JUSTICE – An inevitable skid? In Avignon, the opening of the Mazan rape trial, where septuagenarian Dominique Pelicot is being tried for having drugged, raped and had his wife raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet, for more than ten years, a sentence from the victim, Gisèle Pelicot, immediately made an impression: ” Shame must change sides ».
Mazan rapes: Before Gisèle Pelicot, Claudine Cordani first minor victim to refuse closed-door trial
Words spoken to justify his refusal to hold a closed session in this trial where 51 men with apparently no history find themselves in the dock. Except that at the beginning of the second week of a trial that is due to last until the end of December, the lawyers responsible for defending these men announced that they were going to file a complaint for ” dissemination of personal information followed by threats against their customers ».
Avoid the frenzy of the moment
An announcement made this Monday, September 9, at the opening of the sixth day of the hearing, through lawyer Isabelle Crépin-Dehaene, who spoke on behalf of all her colleagues gathered behind her. “As of this week, around fifteen complaints will be filed by the various lawyers that we are, in the hands of the territorially competent public prosecutors, others will follow in the coming weeks”she warned
It is hard to deny the fact that since the opening of the Mazan rape trial, social networks have become a very important sounding board. The cause? Several aspects of this particularly disturbing case. Whether it is the profile of the suspects (of a disturbing banality), the chemical submission perpetrated by the husband, the number of rapes committed, or the use of the more than dubious site Coco, permanently closed after being implicated in multiple cases of rape, pedophilia and prostitution.
On X or TikTok in particular, accounts have knowingly used Gisèle Pelicot’s words to literally change ” the country honte ” Which resulted in the unfiltered release of the list of defendants present at the trial, all of whom are presumed innocent. An illegal practice that could pose a significant risk to the defendants, regardless of the acts for which they are now being prosecuted.
“Personal information of the accused, their identity, surname, first name, profession, address and sometimes photos taken in the courtroom itself were disseminated on social networks, in defiance of the most basic rules of our law, the foundation of our democracy.”Isabelle Crépin-Dhaene told the press.
As a reminder, during the first week of the hearing, it had already been hammered home that no image capture was authorized during the debates in the courtroom, but also in the broadcast room where a large audience rushes every day to follow this trial which is unparalleled in France.
The lawyer also reports several worrying events that have already taken place. “Children of the accused were attacked within their school, wives and relatives of the accused were insulted, malicious phone calls were received by the accused, with attempts to break into their homes”she listed in particular. Except that for the lawyer, ” justice is exercised by our laws, in the calm of time and not in the frenzy of the moment.”
Enough to lead the defense lawyers to “must refer criminal proceedings to the public prosecutor in order to prevent any new form of violence or, as is to be feared, any attack on the physical integrity of the accused and their relatives”.
The trial of ” Mr. Everyman »
According to Master Crépin-Dehaene, they will be “systematically prosecuted those who disseminate information of a personal nature or who make comments with racial connotations towards the accused with foreign-sounding surnames”.
Because the publication of the list of names of the accused gave rise to a double movement, with some social media users allowing themselves to make racist sallies. Others, on the contrary, have rather highlighted the low presence of surnames of foreign origin, using it to discredit the arguments coming from the extreme right on the supposed ethnic origin of the sexual aggressors. The French consonance of most of the surnames of the accused would therefore be there to contradict this received idea and show that sexual aggressors are above all ” Gentlemen, everyone ».
Faced with these arguments, male Internet users have rebelled against this online campaign, using slogans and hashtags that take up the idea of ”Not all men » (« not all men » in French) to refute the generalization of these accusations against male behavior. Enough to push some men to speak out to dissociate themselves from this campaign with its masculinist overtones. This is the case of the artist and musician Waxx, who shared a message on X to react to the resurgence of the ” not all men ” online, while the femicide of a Ugandan athlete present at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has also sparked a wave of indignation linked to domestic violence.
Before this announcement to the press, the lawyers of the accused who wish to file a complaint also delivered their message before the criminal court of Vaucluse. In front of them, the president of the court, Roger Arata, promised that “tEverything will be done to ensure the serenity of the debates”. A necessary serenity “in order to bring them to fruition”A necessary reaction while more than three months of trials are still scheduled.
Also see on Le HuffPost :
Death of Rebecca Cheptegei: indignation and emotion of the relatives of the athlete burned by her partner
Mazan rape trial: Nabilla closes her support kitty at the request of Gisèle Pélicot
