French teenager Mila, a 16-year-old who received a torrent of abuse and death threats after she had made anti-Islam statements on social media, said this week that she did not regret her choice of words.
Mila spoke in public for the first time since the affair began on Monday evening on French television and defended her choice of words saying: “I did nothing wrong.”
“I absolutely do not regret my words. I don’t have to hide for this reason,” the teen said. But she added that she did regret using “vulgarity” during her comments when she stated on Instagram: “I hate religion. The Quran is… full of hate. There is only hate in it. Islam is a shit religion. That’s what I think.”
Following her initial comments, Mila was the subject of a massive wave of death threats and abuse from across France to the extent that police recommended that she not attend school and go into hiding under police protection, French newspaper Le Figaro reports.
She was also initially investigated under potential hate crime charges, but last week prosecutors dropped the case against her.
During her television interview this week, Mila described the various threats she received saying: “Considering the threats I received from people in my high school, I could have been burned with acid, hit. I was threatened with being stripped naked in public, of being buried alive. I had to drop out of high school.”
While many attacked Mila for her statements, others defended her freedom of speech including populist National Rally leader Marine Le Pen.
“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,” the former presidential candidate said.
Mila’s comments, while vulgar, reflect a growing sentiment among the French public that Islam is not compatible with their society. A poll conducted in October 2019 revealed that 61 per cent of the French saw Islam as incompatible.