13 people linked to a racist incident that focused the French-Malian pop star Aya Nakamura after she was introduced as a performer for the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony went to court docket in Paris, France, on Wednesday.
The 13 concerned, who’ve ties to the French excessive far-right group Les Natifs (the Natives), and span ages between 20 and 31, face expenses of publicly inciting hatred or violence — or complicity in such incitement — on the grounds of ethnicity, nationality, race or faith, France 24 reported.
Teams like Les Natifs have cropped up overseas and espouse white-nationalist views and “great-replacement” conspiracy theories.
The defendants are accused of unveiling a banner alongside the River Seine that learn: “No means, Aya, that is Paris, not the Bamako market,” in reference to Mali’s capital the place the 30-year-old star hails from and her smash hit “Djadja.”
Whereas three have been current in court docket, the remaining 10 have been represented in court docket by their attorneys. The group’s 24-year-old spokesman, Stanislas T., refused to reply questions and as a substitute learn an announcement explaining his actions, in response to CBS 19 Information.
“What’s at stake at present is the difficulty of freedom of expression and the independence of the judicial system,” mentioned the 24-year-old spokesman, who additional denied that the group focused Nakamura for her race however as a substitute for her vulgarity.
When the “Baddies” singer was initially introduced among the many 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony lineup in March 2024, she was met with intense far-right criticism. Many, together with far-right chief Marine Le Pen felt Nakamura didn’t precisely symbolize France.
“The French don’t need to be represented within the eyes of the world by a singer whose model is influenced by the hood and Africa. This can be a political transfer by Emmanuel Macron, who desires to inform the world that the face of France is multicultural, and we’re now not a nation with Christian roots and European tradition,” Le Pen was quoted as saying on the time by NPR.
After the banner was unveiled, the singer and anti-discrimination NGOs filed complaints with the Paris prosecutor’s workplace, resulting in an investigation by France’s anti-hate crimes group, OCLCH.
Regardless of her detractors’ claims that she would “humiliate” France or wasn’t an correct illustration of the European nation, she stays one of many nation’s top-selling pop artists.
Addressing the controversy and the banner on the time on-line, the singer mentioned, per the shops, “You will be racist, however you’re not deaf… and that’s what actually bothers you! I’m all of the sudden the primary subject of debate — however what do I actually owe you? Nothing.”
Prosecutors within the trial are searching for as much as 4 months in jail for the defendants.
