“Good evening, this is a serious situation, two local young people aged 17 and 19 are dead (sic) because of the police in Grenoble following a chase. It is unacceptable. The neighborhoods are mobilizing, we must give them our support, Castaner [alors ministre de l’Intérieur] must resign. » This tweet, published around 11 p.m. on March 3, 2019 by Taha Bouhafs, was deemed defamatory by the State Judicial Agent who then filed a complaint. On Thursday, the Paris judicial court acquitted its perpetrator.
For justice, “the point [incriminé] emerges as the critical and virulent opinion of a journalist commenting on a current event which has sparked a lively debate within public opinion […] and does not constitute defamation. »
“They did not kill themselves”
On March 2, 2019, in Grenoble, two young men, aged 17 and 19, died while riding a scooter without wearing a helmet and were pursued by a police vehicle, during a collision. with a bus on a bridge. In the hours that followed, revolts took place in different districts of Grenoble. The next day, March 3, the Grenoble public prosecutor announced that the hypothesis of a collision between the scooter and the police vehicle had been ruled out.
Following these events, the journalist and activist Taha Bouhafs wrote on his account: “They did not kill themselves alone, it was the police who caused their deaths.” Then, around twenty minutes later, a second message which had been deemed defamatory and which had been the subject of the complaint.
“By these comments, Taha Bouhafs calls into question the action of the police in the death of two young people, following a chase” but, the court estimated, “without attributing to them for so many actions details constituting a specific fault, which alone would make it possible to assess the possible attack on the honor and consideration of police officers in general.