French authorities have filed anti-Semitism charges against a website administrator over photos online appearing to glorify a deadly attack on a Jewish school.
Authorities and anti-racism groups hope cases like this help stanch the spread of a controversial arm gesture known as the "quenelle." Considered by some to be an inverted Nazi salute, it is increasingly being used to express anti-Jewish views.
The website administrator is accused of hosting "a number of anti-Semitic messages and photos" - including those of a man performing the quenelle, Toulouse Prosecutor Michel Valet told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He said the man was charged late Tuesday with inciting racial hatred and released under judicial supervision.
The prosecutor said one of the photos shows a man wearing a Yasser Arafat T-shirt doing the quenelle in front of the Toulouse school where gunman Mohamed Merah killed three children and a rabbi in 2012. In another, the man is in front of Merah's apartment building. Police are still searching for the man in the images.
The provocateur-comic who popularized the gesture, Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, and many of his followers insist the quenelle just sends an anti-establishment message, not an anti-Semitic one. Dieudonne, however, has been repeatedly convicted for inciting racial hatred and anti-Semitism, notably for comments making light of the Holocaust.
The Toulouse prosecutor said after the attacks on the Ozar Hatorah school in 2012, the city saw a "Merah effect" of increased anti-Semitic acts. Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman who professed radical Muslim views, was killed in a shootout with police.
Valet said he is concerned that images of the quenelle online could revive such behavior, particularly among alienated young people.
Soccer star Nicolas Anelka drew attention to the quenelle by doing one to celebrate a goal. Anelka, who says it wasn't meant as anti-Semitic, faces an English Football Association disciplinary hearing over the gesture that could result in a minimum five-match ban.
Separately, French authorities are investigating suspected tax evasion by Dieudonne and searched his home this week west of Paris.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.
Comments
I had no clue these things
I had no clue these things were still happening. Why do they think arresting one website owner is going to stop the quenelle? I would think it would cause more problems from his followers. They even said in the article that the man that killed students in 2012 caused more Anti-Semitic acts to be preformed. If his followers did that why do they think this would be different? I also do not understand how they know for sure the website owner did anything legally wrong. How is posting pictures like that legally wrong? It is not illegal to be racist only if you do something about it.
I agree
I agree with you. What makes the authorities think that this will stop the rest of his followers? This might make them become more hateful and want to lash out, causing more problems for people. I didn't know this was a crime as well, yes what they did is bad and shouldn't be happening but he is just expressing his views. So is expressing your view illegal now?? If so that't wrong.
I thought it was not illegal
I thought it was not illegal to be racist as well, but still, things like this should not still be happening, and it's worse now because we have all this new technology and social media websites for racists to spread their hate. I really didn't think things like these were still happening either. it's just not right.