Mila case: in the Paris court, two trials in one<

Their names are Pierre, Nawfel, Axel or Lauren, all of them around 20 years old – only one is around 30. They are bakers in Loire-Atlantique, baggage handlers in Haute-Savoie, law students in Seine-Saint-Denis, unemployed cooks in Calvados. A majority of atheists and Catholics, two Muslims. Clean record. Thirteen ordinary young French people.

Thirteen drops of water in the deluge of hatred that fell on Mila Orriols, tens of thousands of messages, since the positions taken by the 18-year-old young woman, commonly referred to by her first name, on the subject of Islam. “Your religion is shit, your god, I put a finger in your asshole,” she said in a video posted in January 2020, following comments criticizing her homosexuality on behalf of the Islam, before reiterating her remarks in November, in a new video relating to the harassment she suffered online, and which had then redoubled.

Surrounded by her mother, her lawyer, Richard Malka, and four guards of the body, Mila saw parade, Monday, June 21, nine of the thirteen defendants who must appear until Tuesday evening before the 10^th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court. Prosecuted for "harassment" and "death threats", they risk up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros. In question, messages posted on Twitter or Instagram on November 14, 15 and 16, 2020.

“Jump off a bridge, take a train”

Enzo, 22, gets the ball rolling. To a user who wrote that “the difference between Mila and Allah is that Mila, we have proof that she exists”, he replied: “Not for long. Then he sent this message to Mila: “You deserve to have your throat cut, you big fat whore, and take off your cross on the way, you are not worthy of it, you dirty whore. "At the bar, tight in the suit put on for the occasion, the young man explains, sheepishly: "The first message, it was not a death threat, but a comment on the fact that she was in danger of get killed. Well, the second, I did something stupid, I immediately regretted it. I deleted everything afterwards. He will be the only one to turn to Mila to apologize.

The defendants then file by, escorted by the litany of incriminated messages: “La Mila, she will continue until someone finds her and kills her, and that’s all she deserves”; “Jump off a bridge, take a train”; “Somebody crush his skull out of pity”; "Tell me where you live, where I'm going to make you a Samuel Paty"; "Let her die".

You have 61.99% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.