France ‘double standards’: Prison for Mosque offence, fines for Femen church affront
A French prosecutor is demanding three to four months of suspended sentence and around a $2,000 fine for an ex-Femen activist, who imitated abortion in a Paris church. A similar act in a French mosque resulted in harsher sentences for offenders.
Eloïse Bouton, 31, then a Femen member, was topless when she got
inside the Catholic Madeleine Church in Paris a few days before
Christmas 2013. She simulated an abortion by carrying to the
altar pieces of a calf’s liver, symbolically representing the
fetus. The act culminated in Bouton urinating on the altar’s
steps.
Bouton, who quit Femen after the incident, citing “personal
reasons,” appeared in a court in Paris to face trial for
"indecent exposure," on Wednesday.
The prosecutor requested three to four months of suspended
sentence and a 1,500-euro fine (around $1,920).
Bouton’s lawyer insists that what his defendant did was a
political protest and not an act of public exhibition, and asked
for the international law on freedom of expression to be applied
in her case.
The verdict in Bouton’s case won’t be announced until
mid-December. Meanwhile, the French justice system has already
proven mild to Femen activists.
Last month, France’s court cleared the activists, who staged a
topless protest in the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris in
February 2013. The female group then marked Pope Benedict XVI's
resignation by shouting slogans like “Bye-bye Benedict!”
and “No more homophobe!”
The only convictions in the case were eventually the fines imposed not on the topless protesters in the landmark Paris cathedral, but on the security staff of Notre Dame, who pulled the women away from the church. The fines of up to 1,000 euro (about $ 1,264) were suspended.
However, French justice has been tougher on offenders in a
mosque.
A group which placed a pig’s head outside a mosque in the French
overseas territory of Mayotte in January saw its members
convicted of “incitement to hatred, violence or
discrimination because of religious affiliation.” They were
given prison sentences.
The act was carried out by Sarah Leduc, 36, and Malika Lenormand,
44 with the help of Leduc’s partner Constable Sébastien Milin,
34. The three claimed it was a result of a bet made while they
were drunk at a New Year’s Eve party.
The act caused outrage among Mayotte’s population, 95 percent of
whom are Muslim.
Leduc and Lenormand were sentenced to nine months, six months of
which were suspended, while Milin received a six-month suspended
prison sentence.
They also got two years’ probation work, were fined 3,000 euro
($3,796) each and were forced to pay 16,000 euro ($20,249) in
compensation to the mosque.
According to Julien Pinelli, the lawyer defending the trio, the
fact that the population in the area is almost entirely Muslim
influenced the court’s decision.
“It was a special case because it took place in Mayotte,
where 95 percent of the population are Muslims, so I think this
aspect of the case had an influence on the decision that has been
made,” he told RT.
Pinelli launched a formal appeal based on the fact that blasphemy
and sacrilege are not criminal offences in France. However, he
believes the country should protect all its holy places and the
French penal code needs to reflect this.
The difference in verdicts for similar acts in churches and
mosques is explained by political reasons, believes Frederic
Pichon, president of the association of free lawyers.
“Femen have judiciary protection for ideological
reasons,” Pichon told RT. “Fifty years ago there were
only four mosques in France for 1 million Muslims. Now we have 8
million Muslims and almost 3,000 mosques.”
He added that France has “double standards.”
“If you attack Christianity, it's free expression. If you
attack Islamism, it’s Islamophobia.”
