A girl in France, who was only 13 years old at the time, was criminally charged and has been convicted for falsely accusing her teacher of blasphemy. I think this case is interesting because it is perhaps the first legal precedent of a person being criminally charged for falsely accusing another person of doing something that was not against the law. Samuel Paty, the 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and then beheaded near his secondary school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. His attacker, 18-year-old ethnic Chechen refugee Abdoullakh Anzorov, was shot dead at the scene by police. The young attacker decided to kill Paty after messages spread on social media that the teacher had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. When the French magazine first published the images in 2015, Muslims armed with guns stormed its office, killing 12 people. Five other boys, who were 14 or 15 years old at the time of the teacher's murder, were accused of being on the lookout for Paty and identifying him to the killer in exchange for money, though they have claimed they did not know Anzorov was going to kill him. The girl was criminally charged with "false accusation" for wrongly saying that Paty had asked Muslim students to identify themselves and leave the classroom before he showed the cartoons. She lied about the content of a classroom debate. She has been convicted. sources: Six pupils go on trial over 2020 murder of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, France24, 27/11/2023 Samuel Paty: French schoolgirl admits lying about murdered teacher (bbc.com), 9 March 2021 Six French teenagers convicted in connection to beheading of school teacher | Courts News | Al Jazeera, 8 Dec 2023 From a legal standpoint, this is interesting because the girl was convicted of a criminal law she technically should not have been convicted of, based on what she actually did. But it does show that a law can be used against a person, and a judge and jury can decide to convict them of it, if there is some other reason why they believe that person is guilty and should be punished. Also notable because the substance of the girl's accusation was not even entirely untrue either, but was based on something true. In this case it looks like they just tried to find the closest criminal statute that seemed to match or best describe the wrongdoing. Even though it was not a perfect fit. Some would argue that the girl was partially responsible for the murder, and knew that posting the accusation against her teacher on the internet could be likely to lead to him being killed. more detail from the article: The 13-year-old girl, who has not been officially named, originally told her father that Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the classroom while he showed the cartoon during a class on free speech and blasphemy. "I didn't see the cartoons, it was a girl in my class who showed me them," she later admitted. "She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral because her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson," explained her lawyer, Mbeko Tabula. The girl's father filed a legal complaint against the teacher and allegedly began a social media campaign over the incident based on his daughter's account. He identified Paty and the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris. Prosecutors said there was a "direct causal link" between the online incitement against Paty and his murder. This is also revealing about the present situation in modern France. Because of large scale immigration, the percentage of Muslims in the society is so high that being accused of "blasphemy" is likely to end up resulting in that person being killed. Some might describe this as "death by Muslims". In hardline fundamental Islam, there are several offenses that the religion prescribes the death penalty for. This includes leaving Islam (apostasy), and blasphemy. In addition, insulting the Prophet Muhammed is also likely to stir up many hardline Muslims into a murderous rage, and in fact is legally attached to a mandatory death penalty in Pakistan. (see thread here: Asia Bibi in Pakistan , Nov 11, 2018, posted in Middle East section)
That's an extremely broad statement and I'm not convinced it's true. What exactly are you basing it on? How do you know that? The reports are seem to be largely based on (selectively) leaked evidence from the case and none of them identify the precise offences she has been convicted of. It's also worth noting that the French legal system has some functional differences to ones you might be familiar with. Somewhat ironically, you appear to be accusing the French courts of doing something, possible wrong but not illegal, without knowing for certain that they actually did.
The news articles say she was charged (and convicted) of making a "false accusation". Here is from another older article: "A 13-year-old girl at the time allegedly told her parents that Mr Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the room before showing the caricatures. She is facing false accusation charges after it was established that she was not in the class when it happened." Six teens in French court over alleged connection with beheading of school teacher - ABC News, 27 Nov 2023 What was that "false accusation"? It looks like she did not accuse the teacher of doing anything that was illegal. And not only that, but her accusation was in fact largely true, in essence, although she lied about how exactly she came to know about what her teacher did, and exaggerated what he said. Probably it could be said that is not really precisely the actual reason they chose to criminally charge her, but that was the law they chose to charge her with, and that she was convicted of.
Yes, but I don't think that is an offence in French law. It's like saying a thief was convicted of "taking stuff". If you're going to make assertions about how the law has been previously used or whether she should have been convicted, you need to know the details of the legislation under which she was charged and convicted. Yes, but what makes you assume her accusation not being of an illegal act prevents this being a legitimate conviction under French law? That is apparently what the reporting of the selectively leaked documents from the case, but we obviously don't have all the details. Neither of us can know whether you're right or not.
