Far-Right Activists Sentenced for Hate Speech Against Lyon Mosque Leader

A former spokesperson and a former activist of Génération identitaire, a far-right political movement based in Lyon and dissolved in March 2021 after an operation aimed at preventing the passage of migrants between Haute-Garonne and Spain, are paying for the hateful tweets against the rector of the city’s mosque, Kamel Kabtane. They were sentenced to four months in prison with probation. The Lyon Criminal Court also fined them 5,000 euros to be paid jointly.

"This conviction confirms to me that [...] no one can be subjected to such a despicable treatment as the one I was the object of from individuals who, under the cover of freedom of expression, believed they had the right to attack my dignity and my honor by questioning my belonging to this country and the action I have always undertaken in the service of living together and the country," Kamel Kabtane reacted in a statement.

The two defendants had targeted the rector of the Lyon mosque in 2020, after accusing him of having called to prayer during the lockdown. Subsequently, they were in turn accused of "public incitement to hatred". In his explanations, Kamel Kabtane assured at the time that the only call to prayer, launched in Lyon during the confinement, had been the one launched on March 25, 2020, at the same time as the bells of all the churches in France rang in solidarity with the caregivers. This did not convince the identitarians.

On April 21 of the same year, the group projected onto the minaret of the Lyon mosque a visual denouncing the Muslim calls to prayer. On this visual, one could read: "Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, Germany, Spain. Stop! The Muezzin’s chant will not resonate in Europe". They had also published on social networks a petition calling for the expulsion of the rector to Algeria. Not to mention several hateful tweets, one of which displayed Kabtane’s photo next to that of Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the November 13, 2015 attacks. In this tweet, the identitarians claimed that the two men had the goal of "Islamizing France". Two of the three members of the group will be identified, arrested, before being prosecuted in court.