Intimidating messages posted on WhatsApp status fall under stalking
The action amounts to a direct mailing to the offended person, if the latter can still read them even if voluntarily
The suspect for stalking, who publishes insulting and threatening messages to his ex on his WhatsApp status, was relieved of his position. The Court of Cassation thus confirmed the precautionary measure of theapproach prohibition against the applicant, who was initially placed under house arrest, which was then replaced by the approach prohibition and finally by the obligation to report to the police. The latter less stringent measure was soon revoked due to new persecutory acts. The victim had shown in courtthe phone screens with the incriminated messages, addressed to her and her family.
The open WhatsApp status
It was useless for the suspect to defend himself by claiming that those sentences, which he described as 'neutral', had never been sent to his ex-partner, but had simply been posted on his status. For the Supreme Court, this is an entirely irrelevant detail. Just as irrelevant is the fact that the woman went to read them of her own free will. The Supreme Court judges recall that stalking can also be achieved by posting messages on the social profiles of persons other than the offended person, if the perpetrator has the reasonable belief that the latter will be informed. In a precedent of the same Supreme Court, the offence of defamation was triggered for a writing posted on a personal social profile status, but accessible to all one's contacts. The same applies to publication in the open WhatsApp status and therefore accessible to all: the action is equivalent to adirect posting of the writing.
The pillory in the social public square
In the case examined, the suspect addressed his ex-girlfriend, calling her by name, asking for news about their daughter and explanations for her behaviour, as well as warning her parents and those close to her, offending them. There was no shortage of insulting comments about developments in the proceedings concerning him, and insulting words to describe her, such as the dialectal 'munnezz'. For the judges, the offended person's willingness to go spontaneously to see what the ex was saying about her in the public social square was quite natural.
