At the Paris judicial court,
Faced with a full house and despite the late hour, the president of the 10th chamber of the judicial tribunal of Paris insisted Monday evening on the scope of the day which had just passed. “It is the trial of thirteen people but it is also the trial of a phenomenon,” he explained to Mila, the teenager cyberbullied and threatened with death since January 2020 after the publication of two virulent videos to against Islam. Earlier, the magistrate Michaël Humbert had said certain “that there will be a before and an after” this hearing. “We are laying down the rules of what is acceptable and what is not” on social networks, he said.
But limiting the stakes of the debates solely on the subject of online hatred and impunity on social networks would reduce their entire scope. At the helm, the defendants also drew the uninhibited or inconsistent report to social networks of some Internet users and reported a still very vague vision of what distinguishes blasphemy from insult. Faced with the regrets or evasions of some of these young men and women who face up to two years in prison, Mila and her mother were able to expose the brutal and real consequences of cyberstalking.
An ignored context
Enzo K. is the first to come under fire for questions from the court. Dark blue suit on the back, the young man aged 21 concedes a “bullshit” listening to the facts with which he is accused. On November 15, 2020, this young “tweeters” spotted Mila’s name in “TT”, that is to say in “top tweet” or “trends” on the social network. He then publishes this message to his subscribers: “You deserve to have your throat cut (…) And remove your cross in passing, you are not worthy of it, you dirty fat whore”. “I misspoke, I really regret. Mila she was within her rights ”, recognizes today the one who defines himself as“ Christian ”and who wanted to apologize directly to the high school student placed under police protection.
But for other defendants, the distinction between freedom of expression and threat seemed weaker, despite a full reminder of the facts of the president. “When I saw Mila’s video, it was racism for me. But I did not go to look in depth “, exposes Axel G. who called online to” find “and” die “the teenager. At the start of the hearing, the magistrate recalled that Mila had not posted “spontaneously” a video in which she criticized Islam and its prophet: “She publishes this video because after having shared her sexual orientations , an Internet user will answer him that the claimed sexual orientation does not conform to the precepts of his religion, Islam ”. A context that the majority of defendants claimed to ignore at the material time.
Pierre R., explained to him to have called to “blow up” Mila in reaction to his remarks against the Muslims. “But she never spoke of Muslims,” recalls Richard Malka, “she spoke of a religion, it’s all the same very different (…) It was not complicated to know what we were talking about (…) It was enough to ‘go to the Wikipedia page of the Mila affair ”.
Blasphemy and freedom of expression
A student in Paris and civic service in a town hall, Alyssa K, 20, explained that she was touched by Mila’s “vulgarity” towards Islam. A vulgarity which she decided to use on Twitter during the second wave of cyberbullying targeting Mila. “Okay, why is the other bitch still in TT?” We give up the balls of his life. Let her die seriously “, posted Alyssa K. Mila’s lawyer, Richard Malka tries to clarify:” You understand that it is not of the same nature to insult a God and a human being? We have the impression that you are making an equivalence. There is something which is legal and the other which is not legal ”. But the young woman maintains: “For me, Mila used freedom of expression and in exchange, I also used my freedom of expression”.
Faced with the sometimes hazardous conceptions surrounding the notion of blasphemy, the President of the 10th Chamber wished to propose this definition to the defendants: “To blaspheme is to lack respect towards God, or religion, rites, symbols of religion, that is blasphemy. But to say that all Christians are idiots is an insult, it is aimed at human beings ”.
Hot reaction and diary
During these thirteen hours of debates, the court was also able to measure the relationship maintained by the majority of defendants with social networks. “I reacted hot (…) I was angry, I did not think”, for example advanced Axel G. Another young woman dismissed for having posted on Twitter the following message “That someone crushes him the skull, please ”, explained to have been“ fed up ”to see the name of Mila go up on the social network. “I know that it’s violent, that it doesn’t say, but when I wrote it, I didn’t think of bad in fact (…) When I posted my message, it is not so that people see it. I tweet my days, what I do is almost a diary, I didn’t do it to get noticed ”.
This gap which exists between the violence of the remarks made by the defendants and the profiles of banal students with empty records has aroused the president’s incomprehension. “How can this youth be able to send messages like this?” How do you interpret at your age, that young people find themselves in front of the criminal court tampering with their hands in front of 300 people when they are not hidden behind a screen while writing on the networks ”. Disarmed, Alyssa K. answers: “I think that like everyone else I am not perfect, I make mistakes, I regret, I was stupid at the time”.
Confrontation with hate
Faced with this inconsistency, Mila’s mother wanted to describe the very real consequences of this massive cyberstalking suffered for more than a year by her daughter. “The first phase was astonishment (…) The flow of messages was not a wave, it was a tsunami, it was extreme violence,” she testified at the bar. Describing a cataclysm, she continues: “We have the impression that we have the sky falling on our heads, it’s another life overnight, it’s the confrontation with pure hatred (…) All her life has been turned upside down she lives a life completely cut off, almost like in a cave, ”adds her mother.
Examined at Grenoble University Hospital as part of the procedure, Mila was given 4 days of incapacity for work. “Anxious hypervigilance” and “sleep disorders” have been noted by doctors in particular. Last to speak this Monday evening, Mila confided to have “never a moment of tranquility”. However, in front of the court, she concludes: “I try with my relatives to remain optimistic. I have the impression of having lost everything and what I have left today is justice ”. The trial is scheduled to continue on Tuesday.