Authorities launch more than 200 investigations into terrorist threats in just one month

by V4 Agency

There are teachers, religious leaders and MPs among those who have been threatened, and the perpetrators also include children.

Not even a month has passed since the death of Samuel Paty, a French history teacher who was brutally killed, and unfortunately it was not the last terrorist attack in the country. Death threats are also commonplace in France since the beheading of the teacher on 16 October.

According to the BFMTV news television, since the death of Samuel Paty on 16 October, 237 investigations have been launched in France into praising terrorism, death threats and violent provocations. With less than a month since the murder, calculation shows that nearly eight person get death threats every day in France. The targets of the threats are diverse, including teachers, mayors, MPs and religious leaders, while among the perpetrators there are more and more minors.

A few days ago, Stephane Raffalli, the socialist mayor of Ris-Orangis, a town in the department of Essonne, filed a police report after he had discovered threatening messages on the city’s Facebook page saying, “O hateful Frenchman, you insult our prophet Muhammad, then we will tear off your impure necks.” Attached to the scary lines was a photograph of a man holding a dagger in one of his hands. The mayor told the BFMTV news television about what happened, and how shocked he was, as he had never experienced such violence before.

After what happened, the mayor received a lot of support from his sympathisers, who all empathised with him.

Due to the recent increase in online threats, authorities are planning to set up as soon as possible a special department in the prosecutor’s office in Paris, which will consist of special judges.

In a statement to BFMTV, lawyer Thibault de Montbrial advised people to make a report every time they are threatened, as perpetrators of death threats must be brought to justice in all cases. The lawyer told the CNews news portal that Europe and France should put pressure on the home country of foreign nationals to take in people who the French authorities want to deport.

The latest case, which has caused outrage in France, is that of a 33-year-old Pakistani imam, who was praising terrorism in several videos and had been teaching children for years, while he was an illegal immigrant, who do not even speak the language of the country.

The fact that an imam, who openly welcomes Islamist terrorism has been dealing with children for years is extremely unsettling, as there is no way of knowing what he has told or taught them. It is particularly worrying as recently the number of cases when minors openly praised terrorism has increased, and several students believe that the beheaded history teacher Samuel Paty deserved to die for insulting the Prophet.