The lawyers of singer Bilal Hassani, claimed standard bearer of the LGBT + community, whose concert had been canceled in Metz after an outpouring of hatred, filed a complaint with the Metz prosecutor, AFP learned on Saturday.
The complaint was filed Friday on the counts of “public and direct provocation to commit a crime or misdemeanour”, “provocation to discrimination, hatred or violence”, “threat and harassment”.
“Ant work”
“It’s a simple complaint against X to which we have attached all the identifying elements on which we want the investigators to focus”, explained to AFP My Isabelle Wekstein and Clara Steg, lawyers at the Paris bar.
“We have identified individuals or identity groups who sent hateful messages, even after the cancellation of the concert, towards our client,” she added. The lawyers say they are continuing their “painful work” by going through social networks. “When a violent tweet has 500,000 views, we cannot consider that there is no responsibility behind it,” they argued.
Threats and accusations of “profanation”
Due to threats made against the artist and his audience, Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani’s tour, had decided to cancel the concert scheduled for April 5 in an old church that had been desecrated for 500 years.
Opposed to this concert, the Lorraine Catholique collective had shouted at the “profanation”, in the middle of Holy Week, in a message on its widely relayed blog. Supported by Civitas, he called to “come and pray the rosary” before the concert, in front of the old church. The singer and his mother then expressed their intention to file a complaint on the set of “C à Vous”.
Associations are also complaining
The Metz public prosecutor’s office had seized itself and had opened, on April 6, an investigation against X on the counts of “threats of offence” and “incitement to hatred or violence against a person because of sexual orientation” and of “public and direct provocation not followed by effect to commit a crime or an offense”, had indicated the deputy public prosecutor, Thomas Bernard.
In this case, the associations Stop Homophobia and Mousse have also filed a complaint against the association of traditionalist Catholics Civitas for discrimination on the basis of gender identity.