Suspended prison required against Nicolas Hénin’s online stalkers

Five people appeared to have participated on Twitter at a wave of messages against the former journalist and hostage of the Islamic state.

by

“This file is the meeting of people who suffer”, summarizes in his pleading Louis Barrow, one of the defense lawyers. The trial held for six hours, Wednesday, April 20th in front of the 24 – sup> e Correctional Chamber of Paris, is especially that of a sad banality, that of hatred in pack on social networks become “smelly”, according to the terms of several defendants.

In early 2019, on his Twitter account, Nicolas Hénin, former journalist who became a consultant, a specialist of the Middle East – and former hostage of the Islamic State, for ten months between 2013 and 2014 – calls to report another account, the one Patrick Garden. This inconsolable father of a Bataclan victim in 2015 commented on the debate on the possibility of the return of Jihadists detained in Syria by considering that the “shoot”, adding, “Let’s also kill their children. “.

The social network then deletes – for the fifteenth time – Mr. Garden’s account. The latter immediately creates a new one, and castigates the “small dazzle Gauchias”. A message relayed by number of extreme right figures, resulting in a wave of hatred towards Nicolas Hénin. The former journalist and advice, Eric Moraain, identified and indexed more than 20,000 hateted tweets to him. But only five authors have been identified and pursued. This trial, one of the first cases of “packing of pack” – an aggravating circumstance introduced in 2018 by the Schiappa law – immediately showed the limits of justice in this area: “the public prosecutor is dependent on the goodwill. Social and Twitter “to identify the harassment authors, justified the prosecutor in his requisitions.

Anonymous Account

Of the five missed, three could not, or not desired, come to the court. Faced with Mr. Hénin, there are two people who have little in common: Mathis C., frail 21-year-old man, is a student in a prestigious business school; While Nathalie T., gray hair squared, fifties, mother of two great children and works as a frame in a big company. One thing however brings them together: their anger against Mr. Hénin.

“fucking FDP [son of whore], it is he who deserves to be executed,” had tweeted Mathis C., via his anonymous account, “the Christian”, in response to a message from Damien Rieu, Figure of the extreme right online – and became framework of the Eric Zemmour campaign. A message published “under the shot” by a young man who was “looking for ideas”, without thinking that Nicolas Hénin “could read it,” apologizes the young student, who would like to “work in diplomacy “- what makes the audience and the court smile.

You have 40.43% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.

/Media reports.