French Comedian Receives 9th Sentence for Anti-Semitic Incitement

French comedian and notorious anti-Semite Dieudonné has been given a two-month suspended sentence for expressing solidarity with the Hyper Cacher terrorist.

French comedian Dieudonné has been found guilty for the ninth time, this time for for inciting hatred and defending terrorism. He received a two-month suspended sentence for a Facebook posting identifying with the values of Amedy Coulibaly, the Islamic terrorist who took hostages at Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris in January and killed four.

Following the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher terror attacks, Dieudonné played on the “Je Suis Charlie” cry against terror by posting, “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” During his trial, he claimed that he condemned the attacks “without any restraint and without any ambiguity,” and that his post referred to feeling that he was being treated by the French authorities like a terrorist. The court was not convinced in light of his extensive history of inciting anti-Semitism.

Dieudonné, whose full name is Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, is famous for developing the “quenelle,” an inverted Nazi salute that has become a symbol for French anti-Semites. In the past month alone, he presented a gold statue of himself performing the quenelle to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of his DVDs was banned from sale for promoting anti-Semitism and denying the Holocaust. His stand-up comedy shows often include rants about the “Jewish lobby.” In 2012, with funding from the Iranian Documentary and Experimental Film Center, he directed a film titled,“The Anti-Semite,” featuring Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson and mocking prisoners of the Auschwitz death camp.

His most recent trial was the 10th court action against him. With the exception of a 2012 fine for tax evasion, all of the cases related to anti-Semitism. The charges for inciting hatred and for being an apologist for terrorism carry maximum sentences of seven years in prison and a 100,000-euro fine. Prosecutors have asked for a 200-day suspended sentence and a 30,000-euro fine.

With anti-Semitism in France on the rise, approximately 7,000 French Jews made aliyah in 2014, up from 3,400 the year before and just 1,900 in 2012.

By Lauren Calin, United with Israel