The investigation opened after publicized testimonies accusing the founder of the Strasbourg record company Deaf Rock Records of rape and sexual assault was dismissed for lack of information, we learned Friday from a judicial source. The investigation, which had been entrusted to the departmental security brigade of Bas-Rhin, was closed on October 18 by the Strasbourg prosecutor's office, "
the offense
" being "
insufficiently characterized
", according to this source. The record company Deaf Rock Records and its founder, Julien Hohl, had been targeted by testimonies published last December by the news sites Mediapart and Rue89 Strasbourg: around ten women reported behavior "
internally displaced, even violent, of a sexual nature, which would have occurred between 2015 and 2019
”.
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According to the judicial source, “
five complaints
” had been filed, for rape and sexual assault. Justice considers that "
the facts or the circumstances of the facts could not be clearly established by the investigation. The evidence is therefore not sufficient for the offense to be established and for criminal proceedings to be instituted,
”according to an extract from the letter sent by the prosecution to the complainants, posted on information sites. Two days after the publication of Rue89 Strasbourg and Mediapart, the record company announced that Julien Hohl, who denied the alleged facts, had "
chosen to leave his functions
" as manager of the label to "
be free of his answers
" and "
not expose
»The teams he worked with.
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The case was part of the wider wave of testimonies that have appeared since the summer of 2020 around the #MusicToo platform, launched by an “
anonymous collective against gender-based and sexual violence in the music industry
” and popularized on social networks , in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
According to a 2019 study by Cura (Collective for the health of artists and music professionals) and Gam (Guild of music artists), 31% of women working in the music sector (artists or professionals) say have been the victim, at least once, of sexual harassment.