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"''J'accuse ...!''" ((:ʒaˈkyz), "I accuse...!") was an open letter published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper ''L'Aurore'' by the influential writer Émile Zola. In the letter, Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for and found guilty of libel on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899. Other pamphlets proclaiming Dreyfus's innocence include Bernard Lazare's ''A Miscarriage of Justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair'' (November 1896). As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, ''J'accuse!'' has become a common generic expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful. ==Alfred Dreyfus== (詳細はAlfred Dreyfus was born in 1859 in the city of Mulhouse, which was then located in the province of Alsace in northeast France. Born into a prosperous Jewish family,〔(Alfred Dreyfus Biography (1859–1935) ). Biography.com (2007). Retrieved 16 February 2008.〕 he left his native town for Paris in 1871 in response to the annexation of the province by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War. In 1894, while an artillery captain for the General Staff of France, Dreyfus was suspected of providing secret military information to the German government.〔 A cleaning woman and French spy by the name of Madame Bastian working at the German Embassy was at the source of the investigation. She routinely searched wastebaskets and mailboxes at the German Embassy for suspicious documents.〔Burns, M. (1999). ''France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History''. NY: St. Martin's College Publishing Group.〕 She found a suspicious bordereau (detailed listing of documents) at the German Embassy in 1894, and delivered it to Commandant Hubert-Joseph Henry, who worked for French military counterintelligence in the General Staff.〔 The bordereau had been torn into six pieces, and had been found by Madame Bastian in the wastepaper basket of Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché.〔 When the document was investigated, Dreyfus was convicted largely on the basis of testimony by professional handwriting experts:〔Rothstein, E. ("A Century-Old Court Case That Still Resonates" ) ''The New York Times'' (17 October 2007).〕 the graphologists' assertion was that "the ''lack'' of resemblance between Dreyfus' writing and that of the bordereau was proof of a 'self-forgery,' and prepared a fantastically detailed diagram to demonstrate that this was so." There were also assertions from military officers who provided confidential evidence.〔 Dreyfus was found guilty of treason in a secret military court-martial, during which he was denied the right to examine the evidence against him. The Army stripped him of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and shipped him off to Devil's Island, a penal colony located off the coast of French Guiana in South America.〔 At this time France was experiencing a period of anti-Semitism, and there were very few outside his family who defended Dreyfus. In 1899, Dreyfus returned to France for a retrial, but although found guilty again, he was pardoned.〔 In 1906, Dreyfus appealed his case again, to obtain the annulment of his guilty verdict. In 1906, he was also awarded the Cross of the Légion d'honneur, which stated, “a soldier who has endured an unparallelled martyrdom.”〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「J'accuse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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