14/11/2022
French gay magazine Tetu reveals that the former President of the direct action campaign group ACT UP in Paris has been aquitted of defamation by the courts. A case against him was brought by Helene Bidard, a Stalinist feminist and member of the authoritarian Partie Communiste Francais. Bidard had opposed all sex work in the Capital in her role as a deputy Mayor of the city. When a transgender sex worker, Jessyca Sarmiento, was murdered, ACT UP’s President Marc-Antoine Bartoli remarked on how the sexphobic Communist deputy had contributed to the environment in which the sex worker had died. Many LGBTQI+ activists saw Hélène Bigard's lawsuit as a gag procedure, aimed at judicially harassing the former president of Act Up in order to create a feeling of self-censorship. "We see, in this defamation attack by the elected representative Hélène Bidard on the then president of the association Act Up-Paris Marc-Antoine Bartoli, a misuse of justice to limit the freedom of expression of activists," proclaimed an article published by Têtu· and supported by 86 human rights activists.
