Samuel Paty had shown pupils caricatures of the prophet Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression

A French court has convicted six teenagers in connection with the 2020 beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty, whose murder shocked the country.

Paty was killed outside his school in 2020 after showing his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The attacker, a young Chechen who had been radicalised, was killed by police.

The court on Friday found five of the defendants, who were 14 and 15 at the time of the attack, guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him to the attacker. Another defendant, 13 at the time, was found guilty of lying about the classroom debate in a comment that aggravated online anger against the teacher.

  • Pratai@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    I am convinced that it takes a coward to enroll in religion. No man or woman capable of thinking independently for themselves would think twice about joining any faith-based nonsense. That is reserved for cowards who need the safety of like-minded fools in order to find strength and safety.

    • stembolts@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      Or a child. That’s why its so important (from a religious zealot’s pov) to introduce and hammer it into children. Get the fear in them before the ability to think arrives then fortify it so that thoughts are seen as lacking faith.

      Then they have a believer for life, afraid to question. Just as they like it. That fear (of which the owner is largely unaware) then manifests into denial, anger, and occasionally violence upon the introduction of new ideas. The word for those new and unwelcome ideas being “blasphemy”.