French Child Interrogated by Police for 'Apology for Terrorism'

During the two weeks that have followed the Charlie Hebdo attack, over 70 people have been put on trial for “apology of terrorism” in France. | Photo: AFP

A school director filed a complaint against a student's father, and allegedly abusively punished the boy, according to the family's lawyer.

French police interrogated on Wednesday an eight year old child because he said that “[he was] not Charlie” in class, in the southern city of Nice.

The professor had begun a discussion with his students the day following the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine that left 12 dead – 10 journalists and two police. The child justified his refusal to identify with Charlie as “they [the journalists] caricatured the prophet. I am with the terrorists.” The school director, alerted by the teacher, decided to file a complaint for the French crime of “apology of terrorism” -similar to inciting terrorism- last week, against his father, confirmed the education ministry.

One week later, the child was interrogated for two hours in the police station of Nice, informed his lawyer, Sefen Guez Guez.

To the question “What does the word terrorism mean to you?” the child replied, “I do not know,” the lawyer tweeted. “Did you say that the journalists deserved to die?” “Wrong, I have never said that,” he said.

Guez denounced the “current state of collective hysteria that surrounds this notion of apology of terrorism.”

“In this kind of case, pedagogy is what we need,” he asserted, saying he intended to sue the director, which he accused of having abusively punished the boy. The boy claimed he was deprived of playtime, had to stand in the corner, and was even told the following while playing in the sand pit, “Stop digging, you will not find any Tommy gun to shoot us all.” As a diabetic, he was also deprived of his insulin shots, claimed his lawyer.

During the two weeks that have followed the Charlie Hebdo attack, over 70 people have been put on trial for “apology of terrorism,” sometimes just for shouting “Allahu Akbar” to municipal police. In Corsica 30 people were found guilty, including people with mental issues.

Stand-up comedian Dieudonne will be heard in a Parisian court on February 4 for having posted on Facebook “I am Charlie Coulibaly,” a pun on the slogan “I am Charlie” and the name of the attacker of a Kosher supermarket, a few days after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.

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