These young men were condemned for hateful and homophobic messages having targeted the artist after a concert in the enclosure of the Saint-Eustache church in Paris.
MO12345LEMOND With AFP
Sentence of three to six months suspended prison sentence were pronounced Monday December 12 in Paris against eleven people who had harassed singer Eddy de Pretto online after a concert in June 2021 in a Parisian church.
These young men were condemned for messages qualifying the artist as “gigantic fiotte” and accusing him of having “defiled” their Catholic faith by interpreting a piece on homosexuality in the enclosure of the Church Saint-Eustache. Six defendants were also released by the criminal court.
Eddy de Pretto is “very satisfied” with the court’s decision, one of his lawyers told the press, Mr. Martin Lémery. “The court recalls that one cannot withdraw to the digital lynching of a person whose public commitments, sexual orientation or personality have had the misfortune to hit certain extremists,” he added.
relativizing the importance of relaxes, the lawyer has formed the wish that this decision could “be a new stone in the jurisprudential building in the fight against discrimination and the harassment of pack on the Internet”.
target of some three thousand messages
During the trial, open in early October, the 29-year-old singer came to testify to the devastating impact of the three thousand messages that had targeted him on social networks after his concert in Saint-Eustache. “We will be there on each date to remind you that the army of God does not leave this kind of unpunished blasphemy”, “big shit bag to defile our religion”, “down the Republic which makes us sub-men of this species, “claimed some of these publications on Instagram.
“I was very afraid to get out of my home, sleep disorders (…) depressed disorders, I could not understand this violence,” said Eddy de Pretto.
Presenting very diverse profiles but claiming, for the most part, their attachment to Catholicism, the defendants had claimed to have felt “humiliated” by the term “sodomite” used by Eddy de Pretto in one of the songs interpreted in Saint -Eustache. Some had also tried to justify themselves by challenging any violent intention and by highlighting their desire to pose “a legal framework” for “the defense of our society”.
During the hearing, the prosecutor had described their messages as “abuse of freedom of expression” and recalled that “blasphemy and attacks on religion are not repressed by law”.