Former Screen Star Convicted By French Court of Inciting Hatred

Former screen star, now animal rights activist, Brigitte Bardot yesterday was fined over $23,000 by a French court for provoking discrimination and racial hatred against Muslims. She was also ordered to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP, a French anti-racism group. According to reports by AP and AHN, the case grew out of a letter she wrote in December 2006 to then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and which she subsequently published her foundation's quarterly journal. The letter objected to the slaughter of sheep by Muslims for the feast of Eid el-Kebir (also known as Eid al-Adha) and said that France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts." The court also ordered that the court's opinion be published in the newsletter of Bardot's animal rights foundation. This is the fifth time in eleven years that Bardot has been convicted of inciting racial hatred.