Cécile Djunga case: Belgian jailed for racism targeting TV presenter

A man has been jailed for 15 days for sending race hate messages to a Belgian TV host after she complained of a stream of abuse she received while presenting the weather forecast.

Cécile Djunga, who now also appears regularly on French TV, spoke out in 2018 about the racist messages and she was supported by her bosses.

In the end one man was prosecuted for his racist response to her video.

Outside the court Ms Djunga said she was satisfied racism had been punished.

In a Facebook post ahead of the verdict, she said the case had been a traumatic experience that had changed her for ever.

"I had never experienced a court battle and I didn't appreciate the psychological effect it could have. It's very violent," said Ms Djunga, who works for Belgium's French-language public broadcaster RTBF. "For days I cried in silence without ever really knowing why."

She added that she was spending less time on social media as a result.

Although the racist messages came from a number of different internet users, one man was put on trial.

Brussels criminal court gave him a six-month suspended sentence with 15 days behind bars, as well as a €1,600 (£1,400) fine.

Cécile Djunga also presents shows on France 2 TV and France 4

In her original September 2018 video, Cécile Djunga said she was fed up with being told to "go back to your country". Just as women were calling out sexual harassment, so Belgians had to call out racism, she said.

Freedom of speech 'not absolute'

Although she received plenty of messages of support, the racism continued. The man sentenced on Tuesday had sent abuse from his Facebook account insulting her race and expressing the hope that if she were to be attacked it would prove fatal.

The man, who has the initials AV, initially appeared in court without a lawyer and did not attend further hearings. He complained that Belgium did not have the same right to freedom of speech as the US.

Sentencing him, the judge said he was worried the defendant did not yet appreciate the gravity of what he had done. Freedom of speech was not absolute and could not act as a cover for "his hateful remarks".

Part of the difficulty of bringing a case was that other people had deleted their messages and without a screenshot there was no evidence.

"We had to find evidence and that wasn't easy, first of all because I didn't want to see the messages, so I didn't screenshot them," she told RTBF. Moderators on websites that carried her Facebook video also deleted problematic messages without following them up, she said.

Cécile Djunga brought the case with Belgian equal opportunities centre Unia, which praised the verdict for showing that even on social media there were limits to what people could say.

"For several years we've seen how social media networks let some people let off steam. We display our hatred without worrying about the consequences for individuals and society," said Unia director Patrick Charlier.