French Justice Minister Under Fire for Comments on Religious Insults

"In a democracy, the death threat is unacceptable [...]. The insult to religion is obviously an attack on freedom of conscience; it is serious, but it has nothing to do with the threat (of death)", Nicole Belloubet had declared. The minister’s remarks were referring to the Mila affair, named after this 16-year-old girl who had made hostile remarks about Islam on Instagram. This earned her a campaign of cyberbullying and death threats.

The remarks of the French Minister of Justice were sharply criticized by political leaders on the right as well as on the left, reports AFP. In the wake of this, it was the Socialist MEP, Emmanuel Maurel, who was the first to take the floor to castigate the minister’s behavior. "What could have happened in our country for a minister of the Republic to say that insulting a religion is a serious attack on freedom of conscience!?" he indignantly exclaimed.

Following him, Laurence Rossignol, a former Socialist minister and senator, gave Mme Belloubet a score of "0/20 in constitutional law". "In France, it is forbidden to insult the followers of a religion, but one can insult a religion, its figures, its symbols", she tweeted.

To recall, the public prosecutor near the Vienne court in the Isère, dismissed the investigation for "incitement to racial hatred" against the 16-year-old girl on Thursday, January 30.