His tweet had an offensive scope, according to justice.
Journalist Taha Bouhafs was fined Tuesday to 1,500 euros by the Paris Criminal Court for having described police unionist Linda Kebbab as an “Arab on duty” on Twitter last year.
The journalist was found guilty of the offense of public insult on account of the origin, by word or writing.
In June 2020, the day after a demonstration against police violence organized by relatives of Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in 2016 after his arrest by gendarmes, Linda Kebbab, national representative of the SGP-FO police union, is invited to franceinfo.
She then affirms that, while understanding "the anger and the suffering" of the family of Adama Traoré, his death had "absolutely nothing to do" with that of George Floyd in the United States, died of suffocation after his arrest.
A "provocative" tweet
On his Twitter account at the time followed by 80,000 people, Taha Bouhafs commented on these statements, diverting the acronym ADS (security assistant) and qualifying the police unionist as “ADS: Arab on duty”.
A tweet deleted a few minutes later because "provocative", he explained in June, at the hearing.
In its decision consulted by AFP, the court considered that the journalist had "voluntarily based on his origin (that of Linda Kebbab), to which he reduced her, to assign him to a place of little value, even degrading ”.
"The anti-racists are the real racists"
No one is fooled, this court decision at first sight ridiculous is eminently political, it responds to the hard work of the far right to overturn the very definition of racism and turn it against the anti-racists .
- Taha Bouhafs (@T_Bouhafs) September 28, 2021
"
Arab service
is a formula which consists in designating a political posture", had argued Taha Bouhafs at the hearing.
"We are witnessing an attempt to overturn the definition of racism, we are trying to turn the definition against anti-racists," he insisted on Tuesday to AFP.
A planned call
Taha Bouhafs will have to pay 2,000 euros in damages to Linda Kebbab, which she will pay "entirely to social works for families of police officers," she said.
He will also have to pay one euro to the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, civil party.
All is not lost in the fight against hate speech.
Taha Bouhafs' dishonorable lies against me no longer allow him to hide that he is indeed a RACIST.
Justice has just condemned him for racist insult.
2000 € of damages that I did not have ⤵️
- Linda Kebbab (@LindaKebbab) September 28, 2021
"Mr. Bouhafs tried to redefine the concept of racism by the courts by politicizing the audience, sometimes close to the indigenous rally, the magistrates have been able to stay the course", reacted to AFP Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer of Linda Kebbab.
"It is not for her quality of Arab that Linda Kebbab is dismissed but for her quality of policewoman who belongs to a racist institution and denies the racist character of this institution", had assured in June the defender of Taha Bouhafs, Arié Alimi, who said on Tuesday he would appeal.