The victims are women, former sympathisers of the Traore Committee, who received death threats in the spring of 2019 from Youssouf Traore, a known criminal and brother of Assa Traore, leading figure of the anti-racism movement. Taha Bouhafs, a journalist and activist sympathising with the committee, tried to discourage the women from filing a complaint, but they have broken the silence now.

The infamous Traore clan is in the news again though it is not to their liking. French conservative weekly Valeurs Actuelles reported that Youssouf Traore –  with a criminal record just like his brother Adama Traore who died in police custody in 2016 – sent death threats to several women who had previously sympathised with the Traore Committee. A woman, a certain Fatiha L., took to Facebook to give an account of the threat she received last spring, posting as evidence the obscene words of Youssouf Traore. You don t know who I am, I ll find you and take care of you, the man wrote using foul language.

Known for his violent style, Youssouf Traore has already been tried and even convicted for threatening and attacking police officers.

Youssouf threatened Fatiha after pan-African activist Ahmad Nougbo shared a post on Facebook, speaking about Assa Traore in unflattering terms. Nougbo argued that everyone has the right to support or criticise Assa Traore, as the woman acts like a public figure.

Fatiha agreed with the post, provoking anger from Youssouf, who systematically threatened anyone who had the courage to criticise his sister. At the time, Fatiha did not want to file a complaint because she felt it would be harmful to the image of the fight against police violence. However, she could no longer keep it to herself and eventually revealed the misdeeds of the Traore clan.

Another threatened woman spoke to Valeurs Actuelles. She said the Traore family was very strange, they had a lot of secrets, but the committee s sympathisers could not talk about them because they had been threatened. The former sympathisers of the committee did not like the fact that Assa made a lucrative business out of her brother s memory. She first had T-shirts produced with the text Justice to Adama, but after a while, she decided to market other products. Fabric bags were also made, but on those, Assa replaced her brother s portrait with her own. With this, however, he lost the sympathy of many supporters who could no longer perceive the project as a commemoration of Adama Traore, but rather saw it as a money-oriented business.

Threatened women say the Traore Committee indoctrinates people, and those who refuse to fall in line are chased away and intimidated. The committee did the same with them, and made sure they would not even think about making a formal complaint or report the committee to the police.

Taha Bouhafs, a journalist and activist close to radical Muslims, was also given a role by the clan. He was the one who dissuaded women from filing a report with the police.

In his latest post in late August, Fatiha also wrote on social media site that if something happened to her, Taha Bouhafs was to blame, because he was the one who threatened to silence her.

Taha Bouhafs and Assa Traore are much more than sympathisers of a common cause. The two were spending their holiday together on the Riviera in early August, with Bouhafs posting unambiguous pictures on Twitter about the trip. It seems that Assa and Taha not only fight together for the rights of black people in the protests, but also spend their free time in each other s company to relax after the quarantine.

Valeurs Actuelles also approached Fatiha, but the woman refused to give an interview citing her religion, as the paper is known to be a vocal opponent of Muslims. Traore family lawyer Yassine Bouzrou was also asked about the case, but the lawyer declined to comment.