French girl, 16, forced into hiding when anti-Islam comments online spark death threats and leak of school and address
POLICE have told a French teen who said Islam was a “religion of hate” to go into hiding after calls for her to be killed, raped or attacked.
The 16-year-old girl, named only Mila, has been warned to stay away from her school in southeast France as well as going outside.
Mila, who loves singing and whose profile is adorned with an LGBT flag, was talking with her followers on Instagram when one of them reportedly began harassing her.
After rebuffing the follower's advances, he reportedly began insulting her with homophobic attacks and accusations of racism, calling her a "dirty French girl", "dirty w***e", "dirty dy***".
Then the attacks took a religious tone, with zealots online reportedly accusing Mila of insulting "our God Allah, the one and only" and hoping that she would "burn in hell."
Mila then reportedly decided to post footage criticising religion in general and Islam in particular.
In a clip she said: "I hate religion. The Koran is… full of hate, Islam is sh**, that's what I think. I am not racist, not at all.
"You cannot be racist towards a religion. I said what I thought, you will not make me regret it."
I was receiving 200 messages of pure hatred a minute
French schoolgirl Mila
Under French law there are no restrictions on blasphemy or any criticisms of religion.
Her name and address and those of her school were leaked on the internet, prompting the local education authority to call the police.
Mila said: "Someone called my lycée pretending to be my father.
"The lycée called the police to protect me."
Mila told French media agencies that at one point, "I was receiving 200 messages of pure hatred a minute."
Criminal inquiries were under way to track the authors of threats to kill and rape the teenager.
The case has become a big story in France which has five to six million Muslims who often claim they suffer discrimination on a greater scale than their counterparts in the UK.
This week the hashtags #jesuismila (I am Mila) and #jenesuispasmila (I am not Mila) have been among the most popular on Twitter in France.
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The case has been seized upon by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Rally.
She said: "We might find the girl's comments vulgar, but we can't accept the fact that some people sentence her to death for that in France in the 21st century."
A spokesman from the prosecutor's office in Vienne, near Lyons, said: "The viral [postings] spread on social media networks of a video posted by a young girl expressing, during a personal discussion, virulent and hostile comments about the Muslim religion has provoked a multiplication of reactions taking the form of death threats and threats to commit crimes.
"The gravity of the threats ... has made it necessary to remove the girl from school temporarily and to take care of her."
