This evening of December 19, 2020, April Benayoum savors her place of first runner-up in the Miss France competition. The French, deconfined a few days earlier but still subject to curfew, were there. The ceremony attracted over 8 million viewers. But for the 22-year-old business school student, the party will be short-lived.
For several hours, the young woman who wears the colors of Provence has been the subject of anti-Semitic messages on the social network Twitter. The motive: to have mentioned the Israeli origins of his father during the show. Reported the same evening to the American platform by several Internet users and associations, as well as to the public prosecutor of Paris, these tweets were the subject of a judicial investigation. Nine months later, eight Internet users must answer this Wednesday for “aggravated insult” before the 17th chamber of the Paris court.
“I vote against the Jewess”
Strongly criticized for its lack of moderation on the evening of the events, the Twitter company however collaborated with the investigators of the BRDP, the brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person, in charge of the investigation. A total of 14 Twitter accounts were investigated and eight major suspects were identified by police. Originally from all over France and aged 20 to 58, these four men and four women were taken into police custody last May.
On @TwitterFrance # MissFrance2021 is no longer a beauty contest but an anti-Semitism contest. The reason: the surname of #MissProvence who called herself “Italian-Israeli”. And that’s enough to trigger the pack of anti-Semitic haters. pic.twitter.com/P7osNNsUS8
– UEJF (@uejf) December 19, 2020
“How do you vote against a miss?” I vote against the Jewess, ”wrote Rayanne M., 23, for example. Ahmet I., 21, is fired for calling the young woman a “bitch”. Another, Djamila T., the oldest defendant, posted an image of Adolf Hitler accompanied by this tweet: “Me when I heard the origins of #MissProvence. “Now referred to the court, they face a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros.
An “ordinary anti-Semitism”
For Me Muriel Ouaknine Melki, President of the European Jewish Organization (OJE) and criminal lawyer, “this case had the effect of putting in the spotlight the ordinary anti-Semitism suffered on a daily basis by many French citizens of Jewish faith” . His association, which brings together about fifty lawyers, offers legal and voluntary support to victims of anti-Semitic acts. “We deal with between 80 and 100 cases per month, and the proportion of cases linked to online hatred is growing,” warns the lawyer. His association, which lodged a complaint three days after the facts, is not the only one to note this development.
“We note that racism and anti-Semitic hatred are still alive in French society, and that they are spreading uninhibitedly in social networks. We demand the end of impunity on Twitter, we demand the lifting of anonymity on social networks ”, reacted the MRAP (Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples) in a press release published on December 29.
The stake of this type of procedure lies in the dissuasive character of the sentences pronounced, estimates Muriel Ouaknine Melki: “Justice has a role to play, it is also a vector of social peace. The anti-Semitic hatred conveyed on social networks can also translate into action when it is addressed to minds that are a little less well constructed or less structured. However, when there is an anti-Semitic act, it is always extremely violent. “