racism - Rwanda - trial
French writer on trial for inciting racial hatred in Rwanda book
Wednesday 24 September 2008
A French investigative journalist is on trial in a Paris court under accusations of inciting racial hatred in a book on the Rwandan genocide that described ethnic Tutsis as prone to lying and deceit.
Wednesday 24 September 2008
By AFP
French investigative journalist Pierre Pean went on trial Tuesday accused of inciting hatred in a book on the Rwandan genocide that described ethnic Tutsis as prone to lying and deceit.
"Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs" (Black furies, white liars) outraged the rights group SOS Racisme which filed a complaint in civil court, backed by the French state attorney.
"Investigating Rwanda is almost an impossible task given that lies and deceit have been elevated to an art form," wrote Pean in the book released in November 2005.
"The first Europeans who had prolonged contact with the Tutsis observed that they were trained in lying," he wrote.
The author of best-sellers on former presidents Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac told the judge he considered the court case to be part of a smear campaign orchestrated by the Rwandan government.
"For the past three years, I have been dragged in the mud. At best, I am treated like a racist, at worst a denialist," the 70-year-old author told the judge.
"This is unbearable and in fact I couldn't bear it. Two months after I was charged, I had a heart attack."
SOS Racisme president Dominique Sopo accuses Pean of reproducing in the book some of the "prejudices in the genocidal ideology" that led to the slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
About 30 historians, experts and politicians including former foreign minister Hubert Vedrine will be called to testify during the hearings until Thursday.
The Paris court is expected to deliver a verdict at a later date.
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02/10/2008 10:49:04 Alert a moderator
Can we use the same stereotype than the rwandan hate media?
By Kagatama -
Pierre Péan used in his book the stereotype of the "femme fatale" used by the hate media in Rwanda (like Kangura newspaper or RTLM radio) before and during the Tutsi genocide.
See here: http://kagatama.blogspot.com/
The Chamber notes that Tutsi women, in particular, were targeted for persecution. The portrayal of the Tutsi woman as a femme fatale, and the message that Tutsi women were seductive agents of the enemy was conveyed repeatedly by RTLM and Kangura. The Ten Commandments, broadcast on RTLM and published in Kangura, vilified and endangered Tutsi women, as evidenced by Witness AHI’s testimony that a Tutsi woman was killed by CDR members who spared her husband’s life and told him “Do not worry, we are going to find another wife, a Hutu for you”. By defining the Tutsi woman as an enemy in this way, RTLM and Kangura articulated a framework that made the sexual attack of Tutsi women a foreseeable consequence of the role attributed to them. Nahimana et al Judgement, 3 Dec 2003
http://kagatama.blogspot.com/
25/09/2008 19:50:50 Alert a moderator
racial double standards
By SanFranco - San Francisco
why does france oppress the views of the native people? europeans are criticized constantly, yet when europeans share their views they are thrown in jail while africans can get away with murder. i fear that the racial double standards that europeans have been subjected to will eventually lead to extremism amongst european men.