The lawyers of the singer Bilal Hassani, claimed standard-bearer of the LGBT+ community, whose concert had been canceled in Metz after an outpouring of hatred, have filed a complaint with the Metz prosecutor, AFP learned Saturday.

The complaint was filed on Friday on charges of "public and direct provocation to commit a crime or misdemeanour", "incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence", "threat and harassment".

"Ant work"

"This is a simple complaint against X to which we have attached all the identification elements on which we want the investigators to focus," Isabelle Wekstein and Clara Steg, lawyers at the Paris Bar, told AFP.

"We have identified individuals or identity groups who have sent hate messages, even after the cancellation of the concert, towards our client," she added. The lawyers say they continue their "ant work" by scouring social networks. "When a violent tweet gets 500,000 views, we cannot consider that there is not a responsibility behind it," they argued.

Threats and accusations of "desecration"

Due to threats against the artist and his audience, Live Nation, producer of Bilal Hassani's tour, had decided to cancel the concert scheduled for April 5 in an old church deconsecrated for 500 years.

Opposed to this concert, the collective Lorraine Catholique had screamed at the "desecration", in the middle of Holy Week, in a message on its blog widely relayed. Supported by Civitas, he called to "come and pray the rosary" before the concert, in front of the old church. The singer and his mother had then expressed their intention to file a complaint on the set of "C à Vous".

Associations also file complaints

The Metz prosecutor's office had seized itself and had opened, on April 6, an investigation against X on charges of "threats of offense" and "provocation to hatred or violence against a person because of sexual orientation" and "public and direct provocation not followed by effect to commit a crime or offense", had indicated the deputy public prosecutor, Thomas Bernard.

In this case, the associations Stop Homophobia and Mousse also filed a complaint against the association of traditionalist Catholics Civitas for discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

  • Entertainment
  • Culture
  • Bilal Hassani
  • Metz
  • Moselle
  • Grand East
  • Lorraine
  • Concert
  • Homophobia
  • LGBT+ Movement