Idriss Sihamedi, the founder of the NGO BarakaCity, dissolved at the end of 2020 by the government, was sentenced on Wednesday September 28 by the Paris Court of Appeal to a one-year suspended prison sentence for having harassed online Zohra Bitan, a columnist for RMC radio.
The Court of Appeal increased the sentence pronounced at first instance by the Evry judicial court in March 2021 - ten months suspended prison sentence - against Idriss Sihamedi, whose real name is Driss Yemmou.
He will also have to pay a fine of 5,000 euros, including 2,500 euros suspended.
Read alsoThe former president of Barakacity sentenced to a fine of 3,000 euros for publicly insulting Zineb El Razhoui
“
The penalties were increased by the Court of Appeal, it is in particular because of the procedural casualness of Mr. Yemmou, who appealed but never appeared at the hearings
”, reacted to AFP Jean-Philippe Dom, lawyer for Zohra Bitan.
The founder of BarakaCity admitted to investigators that he had published 133 tweets implicating the columnist.
He accused her of “
pouring out his hatred on Muslim women
”.
On September 11, 2020, BFM published the video of a student in a hijab giving cooking advice.
The RMC columnist reacted by publicly declaring that this choice to wear the veil corresponded “
to an ideology from which flow countless inequalities between women and men
”.
Read alsoCyberbullying: suspended prison sentence for the founder of the NGO BarakaCity
On Twitter, Idriss Sihamedi then challenged the columnist and her two sons about alleged criminal offenses, pushing social network users to ask them for explanations, via the hashtag #BalanceZohraBitan.
The defendant had also published a photograph of the family's mailbox as well as a stolen registered letter.
During the trial at first instance, the prosecutor had castigated a logic
of “intimidation
”, evoking “
defamatory remarks
” and the “
repeated and degrading nature
” of the facts.
Idriss Sihamedi had already appeared for similar facts.
Last February, he was sentenced on appeal to a fine of 5,000 euros, including 2,000 euros suspended for racist insults against the former Charlie Hebdo journalist and anti-Islamist activist Zineb El Rhazoui.
The humanitarian association BarakaCity was dissolved at the end of October 2020 and its funds frozen, accused by the government
of "inciting hatred
" and "
justifying terrorist acts
" after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty by a young Islamist.
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