Seven people sentenced for writing anti-Semitic tweets on Miss Provence

APRIL BENAYOUM had been the victim of several anti-Semitic messages broadcast on social networks, after she mentioned the Israeli origin of her father.

Le Monde with AFP

Seven people were sentenced Wednesday, November 3 in Paris for anti-Semitic tweets for April BENAYOUM during the election of Miss France, in December 2020. These four women and three men will have to pay fines ranging from 300 to 800 euros a Eighth Prevented Was Relaxed, the Tribunal considering that his Tweet was not aimed at M me Benayoum.

On September 22, at the hearing before the Paris Correctional Chamber, the Prosecutor had claimed two-month sentence sentences against the defendants.

“Leave-go from Twitter”

“[these] sentences are light. The important thing is the didactic side, copy of this decision, which shows that we can no longer hide on the internet, on Twitter,” commented on the lawyer of the Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples (MRAP), Jean-Louis Lagarde.

The seven convicts – which had so far had a virgin judicial record – will also have to pay 1 euro of damages to the young woman, as well as several associations that had constituted civil parties, such as the international league Against racism and anti-Semitism (LICRA), the Union of Jewish Students of France (EUJF), SOS-Racism, MRAP and the League of Human Rights (LDH).

“Requests for M Me Benayoun were on a very modest criminal side, considering that the responsibility was that of Twitter, who had left for several days visible tweets,” reacted for his part Jean Veil, one of the family lawyers of the first Dauphine of Miss France 2021. “My client considers that the responsibility of this case is based on the let-go of Twitter”, against which another procedure has been initiated, -To he added.

“I vote against Jewish”

In December 2020, during the MISS ceremony retransmitted on TF1, April Benayoum, Miss Provence, explained that his taste for geography was perhaps due to his origins. His mother is Serbo-Croatian, his Israeli-Italian father, had entrusted the young woman, without suspecting that she was going to trigger in the wakeding a breaking of hate messages against Twitter.

Most tweets against him were unambiguous: “I vote against the Jewish (…) Miss Provence is Israeli, this bitch (…) I boycotts Israel”, “too hate that the representative of my region is a Feuj “or” me, when I heard the origins of #missProvence: “, followed by an image of Adolf Hitler.

At the hearing, the defendants had all admitted having written offensive messages, but none had recognized the anti-Semitic nature of the published words. Some argued to have issued a “political judgment” or acted on behalf of the Palestinian cause. Four of the convicts will also have to follow a two-day “citizenship internship”, according to the decision of the Tribunal, which emphasizes the “difficulty” of certain to “understand the scope” of their words.

The Tribunal has indeed felt that their words, “both in terms of [their] content and the context in which they were broadcast” expressed a rejection of the person because of his origins “or” of his Assumed religion “and aimed” directly the candidate, April Benayoum “.

/Media reports.