This investigation, led by the National Unit for the Fight against Online Hate (PNLH) of the public prosecutor’s office, was entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH), these sources specified.
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More specifically, Thomas Jolly filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Brigade for the Suppression of Crimes Against the Person (BRDP), ” explaining that he was the target on social networks of threatening messages and insults criticizing his sexual orientation and his wrongly assumed Israeli origins “, confirmed the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The charges brought in his complaint are: death threats due to origin, death threats due to sexual orientation, public insult due to origin, public insult due to sexual orientation and defamation “.
Proceeding to a ” first analysis ” messages, the prosecution indicated that it had entrusted the investigation to the OCLCH.
” Lots of messages “hateful were written” in English “, noted one of them. While the geographic origin of the messages had not yet been identified on Friday, ” There are probably authors abroad “, said the source, stressing that the investigation was still in its early stages.
Violent remarks towards Thomas Jolly
While the creativity of the ceremony, which took place on July 26, was praised by many spectators, one of its tableaux, bringing together drag queens, is fueling a controversy in conservative circles and far-right groups abroad as well as in France. It has thus attracted criticism from far-right political leaders, but also from the French episcopate and from former American president and White House candidate Donald Trump.
In addition to the criticism, a wave of hateful messages has swept across the networks. Many messages with violent language target Thomas Jolly himself, stressed one of the sources close to the case. Contacted by AFP, the artistic director’s entourage did not immediately respond.
The organizing committee of the Olympic Games from Paris ” strongly condemns threats and harassment » whose are « victims “the authors and artists of the opening ceremony, including Thomas Jolly, he reacted to AFP on Friday. ” Paris 2024 supports Thomas Jolly and the authors and artists of the ceremony in the face of attacks directed against them “.
Another investigation was opened this week in Paris, for aggravated cyberbullying and death threats against French DJ Barbara Butch, a feminist and lesbian activist, who was featured in the controversial tableau, embodied by drag queens.
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