Another Algerian influencer arrested. Three men were arrested last week in Brest, Grenoble and Montpellier for hate speech. This Thursday, a TikToker was taken into police custody in Lyon. She is accused of having made “death threats” against opponents of the Algiers government.
Sofia Benlemmane, a Franco-Algerian aged around fifty, is currently in police custody, Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran told AFP. According to a police source, he is accused of having disseminated hate messages and threats against Internet users and more generally against all those likely to oppose the Algerian regime, and also insulting statements towards France.
“Fuck your mother, you and your France”
The influencer, who regularly hosted lives on TikTok and Facebook, where she is followed by more than 300,000 people, was placed in police custody for “death threats and public incitement to hatred”, told AFP Nelson Bouard, interregional director of the national police. She notably insulted another woman during a live in Arabic in September, saying “fuck your mother and your France”, “I hope you are killed, I hope they are going to kill you”.
A former football player often seen at football matches, sporting events and demonstrations related to Algeria, she was sentenced in 2001 to a seven-month suspended prison sentence and a three-year stadium ban after entering the pitch. from the Stade de France during a France-Algeria friendly match.
A few years ago, she was firmly opposed to the power in place in Algiers. In a 2020 video, she strongly criticized Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. However, her discourse has since radically changed, and she now shows support for the current government in Algiers.
His police custody comes after the arrest in recent days of three Algerian influencers living in France, for having posted content online calling for violent acts, often against opponents of the Algerian regime.
On Monday, the Rhône prefecture indicated that it had made reports targeting three other influencers based in Lyon, including Sofia Benlemmane, and two other TikTokers known under the names “Abdesslam Bazooka” and Laksas06.
Accounts suspended
On Tuesday, the Lyon prosecutor’s office immediately announced the opening of two investigations, one for “provocation to the commission of a crime or misdemeanor”, and the other for “death threats and public provocation to hatred”, targeting two of these three influencers, without saying which ones were targeted. In a video in Arabic published on December 10, Abdesslam Bazooka attacked opponents of the Algerian government, whom he describes as “traitors” and threatens to “cut their throats.”
Laksas06 for his part took up on December 11 an audio from another Franco-Algerian in which he presents the members of the Algerian diaspora in France as “sleeping soldiers” ready to become “martyrs”. The accounts of the three Lyon influencers were “permanently suspended for violating our community rules,” TikTok said.
Three other Algerian influencers are already the subject of prosecution for comparable content. Arrested in Brest, a 25-year-old man named “Zazou Youssef” was accused of a video in which he called for attacks in France and violence in Algeria. Placed in pre-trial detention, he will be tried on February 24 for advocating terrorism and faces seven years in prison.
A 31-year-old man nicknamed “Imad Tintin” was arrested in the suburbs of Grenoble for a video, since removed, in which he called for “burning alive, killing and raping on French soil”. Also in custody, he will be tried on March 5 for provocation of acts of terrorism.
An Algerian expelled before his trial
The third, arrested in Montpellier, is a 59-year-old Algerian nicknamed Doualemn. He was theoretically due to be tried on February 24 for “public provocation to commit a crime” after a TikTok video in which he calls for “making suffer” a demonstrator opposed to the Algiers government.
His lawyer, Me Jean-Baptiste Mousset, told AFP that he was “put on a plane” this Thursday bound for Algeria. He was placed on Tuesday in an administrative detention center (CRA) in Nîmes. Me Mousset regrets that “the government rushed his expulsion” even though he had lodged appeals.
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