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A Paris court has upheld the suspended sentences, fining it over cyberbullying.
A French court has sentenced 11 of 13 people accused of harassing and intimidating a teenager over anti-Islamic videos on the Internet.
The court on Wednesday ordered the defendants to serve 4 to 6 months in jail, meaning they would not go to jail unless convicted, and fined them $ 1,770 in each case.
The lawsuit came after an 18-year-old girl, Mila, was forced to change schools and accept police protection for threatening her life with the first video of an online video in 2020.
The Paris trial was the first of its kind since France introduced a new court in January to try online cases, including harassment and discrimination.
“A social network is a traffic jam. When you pass a person on the street, you don’t insult him, you threaten him, you insult him, ”said Hitchert, chief justice. “What you don’t do on the street, don’t do on TV.”
‘I don’t like any religion’
Mila, who only gives her name, testified last month about cyberbullying, saying she felt like “sentenced to death”.
He describes himself as an atheist and was 16 when he started posting videos on Instagram and then TikTok, strongly opposing Islam and the Koran.
From then on he became a divisive figure in France, seen by his followers as a symbol of free speech and the right to insults, as well as by opponents as willful heretics and Islam.
“I do not like any religion, not just Islam,” he said in a lawsuit.
His lawyer, Richard Malka, said he had received 100,000 threatening messages, including threats of murder and rape, as well as sexually explicit messages.
One of them told him he needed to be “cut on the neck”.
The 13 judges from around France came from a variety of backgrounds and religions and were a minority of the people who follow Mila and their comments online.
The others could not be found.
One of the 13 was criticized for writing her – “Blow it up” – focused on Mila’s Twitter account, not on the virgin. The court lost the indictment against another for misconduct.
Macron defends ‘liberal rights’
The case has been the subject of much controversy since it involved a number of issues in France, ranging from cyberbullying and hate speech to the country’s free speech laws and religious ideology.
In the first viral video posted on Instagram in January 2020, Mila responded after being abused by a young man who allegedly insulted her “in the name of Allah”.
He also started using derogatory terms that were offensive to Muslims.
Strict hate speech laws in France criminalize sectarian hatreds based on their religion or ethnicity, but do not prevent people from opposing or denigrating their beliefs.
President Emmanuel Macron was one of Mila’s defenders, saying “the law is reasonable” and that French citizens “have the right to slander, criticize and practice religion”.
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