Testimony “It was very organized and it was massive”, says ex-journalist Nicolas Hénin, as the trial of five people who had harassed him begins

This trial illustrates the difficult fight against online hate. Five people, three men and two women, are tried on Wednesday April 20 in Paris for threats and harassment against Nicolas Hénin, ex-journalist and former hostage of the Islamic State organization in Syria. The facts date back to 2019 when Nicolas Hénin reported the Twitter account of the father of a Bataclan victim. This father was calling “shoot the jihadists and their children on their return to France”. After this report, Nicolas Hénin found himself under a wave of violence.

20,000 hateful and threatening messages were received in 48 hours. Ex-hostage Nicolas Hénin remembers the burst notifications: “It’s dehumanizing, especially since many of these messages referred to the almost year that I had spent in Daesh jails being tortured. For example, these messages regretted that Daesh did not kill me. It was very organized and especially in terms of volume, it was massive”he confides to franceinfo.

Faced with such a “mass”, the investigators are sorting. The police select the most serious messages. They request account information from Twitter. Moreover, the social network does not respond at first. Three years later, only five people are therefore summoned to court. A frustration for Nicolas Hénin. “To me they are wolves in the packdeplores the former journalist. They are wolves worth pursuing but they are not the ones who started it. The stalking mechanic is a few really big accounts followed by absolutely toxic packs.”

“It is members of these packs who are being prosecuted, I regret that the people who started this harassment are not being prosecuted.”

Nicolas Henin

at franceinfo

With his trial testimony, the former journalist hopes to raise awareness about the seriousness of online hate.