Six people were taken into custody on Tuesday in the investigation into racist attacks targeting Franco-Malian Aya Nakamura, the most listened to French-speaking singer in the world, following rumours about her possible participation in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
“Six people have been identified as part of the investigation for incitement to hatred online,” the prosecutor’s office told AFP. Placed in police custody on Tuesday, these people were released the following day, in particular to allow time to exploit the “material seized during the search.”
The investigation was opened following a report on March 13 from the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) denouncing the numerous racist publications targeting the 29-year-old singer since the announcement at the end of February by the French weekly L’Express of her possible participation in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26.
This article was about the Franco-Malian star performing songs by Edith Piaf.
Aya Nakamura was immediately stigmatized by the extreme right.
The identity collective Les Natifs had posted a banner on social media which read: “There’s no way Aya, this is Paris, not the Bamako market.”
The artist reacted to this banner in a post on his social networks by telling them: “You can be racist but not deaf.”
Aya Nakamura, crowned female artist at the last Victoires de la Musique, released her fourth album, “DNK”, last year.
On Tuesday, she called on social media for “everyone to go and vote, and against the only extreme to be condemned” for the second round of the legislative elections on Sunday.
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