On December 30, the last working day before the January Judicial recess, the Third Chamber of the Buenos Aires Court of Cassation revoked, with two votes against one, the acquittal granted to MST-FITU leader Alejandro Bodart last August by Judge Natalia Molina in the trial that the Zionist entity DAIA promotes against him for alleged “incitement to discrimination.” Of course, we will appeal.
Paul Biscayart
In an extensive 154-page text, judges Ignacio Mahiques and Jorge Atilio Franza resolved to sentence Bodart to six months in prison, in suspense, plus the trial’s costs, while Judge Patricia Ana Larroca, president of the court, upheld the previous acquittal.
Among other strong arguments, Judge Larocca developed the following in 26 pages:
- She demonstrated that Bodart’s three tweets, which are the sole object of the trial, do not have the objective or subjective typicality to be classified as a crime of discrimination as penalized by Law 23,592.
- She recalled that the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism “is not legally binding. That is to say, although it functions as an interpretative guide, it does not oblige judges to apply it.” For this reason, she validated Judge Molina’s use of the definition of the Jerusalem Declaration.
- She invalidated the report by the INADI’s Emiliano Marilungo against Bodart: “he was not capable of defining what Zionism is, (nor) what hate speech is, (nor) a definition of State, (nor) differences or similarities between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, (nor) what ‘from the river to the sea’ means… he lacks the necessary aptitude to issue a ruling on the matter for which he issued his report, which strips his conclusions of all entity.”
- He defended the national and international regulations that recognize free speech, to then conclude that “the expressions that were the subject of controversy here, in my opinion, find protection in the right to freedom of expression.”
Colonized judges
In contrast to Larocca, Judge Mahiques had to showcase 80 pages to justify his reprehensible vote of condemnation. He is one of a whole string of judges and prosecutors whom the Zionist apparatus, as it does in much of the world, has domesticated in order to silence all criticism of the genocidal State of Israel. By acting in this way, also at the pleasure of pro-Zionist Milei, this sector of the Judiciary becomes an accomplice.
- In addition to citing other texts by Bodart that are not included in the case, Mahiques lies when he claims that “discriminatory speech can have a massive reach for millions of users,” when the three tweets in question accumulated 24,679 impressions.
- Crudely, he equates the State with the people: “delegitimizing the entire existence of the State of Israel and promoting its destruction, with the consequent persecution of the Jewish people who inhabit that territory and of all those communities that are associated with that state.” Does this judge ignore that in 1991-1992 the State of Yugoslavia was disintegrated, destroyed, and the people were divided into the seven new countries that emerged?
- According to the judge, Bodart’s ideas “about a ‘single and free Palestine’ contain ethnic, religious and national oppression of the population of Israel, that is to say a discourse that encourages anti-Jewish persecution and oppression on the basis of that condition alone.” This is total madness: precisely a democratic, secular and socialist Palestine is the only guarantee for there to no longer be any oppression or persecution and for all the rights of all its inhabitants to be respected.
- Mahiques arbitrarily separates Netanyahu from the Zionist State: “Bodart’s expressions constitute a narrative that provides the basis for delegitimizing the existence of Israel and calling for its destruction that goes beyond any opinion or criticism against the actions taken by the authorities of that country.” No, judge. Only a racist anti-Palestinian State like Israel can have a war criminal like Netanyahu at its helm: our criticism is of the government and the State, both of them genocidal.
Finally, Judge Franza, in his 23 pages, does nothing but shamefully repeat the lies of the DAIA:
- For example, he says that the “State of Israel is inseparable from its population.” In other words, he is incapable of distinguishing between an institutional state apparatus and a series of inhabitants. Does he not know that before 1948 the Jews lived in peace with an Arab majority in a State called Palestine that extended “from the river to the sea”?
- He also accepts the hypocritical Zionist narrative that there are “new forms of anti-Semitism, among which is anti-Zionism.” With such an absurd criterion, Zionism would be the only political ideology in our entire history and on our entire planet that cannot be criticized, at the risk of being accused of being anti-Semitic.
Continue this democratic fight
From a procedural point of view, Maria del Carmen Verdu (CORREPI) and Ismael Jalil, Bodart’s defense attorneys, will present the corresponding appeal in the next few days. There are still three instances ahead since, as there was previously an acquittal, the current conviction does not yet have what is called double conformity.
- So the first thing is to request that another chamber of the same Court review the ruling.
- If that chamber reiterates it, the appeal of unconstitutionality before the Buenos Aires Superior Court of Justice remains.
- And if that court also condemns Alejandro, an appeal before the national Supreme Court will remain.
Of course, this is not a battle to be fought only on the legal level. In the context of internationalist support for the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples facing this new Nakba that Israel is perpetrating, as we have been doing since the beginning of this trial over two years ago, we will continue to mobilize to demand the acquittal of our comrade Bodart and to defend the right to free political expression. We did the same in response to the DAIA’s accusations against Norman Briski and Vanina Biasi.
We have received solidarity from a very broad spectrum of popular organizations and individuals, whom we invite once again to speak out in repudiation of this sentence. In deed, the only criminal here, the real serial killer, the perpetrator of crimes against humanity and anti-Palestinian genocide, is the Zionist State of Israel, which Netanyahu now leads.