The son's suicide, the father's murder and the tormented killer
SÉVERIN MILLET
Originally, the five students from southwestern France created an Instagram group to organize poker nights. It quickly became one of those typical chats where friends shared internet jokes, comments about TV series and the latest football results. Samuel Matias Batista spoke more than the others. He often sent lengthy messages about his worldview. He was the only unemployed cannabis smoker among friends who worked, built their lives and had girlfriends. On February 10, 2022, he wrote, "I have never felt as light in my life as when I saw his life leave his eyes. (...) You can't push my friend to death without me avenging him. I didn't plan to finish him off the day he left. I often thought of it as something to do someday, but never as something I was about to do imminently."
On the other end, Benjamin, Corentin, Maxime and Arthur, the recipients of the message, panicked: "You may have just offed a guy, and now we all know because you wrote it in all caps at 8 pm on Instagram. How are we supposed to react to that?" Samuel replied, "These idiots have been looking for two years. If they were going to find out, it would have happened already. We're not in The Wire , wiretapped for the next five years with 250 suspects." Corentin responded, "Yeah, well, what's coming for you is a cell in Gradignan [the prison in Bordeaux] with two Serbians. Don't think you're above it all, because what you're doing here isn't about taking the high ground." Samuel, then 24, replied, "Do you want to send me to prison because I ended the life of the man who drove our friend to suicide? If so, do it. Otherwise, I trust in life."
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LeMonde
8 hours ago
- LeMonde
The son's suicide, the father's murder and the tormented killer
SÉVERIN MILLET Originally, the five students from southwestern France created an Instagram group to organize poker nights. It quickly became one of those typical chats where friends shared internet jokes, comments about TV series and the latest football results. Samuel Matias Batista spoke more than the others. He often sent lengthy messages about his worldview. He was the only unemployed cannabis smoker among friends who worked, built their lives and had girlfriends. On February 10, 2022, he wrote, "I have never felt as light in my life as when I saw his life leave his eyes. (...) You can't push my friend to death without me avenging him. I didn't plan to finish him off the day he left. I often thought of it as something to do someday, but never as something I was about to do imminently." On the other end, Benjamin, Corentin, Maxime and Arthur, the recipients of the message, panicked: "You may have just offed a guy, and now we all know because you wrote it in all caps at 8 pm on Instagram. How are we supposed to react to that?" Samuel replied, "These idiots have been looking for two years. If they were going to find out, it would have happened already. We're not in The Wire , wiretapped for the next five years with 250 suspects." Corentin responded, "Yeah, well, what's coming for you is a cell in Gradignan [the prison in Bordeaux] with two Serbians. Don't think you're above it all, because what you're doing here isn't about taking the high ground." Samuel, then 24, replied, "Do you want to send me to prison because I ended the life of the man who drove our friend to suicide? If so, do it. Otherwise, I trust in life." You have 82.98% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Euronews
11 hours ago
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Israeli strikes have nonetheless struck key energy infrastructure including the South Pars gas field in southern Iran and the Shahran oil depot in Tehran. A football pass between a prisoner and a magistrate. A volleyball match between penitentiary wardens and regular citizens. It may sound like an unlikely sporting event but this unprecedented initiative at Rome's Rebibbia prison saw inmates break the monotony of the daily routine and take part in a mini-Olympiad known as the "Games of Hope" Within the walls of one of Italy's most crowded prisons - Rebibbia is home to 1,550 inmates, an unexpected space opened up. Not an escape or a celebration, but a gesture of trust. Four teams, made up of inmates, agents, magistrates and regular citizens, shared the field, crossing the lines that separate them every day. It may have been a small event, only 28 of the prison's inmates took part, but it was full of meaning. The games were a collaboration between the John Paul II Foundation for Sport, the Department of Prison Administration (DAP) and the magistrates' network, Sport and Legality. And even after its debut instalment, the games are being hailed as one of the most significant initiatives to take place in Italy's prison system in years. And it is no coincidence that the event debuted in Rebibbia, where on 26 December Pope Francis opened a Holy Door at the prison, part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope and a sign of hope and inclusion for all, including those who are incarcerated. The Games of Hope featured four sports teams competing in various events, including football, volleyball, athletics, table tennis, table football and chess. "Like all crazy ideas, that of the Games of Hope was born during the Paris Olympics, where we presented the book Father Henri Didon - A Dominican at the Origins of Olympism. It is to him that we owe the Olympic motto, 'Citius Altius Fortius.' We thought of bringing Olympic values to where it is hardest to enter, to prison," said Daniele Pasquini, the president of the John Paul II Foundation for Sport. In the north-eastern quadrant of Rome, between the suburbs of Pietralata and Casal de' Pazzi, Rebibbia stands as an island in itself. It is not just a prison, but an entire citadel of detention. Its modern form was created in 1971 as a response to the overcrowding of the Regina Coeli prison. Today, it houses around 2,700 people, making it one of the largest and most complex detention centres in Italy. The facility is divided into four main sections: the New Complex Raffaele Cinotti, the Third House, the Reclusion House and the Women's Institute. In total, about 1,927 men and 352 women are housed there, with the percentage of foreign inmates close to 13% among men and over 40% among women. Those numbers speak of a fragmented prison population, often marked by people from the margins of society and feeling a sense of personal fragility. More than half of the inmates are in the prison for crimes such as theft, robbery and fraud. Around 40% are in prison for more serious crimes, like assault and murders. But one of the most significant data concerns drug addiction: 30-35% are imprisoned for drug-related crimes or have a history of addiction that has influenced their life choices. Behind every statistic lies a story. Small-time drug dealers convicted as big-time traffickers, women entering a guilty plea to protect a violent or guilty partner, and young people with no real alternative other than the street. For many, prison is not an exception, but a passage already foreseen in the script of their lives. Rebibbia too suffers from the overcrowding that afflicts the entire Italian prison system. On a national level, with a regulatory capacity of approximately 51,000 places, the prison population exceeds 62,000. In mixed cells, there is a lack of living space, activities are reduced and access to care is often minimal. In this context, the Games of Hope were much more than a sporting event. The president of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), Giovanni Malagò, who took part in a game of table tennis, said: "It was an amazing initiative and it was important to be there, to touch, to see with one's own eyes, beyond all expectations. I really liked the idea of this multidisciplinary tournament." Today in Italy, more than 60% of people who leave prison end up back behind bars. However, for those who manage to secure a stable job, recidivism rates drop to 1%. That is why moments like the Games of Hope have a value that extends far beyond the day itself: they offer genuine opportunities for responsibility, meaningful relationships and dignity. "The Games of Hope represent a moment of encounter between institutions, the prison world and civil society, and the beginning of a path to be taken together," said the judge for preliminary investigations at the Court of Velletri, Fabrizio Basei, founder of the magistrates' network Sport and Legality. Rebibbia is a place that concentrates the contrasts of our time: justice and revenge, punishment and possibility, despair and humanity. It was the prison of Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina, but also the prison-workshop of writer Goliarda Sapienza. Inside, the shadows are many, but there is no lack of light. And sometimes that light starts with a half-day of sport.
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"In my family, it wasn't an accepted profession at all, but I'd managed to convince them, and even ended up setting up my own business," she said. Then last week, Sana Yousaf was shot dead outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose advances she had repeatedly rejected, police said. News of the murder led to an outpouring of comments under her final post -- her 17th birthday celebration where she blew out the candles on a cake. In between condolence messages, some blamed her for her own death: "You reap what you sow" or "it's deserved, she was tarnishing Islam". Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media, where she shared her favourite cafes, skincare products and traditional shalwar kameez outfits. TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy. But as TikTok's views have surged, so have efforts to police the platform. Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls "immoral behaviour", amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content. TikTok has pledged to better moderate content and blocked millions of videos that do not meet its community guidelines as well as at the request of Pakistan authorities. After Yousaf's murder, Bukhari, 28, said her family no longer backs her involvement in the industry. "I'm the first influencer in my family, and maybe the last," she told AFP. 'Fear of being judged' Only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025. "Friends and family often discourage them from using social media for fear of being judged," said a statement from the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF). In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her honour. In October, police in Karachi, in the south, announced the arrest of a man who had killed four women relatives over "indecent" TikTok videos. These murders each revive memories of Qandeel Baloch, dubbed Pakistan's Kim Kardashian and one of the country's first breakout social media stars whose videos shot her to fame. After years in the spotlight, she was suffocated by her brother. Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan, according to the country's Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting men are not uncommon. "This isn't one crazy man, this is a culture," said Kanwal Ahmed, who leads a closed Facebook group of 300,000 women to share advice. "Every woman in Pakistan knows this fear. Whether she's on TikTok or has a private Instagram with 50 followers, men show up. In her DMs. In her comments. On her street," she wrote in a post. "The misogyny and the patriarchy that is prevalent in this society is reflected on the online spaces," he added. A 22-year-old man was arrested over Yousaf's murder and is due to appear in court next week. At a vigil in the capital last week, around 80 men and women gathered, holding placards that read "no means no". "Social media has given us a voice, but the opposing voices are louder," said Hira, a young woman who joined the gathering. The capital's police chief, Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, used a press conference to send a "clear message" to the public. "If our sisters or daughters want to become influencers, professionally or as amateurs, we must encourage them," he said.
