Threats over the Internet

What is threat over the Internet?

Threat

• either orally or by unnamed or signed writing is done
• there is a threat to attack persons or property

The threat may or may not happen under an order or under a condition.

An assault on persons is any act by which one takes a person's life or attacks his physical or moral integrity or his individual liberty. An assault on property is any serious attack on another's property.

A threat is punishable only if it is of a serious nature and is likely to arouse in the victim a fear that it will be carried out. The threat must therefore be judged objectively, i.e., as a function of the impression the threat is likely to cause on a reasonable person.

Since threats are punishable only insofar as they reveal a well-defined criminal intent, the condition on which the perpetrator makes the execution of the announced attack conditional must be clear from what was actually said and not implicit in its context.

Online threat

Threats are punishable if they are verbal or written.

Writing includes text messages (Ghent May 13, 2016), instant messages or posts on social media or Internet forums.

The correctional court in Brussels ruled in a judgment dated April 20, 2018 That Brussels rapper Jelali (better known by his stage name Benlabel) is not guilty of the crime of threatening. His message on Facebook (in this case, an alleged incitement to riot in Brussels) which was drafted in ambiguous terms open to various interpretations, including a call for the use of force, does not, according to the court, constitute a written threat of an attack on persons or property since it has not been proven that this message could give rise to a serious fear of an attack on the person or property, that it was directed against a specific person, that the person against whom it was directed had or should have had knowledge thereof, and that its author intended to create an impression of terror in the person to whom the threat was directed.