A French court has sentenced a nursing student to three years in prison for allegedly “glorifying terrorism” on social media.
Zaiter said “46 days after an arbitrary and unjust detention for having denounced the genocide and expressed my support for Palestine in Nice, I finally find my daughter.”
The trial highlights France’s stringent stance on public speech and pro-Israel laws.
I feel like a bit of context is appropriate ‡:
The vast majority of people in France criticizing Israel don’t get arrested. The French have even elected a French-Palestinian for the European Parliament (Rima Hassan), who’s been caught red-handed spreading fake news about Israel training dogs to rape palestinians, and is not in prison †
She won’t go to prison for this (suspended sentence, plus ankle bracelet).
I can’t tell if she actually advocated for terrorism, because I can’t find her exact words. But I wouldn’t be so quick to defend her given the circumstances. It could be true that she broke the law.
‡ https://qudsnen.co/?p=50621&
† https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/les-fake-news-de-rima-hassan-sur-la-guerre-a-gaza-27-06-2024-2564158_20.php
Likely that there’s more to this, but I think it’s also important to remember that they did the same to some climate activists and that institutions in France are notoriously hostile towards the French-Muslim population, especially of (North-)African descent.
There are way too many people alive who still remember France having colonies. Levantine Arabs have a better standing due to some Palestinians and Lebanese churches having close ties to France, but in general I also wouldn’t rule out that this sentence is as harsh just because someone disliked by the government was too critical of said government. Although I have to admit that this is now speculation from my side
I completely agree with everything you said. I wish we could see exactly what that person said.