Sentenced

Anti-Semitic French "humorist" Dieudonné has been condemned by a court in Avignon to pay a 5,000 euro fine for "racist remarks" and "racial insults" targeting Jews and a symbolic one euro for damages to the two lawyers who sued him.

[Prosecutor] Raymond Morey had said on May 5 that "Dieudonné knows the importance of words, words are his job". "He delivers a serious message that does not go in the direction of appeasement and social peace."

A court in Paris is due to give its decision tomorrow regarding the "Heil Israel" episode.

During a hearing on April 2, Dieudonné said he was "surprised by the controversy the sketch provoked" and had explained that "his [nazi-style] salute at the end of his sketch was a Roman salute and not the hitlerian one and that he didn't say 'heil Israel'" but only 'Israel'.

For the prosecutor, Laurent Zuchowicz, the humorist has made a "confusion" between the religious Jew and the the imperialist, hegemonic politics encouraged by some Israeli settlers. He added that Dieudonné showed "ignorance, prejudice and unpreparedness".

Sure. And no hatred at all.

UPDATE: Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala to appel

"Of course we'll appeal [the decision], since, regarding the law, this decision appears to be problematic: a person that is not targeted by name by a press article is declared admissible to complain about libel", indicated François Roux, lawyer, to the AFP.

Me Roux had pleaded in the court that "Dieudonné's remarks were not at all racist nor anti-Semitic".

What did he say, exactly?

It's all those slave traders reconverted in the bank, entertainment and today terrorist activity [of those] who support Ariel Sharon's policy. Those that are attacking me have built empires and fortunes thanks to slavery and black slave trade. They're accusing me of being anti-Semitic, this is pointless, nobody in my family served in the Wehrmacht but it's Israel that financed the apartheid and projects of final solution. (...) I'm not trying to be a victim, but when a bomb is launched on my audience, nobody gives a damn because I'm not part of the dominant community."