Bob Dylan has been formally charged with "inciting hate," AFP reports.
On Friday, we reported Dylan had been sued by a Croatian community association in France over comments he made in his September cover interview with Rolling Stone and which subsequently appeared in the magazine's French edition. Speaking about race relations in the U.S., he said:
"This country is just too f***** up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."
Now, AFP says he was actually questioned a few weeks ago in the case by a French prosecutor, around the same he was receiving a French Legion of Honor medal for serving as a symbol of justice for young people.
Dylan was charged under France's statutes regarding "injury" and "inciting hate."
If found guilty, he would face a fine and probation.
In other news, Croatians have just voted to ban gay marriage.