Suicide of Dinah, victim of school bullying: update on the investigation – bfmtv

Dinah, 14, hanged herself earlier this month. For his family, there is no doubt: it is the epilogue of a two-year school bullying.

This Sunday, in Mulhouse, a white march mourned Dinah. The 14-year-old girl hanged herself in her room, in Kingersheim in the Haut-Rhin, on the night of October 4 to 5. For her family, it is obvious: this desperate gesture stems directly from the school bullying of which the teenager had been a victim for two years. Today, the girl’s relatives accuse her former college of laxity.

While Dinah’s mother decided to file a complaint against X and against the establishment, the Mulhouse prosecutor’s office opened an investigation. This Monday, Jean-Michel Blanquer calls for measure. BFMTV.com takes stock of this affair that is shaking up the world of education.

• His family describes two years of harassment

It was on the night of October 4-5 that 14-year-old Dinah ended her life. She was found hanged in her room, at the family home in Kingersheim, in the Haut-Rhin. Her family immediately saw the tragic outcome of a cycle of bullying that began two years ago when the girl was in eighth grade. According to relatives of the teenager, she was the victim of persecution by a group made up of some of her former friends, to whom she had confided to be interested in women.

“They called her ‘dirty Arab’, ‘dirty lesbian’, ‘dirty mixed race’. They had also created a group on WhatsApp with her and they insulted her. One day, my mother took her phone to make her delete but they continued to send him insults through other networks, “his 21-year-old brother Rayan recalled on Friday.

Outside of social networks, harassment finds a very concrete translation on a daily basis, as Samira Gonthier, Dinah’s mother, recounted on Sunday on the sidelines of the white march organized in memory of her daughter in Mulhouse. “In class we jostled her, we hit her chair, she could spend an hour being shaken. We also took her notebook to draw obscenities on it,” she confided in front of our camera.

After his first suicide attempt, we wish him “not to miss”

During the last confinement, Samira Gonthier wants to react by depositing a handrail. Dinah, who fears that the procedure will make matters worse, discourages her from pursuing her idea. It is during this period, in March 2021, that the teenager tries to end her life for the first time.

An exchange of letters ensues between Dinah and his alleged persecutors. The first apologizes, while the seconds overwhelm her by wishing her “not to miss” during a next attempt, according to Samira Gonthier who explains having torn this inflammatory response.

In the meantime, Dinah is rebuilding herself, and obtains her college diploma with the mention “very good”. His arrival at the Lambert high school in Mulhouse, at the start of the school year, leaves some hope that the situation will improve. Unfortunately, in the canteen, she sometimes crosses paths with some of her old friends and the teenager “dives back”, in the words of her brother Rayan.

• Justice is prudent

After the mourning, up to the judicial aspect. If justice has taken hold of the case, it intends to treat it with caution. Thus, Edwige Roux-Morizot, public prosecutor indicated on Friday that the Mulhouse prosecutor’s office for which she is responsible had opened an investigation for “research into the causes of death”. An investigation which should make it possible to establish “the reasons for the gesture of this adolescent”.

“In the immediate future”, recalled the magistrate, the track of school bullying is only a simple “hypothesis”. “The current exploitation of his phone and his computer will allow us to know a little more,” she hoped.

Samira Gonthier, for her part convinced that the suicide of her daughter was indeed caused by the persecutions of her classmates, announced her willingness to file a complaint. Against X first, but also against his child’s former college.

• The responsibility of the college questioned

Because it is indeed towards the old establishment that the glances converge now. What did the management and management know about the acts perpetrated against Dinah? Have they taken the measure and what means have they put in place to try to put an end to it? None or almost none, in the eyes of Samira Gonthier.

On the sidelines of the white march, it has indeed developed: “Several times, I called the college and nothing was done.” According to the bereaved mother, the establishment adopted a casual position in front of her requests: “They were ‘little kidding’, it was ‘nothing’, it was my daughter who made a big deal out of it.”

On Europe 1, she maintained that the responsibility for it did not fall only on the direction but also on the teachers: “The teaching staff did nothing for my daughter, they told me that it was banalities between girlfriends.”

A confrontation was however organized between Dinah and her alleged harassers in the office of the Senior Education Advisor. The decisions of the college obviously interest the investigators and, according to RMC information this Monday morning, the principal of the latter was heard by the police on Thursday.

• The government rejects any “laxity”

Jean-Michel Blanquer stood on a narrow ridge line on Monday when discussing the case. Asked about this at the microphone of Europe 1, he wanted both to reaffirm that “laxity was not part of its register”, while calling for “not to get carried away”.

“Having criminal proceedings for facts that take place in a school environment is already something quite new”, he observed. “Many establishments have made progress in the fight against harassment”, added the minister who admitted, however: “But we still have difficulties concerning cyberstalking”. Jean-Michel Blanquer finally indicated that he recently spoke with the platforms responsible for fighting this scourge.

The case is all the more sensitive and painful as it is a mass phenomenon. Thus, according to the statistics advanced by Education Mutual Insurance (MAE) and relayed by AFP, 700,000 students out of the 12 million in the French school are likely to be the subject of harassment.