes videos shot clandestinely in farms or slaughterhouses to denounce the living conditions or the killing of farm animals, was sentenced on Tuesday November 30 by the Rennes Court of Appeal for complicity in an unlawful intrusion.
This judgment follows the broadcast, in September 2020, of a report shot in a Morbihan rabbit farm without the knowledge of the owner, who had lodged a complaint.
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The justice had initially dismissed it by giving reason in first instance to the arguments of Hélène Thouy, the lawyer of the association, also a candidate for the presidential election under the banner of the Animalist Party. “
We consider that the breeder is actually attacking us for defamation, because he accuses L214 of having damaged the image of his company by broadcasting this video; therefore the procedure should fall under press law and not whether or not private property is respected,
”explains the lawyer to
Le Figaro
.
But the Rennes Court of Appeal, for its part, considered that L214 could not avail itself of the freedom of the press. "
The recordings [broadcast by the association] result from a clearly illegal disorder
" concludes the breeder's lawyer, Jean-Pierre Depasse, interviewed by
L'Opinion
. Clearly, from the moment that the images contained in the report were filmed in private property without the knowledge of the master of the premises, their dissemination is complicity in a violation of home and therefore becomes criminally reprehensible, estimated the justice. . In addition to a slight fine, L214 is therefore required to stop broadcasting these images and remove them from all its communication media, within fifteen days.
If Hélène Thouy confirms that the association will remove the content of its platforms, she nevertheless adds that L214 intends to appeal in cassation, still convinced that justice must consider that the complaint concerns facts of defamation, no illegal intrusion.
"
However, the law relating to defamation is much more restrictive
" adds Hélène Thouy, who defends through this legal fight, one of the most common methods of action of L214.
"
We are whistleblowers
" she concludes.
So far, each time she had been convicted, L214 had ended up winning her cassation cases.