A dozen men and women, suspected of belonging to an Italian group of the radical anti-vaccine movement, were arrested on Tuesday in Moselle, Rhône, Seine-et-Marne, Hauts-de-Seine and Finistère and will be tried at a later date, we learned this Wednesday from the Paris prosecutor's office.
They will appear for moral harassment by an online communication service, said the Paris prosecutor's office.
The two men aged 45 and 54 and six women aged 40 to 52 have been taken into custody as part of investigations carried out since the spring by the national center for the fight against online hate.
They are suspected of concerted online harassment of three people - two elected officials and a doctor - between spring and late summer 2021. A ninth person was also arrested, but released without prosecution at this stage. .
According to the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity (OCLCH), which led this crackdown, they would belong to the group of Italian origin "ViVi" or "V_V".
The name of the movement would come from the Italian verb "vivere" ("to live") and its logo, a double red V in the center of a circle, diverts that of the comic strip become film, "V for Vendetta".
VIDEO.
In Sicily, a nurse arrested for pretending to vaccinate antivax
The members of this group, who describe themselves as "warriors", highlight in their digital profiles the mask of Guy Fawkes, a character taken from the work, since popularized by the hackers of Anonymous and become emblem of the defense freedoms.
They denounce “vaccination blackmail”, consider that “the real virus is the government and the system which kills people and destroys society” and calls for a stop “the suppression of rights”.
List of people to target
In December, Facebook's director of emerging threat investigations, Mike Dvilyanski, explained that the members of this group coordinate in particular via Telegram messaging.
The volunteers had access to lists of people to target and to "training" to escape the automatic detection of the American giant.
On the networks, their tactics consisted in particular of leaving comments under the messages of the people targeted, rather than posting content.
To get through Facebook's automatic detection, they used slightly modified spellings like "vaxcinati" instead of "vaccinati", to mean "vaccinated people" in Italian.
Read alsoAntivax: insults, violence, death threats … These pro-vaccine pass deputies fear for their lives
Under the publications of institutions, elected officials or press articles, we can thus see dozens of messages appearing, sometimes perfectly identical, published in a short period of time.
As a reminder, harassment, when committed online or via a digital medium, is punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
