A 37-year-old woman was sentenced to 10 months in prison in Paris on Wednesday for “excusing terrorism” after she joked in an online video about the death of an Israeli baby in connection with the Hamas attack.
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Through the video, which was published on his Instagram account at the beginning of November, Warda A. gave “a positive judgment” about “incidents of a terrorist nature” and their perpetrators, the criminal court said. “We will of course appeal,” responded the defendant’s lawyer, Me Ilyacine Maallaoui.
In the controversial video, the 30-year-old commented on information from an Israeli rescuer that a baby had been placed in an oven by members of Hamas during the bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7th. This account has not been confirmed by Israeli authorities.
“Every time I come across the story of the baby that was put in the oven, I wonder if they put salt, pepper (…), thyme? “If they made him come back to what?” the thirty-year-old shared in her video to her around 9,000 subscribers.
During her trial she admitted being “a little ironic” and “clumsy” but denied any intention of “provocation”. She said she didn’t believe a baby could be put in an oven and only wanted to denounce “propaganda” and “media manipulation.”
In addition to her prison sentence, the court ruled that the defendant would have to complete a “citizenship course” in order to acquire the “values of the republic.”
She must also pay 1,000 euros in compensation and 500 euros in procedural costs to each of the six associations that have become citizens’ parties in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism.
Her lawyers took turns at the hearing to lambast the Instagrammer’s “infamous words,” “bad faith” and “casuality.”