Mitma Tapati was then summoned by the investigating judge

Tahiti, August 21, 2024 – As part of the judicial investigation against “public incitement to discrimination or racial hatred by persons in a position of public power”, the investigating judge in charge of the case will hear at the assembly the statement of the Tavini representative, Mitema Tapati, September 2. The summons comes ten days after the Minister of Education was indicted.

Mitema Tapati, former priest and representative of Tavernier Huilatira in the French Polynesian Parliament, was summoned on September 2 to explain statements he made in Tahiti on the subject of the “whitening” of the territory’s population. He will be questioned at his first appearance as part of a judicial investigation launched last January by the Papeete Public Prosecutor’s Office on charges of “public incitement to discrimination or racial hatred by a person in public power”, a crime punishable by three years in prison and a fine of nine million francs.

Thierry Fragnoli, the examining magistrate responsible for judicial information, will hear evidence on the controversial statements made by Mitema Tapati in Talajoi at the end of October 2023 regarding the “whitening” of the Polynesian population. Tahiti Information A few days later, following the outrage of some sections of the political class, such as Tapra, the former priest took responsibility for his remarks, declaring: “When I say that Polynesia is whitewashed and France is blackened, it is clearly current. Hasn’t France always had and is experiencing more and more problems with the phenomenon of immigration?”

Translation and Linguistics

In an interview on Wednesday, his lawyer, Stanley Cross, said he was not surprised by the subpoena and explained that things would not “stop there.” Oscar Temaru, the lawyer for President Tavernier, also explained that Tahiti’s remarks were also directed at Polynesians, so there would be discussions around “linguistics” and “translation.” And that his client is a “former priest” and a “scholar” in rhetoric.

Note that this new summons comes ten days after the indictment of the current Minister of Education, who commented on the statements of Mitema Tapati, declaring that the latter only evoked “reality” and did not show “racism”. He added in particular that “when the indigenous population is no longer visible on their territory, we speak of an invasion”, according to which in France “we say that all these Arab communities have been invaded”.