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Caroline Fourest fined €6000 for defaming young Muslim victim of racist attack

Rabia-B.-2

Islamophobe Caroline Fourest claims to be a “Feminist” but it appears her feminism is of the Neo-colonialist variety.

via. IslamophobiaWatch

Saphir News has reported that Caroline Fourest – the French “left-wing” Islamophobe who wrote Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan – has been successfully sued for defamation over comments she made in June last year on the radio station France Culture.

Fourest was responding to the attacks on two Muslim women in Argenteuil, one of whom lost her baby after being kicked in the stomach by her assailants. This followed an earlier incident in which a 17-year-old woman named Rabia Bentot (pictured) was punched and kicked by racists, who also tore off her headscarf while shouting “dirty Arab” and “dirty Muslim”

Instead of Fourest declaring her outrage at the assaults, and her solidarity with the victims, this self-styled feminist expressed scepticism about the women’s accounts.

Fourest claimed that Rabia Bentot was being manipulated by her father and by the Coordination contre le Racisme et l’Islamophobie, assisted by what Fourest described as the “communalist” website Oumma.com, and she suggested that the story of an attack might well have been fabricated. Even if an assault did take place, Fourest asserted, the police had not excluded the possibility that Rabia was the victim of violence by her own family, who could have beaten her up as punishment for living too free a lifestyle.

Needless to say, Fourest offered no evidence whatsoever to back up these disgraceful slurs.

The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France comments that for someone who claims to be a feminist Fourest is very selective in her indignation, especially when it comes to Muslim women who wear hijab. The CCIF notes that trying to discredit the testimony of women victims of violence is a well-known phenomenon, and has been vigorously denounced by feminist organisations.

Rabia Bentot sued Fourest for defamation, and last week the Grand Instance Court in Paris ruled in Rabia’s favour. Fourest was fined €6000, half of which was to be paid in damages with the remainder to cover the plaintiff’s legal costs. Fourest has announced that she will be appealing the verdict.

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    • HeGG

      From Wikipedia:

      “Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher once took McCain to task for appearing to excuse date rape when, in a blog post, McCain wrote about promiscuity among women: “Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride.” After indignation broke out among both liberal and conservative defenders of women, Christopher confronted McCain on-camera at the CPAC conference in March 2011, seeking clarity. McCain conceded the point, explained why he had been skeptical of a widely publicized date-rape accusation (against Julian Assange) and repeated after Christopher: “No means no; stop means stop.” Writing about this encounter, Christopher remarked that “McCain still holds many opinions that I find objectionable, but I also think that [the video] places the ‘character’ that is RS McCain into a context that simply reading him does not.”

      Which I’m surge you’ll dismiss, since McCain is your new super anti-Feminist hero or whatever.

    • HeGG

      I would think that anyone with a shred of decency would find his comment about date rape deplorable, not only feminists.

      Your mileage may vary.

    • Mifeng86

      Not being listened to or believed is exactly why women are reluctant to report it when they get attacked. I think Islamophobia is a feminist issue considering that most victims of anti-Muslim violence are women. I don’t care for the tone of the article I just posted in the link, because the implication is that the women are to blame for being attacked because of their attire.

      Oh I forgot, according to Ms. Fourest being the feminist hero that she is only the opinions and experiences of Western women are valid.

    • Mehdi

      Thanks Garibaldi, I agree fully with everything you say, that’s the reason why I stayed away from this discussion (I feel bad as it was a comment of mine that initiated it), there are many forms of feminism and disagreements over the term even between militants.

      Caroline Fourest has made herself famous by attacking Tarik Ramadan and writing a book full of lies about him, she then claimed that he refused or was afraid to debate with her while he said the opposite. I once asked a a swiss journalist after a debate where he was invited on TV, she confirmed that it was Fourest who turned down the invite. Finally she had to accept an invitation on a french program and he just wiped the floor with her. I need to search for it but it’s around 30 minutes long, so translation would be difficult.

      I also despise the Femen who are also growingly losing credibility (especially after they made a stupid demonstration in the Notre Dame cathedral against the new pope, another against the Paris mosque to protest against Salafism, and after Amina Sboui claimed that she was attacked by salafists at 6am in an area usually quite crowded, only to admit she lied)…

      Now despising these women doesn’t mean I dismiss feminism. I do like this article from Mona Chollet on the femen about their “fast-food feminism” http://mondediplo.com/blogs/the-fast-food-feminism-of-the-topless-femen

      Chollet is a feminist and defends feminism, when there are oppressions against women, feminism or womanism or other forms of activism are important. Chollet wrote a very good book (not sure it was translated) about the new forms of alienation against women in the west such as the cult of fashion, the narcissic search for the “perfect slim body” which leads many teenagers to anorexy and depression, and many other examples.

      So yes, one can and should criticize some forms of feminism but dismissing feminism as a whole goes way too far as I’m concerned. There are many many forms of feminism, some are a new form of western imperialism, as I related on the comment of Tunisian feminists telling the Femen to leave as they created un-necessary tension to their legitimate fights for protecting women’s social, legal rights or to fight sexual abuse or domestic violence. I also deeply respect many figures such as the ones on the link I posted or people such as Arundhati Roy, or Angela Davies, whether they describe themselves as feminist or not is a side point. Saying that these people are puppets of capitalism is unfair to them.

      Women’s issues has evolved (and are different depending on the places) and require new forms of struggle, and it’s up for women to find these solutions and talk about them. We have the right to criticize some forms of militancy when they go too far or end up being forms of bigotry, but I will never attack feminism as a whole for two reasons: – Being pro or anti when there is “ism” involved often ends up with black and white simplistic representations. As I told a friend recently, I don’t fancy communism but anti-communism is often silly and has been a tool for US imperialism or McCarthy’s witch hunts, I am pretty leftie and dislike extreme capitalism but I do live in market world and live with it, and we have already been over debates about the term islamism. Saying I’m pro or anti for all these terms is simplistic, similarly I can’t saying pro or anti for feminism, some of its forms should be criticized by many others deserve support and respect. – There are many organizations who target feminism are either religious fundamentalists (and I mean all religions here), or fascist, and tend to use some forms of excessive militantism to pursue their agenda of oppressing women. Nuance is important here, as I will never accept to have my voice or criticism by such people. In some sense everyone in this forum has been criticizing ISIS or other Muslim extremism, it’s legitimate but noone in this forums would be happy to see its arguments used by Islamophobes, one way of trying to avoid that is by expressing critcism with nuance.

      Sorry for the length of the response.

  • The greenmantle

    There are over ten million people of Irish decent in the UK . So I suspect you are mistaken .

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