French pro-migrant groups have denounced “racist” comments online following the murder of migrant aid association head Jean Dussine, who was killed by an Afghan migrant earlier this week.
Jacques Declosmenil, president of the Saint-Lois committee of the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP) labelled the comments posted to social media after the death of the activist “unacceptable and obnoxious.”
“[S]ome take advantage of this to make an entire community bear the responsibility of a man whose motives are not known,” he said, referring to the fact the murderer of Mr Dussine is an Afghan migrant, France Bleu reports.
“We are seeing the development of a discourse that says that immigrants are criminals, murderers, bandits,” he added and said his group was considering reporting online commenters to the police for hate speech.
63-year-old activist Jean Dussine was found bludgeoned to death in his home in the city of Cherbourg on May 12th with reports alleging he had been killed while sleeping.
French prosecutor Yves Le Clair stated that the Afghan broke into the house of the activist to murder him saying, “There are no traces of reciprocal violence. You would think that Jean Dussine did not have time to defend himself.” The 21-year-old Afghan national later confessed to the murder following his arrest.
The murder is not the first time a pro-migrant activist has been killed by a migrant since the height of the 2015 migrant crisis.
In September of last year 27-year-old Audrey Coignard was found dead in her home after being stabbed a dozen times. Her former boyfriend, a Sudanese national, was later arrested in connection with the murder.
In 2018, Germany saw a similar case involving a 28-year-old pro-migrant activist named Sophia Lösche, who went missing in June of that year while hitchhiking. Her body was found a short time later in Spain near ther city of Bilbao.
A 40-year-old Moroccan truck driver was later arrested in connection to the murder and allegedly admitted to placing her body near a petrol station.