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Nine charged over attack at controversial mosque

Nine people are facing charges of unlawful detention and causing bodily harm in connection with a brutal attack at a mosque in Winterthur in 2016.

Published: 2 February 2018 10:02 CET
Nine charged over attack at controversial mosque
Winterthur. File photo: Simon Aughton

The former members of the controversial An’Nur mosque appeared before the Winterthur district court on January 29th, Blick reported.

They are accused of attacking two worshippers, locking them up and threatening to kill them.

The pair targeted in the attack are thought to have tipped off a journalist about a controversial sermon given by the mosque's imam. 

In his sermon the imam called for the murder of Muslims who do not participate in communal prayer, and for others to denounce such people. 

The 25-year-old former imam was convicted of incitement to violence last August.

During the investigation, nine adults and one minor were arrested over the attack, but no charges have been brought against the minor.

The accused deny the charges.

Prosecutors have called for prison sentences of 30 to 36 months.

The An'Nur mosque, which has been at the centre of a number of police operations over its alleged support for radical Islam, closed at the end of June last year.

The landlord had refused to extend the rental agreement.

Winterthur is considered a hotspot for Islamic radicalization in Switzerland with at least five young men having left the city to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for Islamic State.

 

COURT

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

Published: 7 July 2021 10:03 CEST
French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

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