The Paris judicial court announced on Thursday September 14 the acquittal of journalist and activist Taha Bouhafs, the subject of a defamation complaint from the State. In a tweet published following the death of two young people in Grenoble in March 2019, he questioned the action of the police and called for the resignation of Christophe Castaner, then Minister of the Interior.
On March 2, 2019, in Grenoble, two young men, aged 17 and 19, lost their lives during a collision with a bus on a bridge, while they were riding a scooter without wearing a helmet and they were being chased by a police vehicle. In the hours that followed, riots took place in different districts of Grenoble. The next day, the Grenoble public prosecutor announced that the hypothesis of a collision between the scooter and the police vehicle had been ruled out.
The young people “did not kill themselves ‘alone’, it was the police who caused their death (…) We need to get organized”, wrote Taha Bouhafs on his Twitter account (now X) on the evening of March 3 2019. About twenty minutes later, the journalist published a new message: “Good evening, the situation is serious, two local young people aged 17 and 19 died [sic] because of the police in Grenoble following of a chase. It is unacceptable. The neighborhoods are mobilizing, we must give them our support, Castaner must resign.” It was this last tweet that was deemed defamatory by the state judicial agent.
For the Paris court, “the [incriminated] statement emerges as the critical and virulent opinion of a journalist commenting on a current event which has sparked a lively debate within public opinion (…) and does not constitute a defamation.” The court further considered that “by these comments, Taha Bouhafs calls into question the action of the police in the death of two young people, following a chase without attributing to them specific acts constituting of a specific fault, which alone would make it possible to assess the possible attack on the honor and consideration of police officers in general.
