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Bruno Retailleau announced this Tuesday, December 3, that he had taken legal action for “the offense of glorifying terrorism” concerning the video game Fursan al-Aqsa, already banned in several countries, which notably reproduces the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 in Israel , seen from the side of the Palestinian organization.
During the question session to the government on Tuesday, December 3, the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau was questioned about the existence of the video game Fursan al-Aqsa, offered on the online platform Steam, which offers its players to reproduce the terrible attacks of October 7, 2023 perpetrated by Hamas.
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“Relive the glory of October 7”: a video game shocks by offering you the opportunity to play as a Hamas soldier during the bloody attack against Israel
Responding to RN deputy Antoine Villedieu in the National Assembly, the Minister of the Interior said he had “viewed” several sequences of this game. “There is no doubt,” he said, “that it is the apology for terrorism” with “references to the massacre of October 7”. Bruno Retailleau explained that as a result, he had made a “report” to the Pharos platform and referred the “crime of glorifying terrorism” to the “judicial authority”.
Banned in several countries
The Union of Jewish Students of France said for its part that it had filed a complaint last week against Valve, the distributor of the game in France, via its Steam platform, but also against its developer Nidal Nijm, based in Brazil. The United Kingdom, Germany and Australia in particular have banned this game.
When it was released in April 2022, the video game “Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque” offered players the role of fighters who attack Israeli soldiers. Last November, the game received an update allowing certain aspects of the October 7 attack to be recreated.
According to the SteamDB database, the game only brought together 20 players simultaneously at its peak at the end of November.
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