Mother faces jail for Jihad T-shirt

A MOTHER could face a year’s jail in Avignon for sending her three-year-old son, Jihad, to school wearing a T-shirt saying “I am a bomb” and on the back “Jihad, born September 11”.

The woman and the boy’s uncle face charges of “glorifying a crime” for making the boy wear the T-shirt to maternelle in Sorgues (Vaucluse). They risk a €45,000 fine and five years in prison.

Mayor Thierry Lagneau had called police after being told of the incident last September 25 and the mother and uncle were arrested. He attacked the attitude of parents who used a young boy to carry such a politically-charged message.

The Avignon prosecutor said the mother was “astonished at the reaction” but he said: “We have to set limits. They are not stupid; they knew what they were doing.”

The boy was born on September 11 and named Jihad by his father.

In Vaucluse a petition by the Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples got around 50 signatures for its call to defend “the right to humour”.