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Trial of 13 people for bullying a teenager in France postponed – 100,000 threatening messages were sent to her

The trial of 13 people, tried in Paris on charges of cyberbullying and the death threat against Mila, a teenage girl, Following the release in November of a video criticizing Islam, which went viral, it was postponed to Thursday, June 21, following consideration of procedural issues.

For 4 hours, the Paris Criminal Court examined the various procedural issues raised by the defense. Some of the defendants ‘lawyers demanded, among other things, the cancellation of their clients’ pre-trial detention and, in fact, their summons before the court, deeming them illegal.

Juan Branco, the lawyer for one of the defendants, Jordan L., raised two constitutional issues regarding the misdemeanor of cyberbullying, provided for in a law of 2018, and what applies to the referral of 13 men and women to a criminal court.

The court will announce its decision on June 21 on whether or not to refer these qualitative constitutional issues to the Supreme Court. If he does not justify the defense’s request, the trial will continue, with the substantive examination of the case in two days, on June 21 and 22, said President Michael Ubert.

“There is no anonymity. “From the moment one commits a crime on the internet, one can be searched, found and tried before a court,” Mila said as she left the court.

“It simply came to our notice then. It is time to realize it, to say it: fear changes camp. “The more we are to open it, the stronger we will be, strong in the face of threat and harassment, which will only get worse if we do nothing, if we continue to succumb,” he told reporters.

The young woman, who has just turned 18 and is defending her right to blasphemy, is living under police protection after the release of a first video criticizing the Koran and Islam in January 2020.

In mid-November, she fell victim to a digital “onslaught” after posting a new video on social media TikTok in which she spoke out against her critics.

According to Richard Malka’s lawyer, Mila “received more than 100,000 hate messages and death threats, promising to tie her up, dismember her, dismember her, stone her, behead her, along with photos. with coffins, photomontage of beheading, with her head in the blood “.

Between the ages of 18 and 30, from all over France, the accused, most of them without a criminal record, are all on trial for cyberbullying. Some are also on trial for death threats and one of them for threatening to commit a crime.

Having been remanded in custody in February, March or April as part of an investigation into the fight against cyberbullying, the defendants have largely admitted to being the authors of the message for which they are being prosecuted.

They face up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros for cyberbullying, three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for death threats.

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