The homicide of historical past trainer Samuel Paty shocked France and fuelled contentious debates about freedom of expression.
A French court docket has convicted six youngsters in reference to the 2020 beheading of historical past trainer Samuel Paty, whose homicide shocked the nation.
In a choice on Friday, the court docket discovered 5 of the six defendants, aged 14 by means of 15 on the time of the assault, responsible of serving to the attacker determine the trainer.
The sixth defendant was discovered responsible of mendacity concerning the content material of a classroom debate that sparked anger on the trainer, who confirmed college students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad throughout a dialogue about free expression. Most Muslims keep away from depictions of prophets, contemplating them to be blasphemous.
Paty was killed and decapitated exterior of a college in a Paris suburb on October 16, 2020, by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin named Abdoullakh Anzorov.
5 of the accused college students have been accused of staking out Paty as he left the varsity and pointing him out for Anzorov, who was shot and killed by police, in alternate for guarantees of 300-350 euros ($350-400).
In emotional testimony, the youngsters protested that they didn’t know that Paty can be killed. They face jail sentences of as much as two and a half years.
The court docket discovered the sixth defendant responsible of false accusations and slanderous feedback after it was established that she advised her mother and father that Paty had requested Muslim college students to exit the classroom earlier than displaying the cartoons. The court docket established that she was not in school on that day.
The trial, which has been held behind closed doorways and with media retailers barred from sharing the id of the youngsters as a result of French legal guidelines relating to minors, has underscored rivalry in French society over matters reminiscent of “extremism”, Islamophobia, and freedom of expression.
The ruling comes a number of weeks after a trainer was fatally stabbed in northern France in a college assault by a younger man.
Muslims and migrants from the Arab world say they face widespread discrimination and racism in French society, and that French traditions of maintaining faith out of public areas have been wielded selectively to crack down on expressions of Muslim id.
Politicians in France, particularly on the best, have often leaned into rhetoric that portrays Muslims and Arabs as violent and uncivilised.
