“I will have your skin”
,
“death penalty for paedos”
: five people appear on Monday in Paris for insults and death threats against the comic book author Bastien Vivès, targeted by an investigation for dissemination of child pornography images.
The five defendants will be tried by the Paris criminal court for having insulted and threatened to kill the designer on social networks.
They face up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
The alleged facts date back to December 2022. In the run-up to the Angoulême international comics festival, which takes place every year at the end of January, an exhibition dedicated to the cartoonist had sparked controversy due to several works by Bastien Vivès, accused of promote pedophilia.
The exhibition
“In the eyes of Bastien Vivès”
was finally canceled in mid-December after multiple
“threats”
made against the designer on social networks.
According to a source close to the case, one of the defendants is being prosecuted for having sent the comic book author, from his Instagram account, an image of a Kalashnikov accompanied by the words “
cure for pedophilia”
(in French remedy for pedophilia ).
Threats of physical harm, made on this same social network but also on X, in crude and violent language, as well as insults targeting the sexual orientation of the author are also accused of the defendants, according to this same source.
“Penal repression necessary”
“It is always so distressing what these practices express: the appetite for stoning of certain human beings who have read nothing and who do not know what they are talking about
,” Bastien’s lawyer told AFP. Vivès and the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Me Richard Malka, calling for
“necessary criminal repression”
.
“I think the facts are indisputable.
There must be a message to society through condemnation
,” he said.
In January 2023, a preliminary investigation into the dissemination of child pornography images was opened after a complaint from the Foundation for Children association targeting Bastien Vivès and two publishing houses, Glénat and Les Requins Marteaux.
Read alsoThe mental discharge of Vivès, Fnac's favorite: the indignation of an association
The complaint targeted three of his comics featuring minors having sexual relations with adults, published between 2011 and 2018 (
“The melons of anger”
,
“The mental discharge”
and
“Petit Paul”
).
A first report, made after the publication of
“Petit Paul”
and requesting the withdrawal of this comic, was closed without action by the Nanterre public prosecutor's office in February 2019.