Unless the situation turns around, Amira Z. will wait three more weeks in prison. This pro-Palestinian activist, aged 34, was placed in pre-trial detention on September 19. His trial is set for October 21. This Wednesday, his request for release was rejected.
The activist, co-founder of the association De Nice à Gaza (from which she has since been dismissed), was arrested after the publication of a series of anti-Jewish posts on the social network work.” “Hitler made a big mistake, he should have put you all in the gas chambers…” He is accused of thirteen crimes, all committed at the end of the summer. Amira Z. will explain this during the trial on the merits.
For the moment, it is her placement in pre-trial detention that she is contesting. The Nice Criminal Court wanted to prevent any risk of reiteration of the facts, especially as October 7 approaches, the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel. After a new hearing, in another composition, the court reached the same conclusion.
“I regret”
It was by videoconference, from the Nice remand prison, that Amira Z. initiated a mea culpa. “Of course I regret the publications that may have offended the Jewish community. I am fully aware that I may have hurt this community. It was… not at all intentional.”
For this caregiver, a 2nd year nursing student, with no criminal record, incarceration has serious consequences. Here she is deprived of her disabled daughter, and of the internship she was supposed to do in a hospital establishment. “I had a traumatic search, 48 hours of police custody, fifteen days in pre-trial detention, with quite traumatic moments,” sighs Amira Z., without being able to contain her tears.
“The detention made him think”
Her lawyer, Me Kada Sadouni, recalls “Ms. Z’s commitment.” in an “international context which has an impact on life in Nice”. He admits: “She slipped. Some of her comments are reprehensible. But pre-trial detention made her think.” Consequently, he pleads for judicial review.
For prosecutor Julie André, “the risk of recurrence is very strong”. The court chaired by Edouard Levrault shares this opinion. Even more so “in an explosive political context”.
Kept in detention, Amira Z. gets up without a word. She goes to the women’s quarters where vociferations are emanating.
