France: Thousands of protesters wrongly punished under draconian laws

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousands-of-protesters-wrongly-punished-under-draconian-laws-in-pre-and-post-covid19-crackdown/

by isolli • 6 years ago

99 58 6 years ago

amnesty.org

JPLeRouzic3• 6 years ago

The recent news that some minors should be placed under supervision by military people is quite disturbing.

Minor delinquency is a civil problem that should be tackled by police and justice.

At the moment no laws permit that, but probably it will soon be drafted and voted [0].

[0] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3...

mytailorisrich6• 6 years ago

Military supervision of young people used to exist in France. It was even compulsory. It was called the 'National military service'.

It was abolished 20 years ago but some people think it was actually useful to mix social classes, get young people away from mum and dad, teach some useful skills (people could get a driving license or a truck driving license as part of the training they got) and effort/discipline.

This proposal is just a re-hash of that and of the classic "send them to military school/bootcamp, that'll teach tem".

athenot• 6 years ago

people could get a driving license or a truck driving license as part of the training they got

For non-Europeans who might not appreciate the value, this is roughly $1,000 in value and many hours of {written,driving} lessons.

PS: love the De Funès reference in your username!

simion314• 6 years ago

Not sure on often this is happening but I was told about many cases of officers abusing the recruits I don't like the idea of soldiers becoming tyrannical educators.

JPLeRouzic3• 6 years ago

It was called the 'National military service'.

I am a male French citizen aged 65, so I know first hand.

There are several differences:

* It was not compulsory, as in most countries including US, there were actually several alternatives (appelé scientifique, etc).

* Only males were the subject of "conscription".

* The goal was to make most citizen ready to take arms, and from my own experience, I think it did a good job at that.

* Young people from suburban areas where not specially targeted (see what said Dupont-Moretty)

gabereiser2• 6 years ago

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. "- Admiral Adama

FpUser• 6 years ago

My understanding that at least in the US the police is not legally obligated "to serve and protect", they're there to enforce the law.

gabereiser2• 6 years ago

They swear an oath. But you are right, they aren’t legally obligated to.

pmezard3• 6 years ago

French here. I have no intention to downplay the reported behaviour, just to give some perspective.

First, the military vs police comments sound a bit off to me. Technically, the most incriminated force, CRS, are part of the "gendarmerie nationale" which is a branch of French military. But the comparison stops here, for all purpose they are trained and behave like a police force, only one dedicated to handle riots. Which puts them more than other in a position to commit abuses, hence the focus on them.

In the recent years, there has been a tendency to equip them more and more like terminators with body armors and weapons like rubber bullets, tasers and the like. It is not well perceived and subject to continuous debate. But they have nowhere near the level or weaponization of US police force (almost typed "military" there, that is telling).

What Amnesty International reports here is known, it makes the headlines all the time in national newspapers, and a lot of people (me included) are not happy at all about it. There are ongoing inquiries and CRS and police in general do not have the same level of immunity as in the US, even though more scrutiny is always welcome.

Finally, keep in mind the level of violence in France is not comparable to the US. Every report you may see about it should be read relatively to what we are used to. From a different viewpoint, two policemen have been attacked and severely beaten two days ago. This is a national news, something exceptional, making again headlines on "Le Monde" (probably the major French newspaper) since then.

But sure, maybe caused by terrorism and black blocs, the level of violence in police response has increased. This is a major issue and a big topic, not something ignored. And it should not be.

Arkanosis• 6 years ago

Actually, CRS are part of the Police Nationale, not of the Gendarmerie Nationale. They are civilians, not military.

skitout3• 6 years ago

CRS and traditional police forces specialized in protest and riot have been accused of many abuse. But the biggest part of the abuses came from police forces that is not specialized in protest and riot, mainly from the Brigade anticriminalité known to be super violent.

Because the protest were large and long, because of budget cut before, and because the state wanted to hit hard, they chose to put use many of those violent and not properly trained police forces

On the top of that they've been (illegal) order given to the police force to hit hard (newspaper le monde published this news)

Furthermore, the state was dependent on police, and police was already unhappy (wanted more money, pay rise...), that partly explain why those abuse continued to happen during months, without political or judicial reaction...

xxpor• 6 years ago

My impression was always that the level of violence in French protests was in general much higher than in the US (see gilets jaunes).

zepearl• 6 years ago

I've been in some major cities (e.g. London & Liverpool & Manchester, Madrid Barcelona, a bit everywhere in France excluding Marseille, Sydney & Melbourne, everywhere in Germany, Budapest, Prague, Rome & Milan, Amsterdam, etc...) and while walking around during the night I felt everywhere most of the time OK, but the only place where I definitely never felt OK was Paris (very bad general feeling + I didn't like the people I crossed + twice me and my ex girlfriend were harassed by some people) => maybe most of these problems that refer to "France" are actually mainly focusing on "Paris"? Just asking, thx :)

dfxm123• 6 years ago

They include the criminalization of “contempt of public officials”, “participation in a group with a view to committing violent acts”

Literal thought crimes. I wish I could say my country handles this stuff better with a straight face, but there has been a very recent, almost worldwide, shift towards authoritarianism.

caturopath• 6 years ago

I'm not necessarily sure "participation in a group with a view to committing violent acts" needs to describe a thoughtcrime. Even the most liberal societies criminalize conspiring to commit or inciting violence, even if they don't get around to enacting the violence.

skitout3• 6 years ago

Well here the law is sufficiently vague so they used it to arrest journalist because they had a camera or a helmet, or arrest many protestors without clear reason. Most of them are out 48h later, but still spent 1 to 2 days in "jail"... A way to deter people from protesting...

rtkwe• 6 years ago

It depends heavily on how the law is actually used because the phrase 'with a view to committing' means it's down to proving or disproving intent and even if you don't actually go to prison ultimately you can be arrested and/or detained under that law, which is unpleasant, disruptive and definitely acts to discourage people from participating in anything that would risk arrest.

uniqueid2• 6 years ago

A lot of democratic countries have restrictions on plotting against the government; America, for example (18 US Code 2385). I should add, I don't know the details of this story, and I'm not a lawyer.

dfxm123• 6 years ago

FYI, the details are very plain in the article. Enforcement falls clearly short of "plotting to overthrow the government":

In Marseille, a man who swore at a police officer who was about to hit a woman with his baton during a protest was himself beaten, held in pre-trial detention for 24 hours, convicted for contempt and fined €900. He also had to pay €1,000 in damages to the police officer, while no action has been taken against the police officers.

Protesters have been arrested and prosecuted simply for carrying goggles or masks to protect themselves from tear gas and rubber bullets.

kube-system• 6 years ago

There are huge differences between protest (even violent protest) and plotting to overthrow a government.

mytailorisrich6• 6 years ago

Literal thought crimes.

These are explicit acts, not thoughts, and not new offences.

"Contempt of public official", I think they mean "outrage a agent" in French, does not mean the feeling but the act of showing 'contempt' as in insulting or threatening.

For example, if you take part in a demonstration and you insult a police officer for whatever reason they can arrest you for "contempt of public official".

"Participation in a group with a view to committing violent acts", which is not an offence specific to France, allows the police to arrest and charge people before they commit violent acts when it is clear through their actions that this is what they are planning. In relation to public demonstrations this may mean a group of people showing up with helmet, shield, or legal 'weapons' (e.g. slingshot and steel beads, or what not).

Likewise for the ban on face coverings, it is primarily to deal with people showing up with bike helmets, gas masks, etc. in order to (a) protect themselves against tear gas, and (b) not be identified (usually while they commit violence against police and property).

"“It is ironic that a country with such a long and proud tradition of collective action for social change is criminalizing protest in this way"

On the contrary, it's because France has a long tradition of 'collective action' (i.e. really riots and revolutions) that a body of laws to counter violence has come about.

The French authorities must stop criminalizing people and amend all the laws that hamper the right to peaceful assembly.

The offences mentioned above are not related to peaceful assembly.

Amnesty International is being rather disingenuous in this article.

gdwatson• 6 years ago

I'm sorry that you're being downvoted; I don't think that's warranted.

> Literal thought crimes.
These are explicit acts, not thoughts, and not new offences.
"Contempt of public official", I think they mean "outrage a agent" in French, does not mean the feeling but the act of showing 'contempt' as in insulting or threatening.

As the expression is usually used, "thought crimes" can refer to speech acts.

This may reflect a difference between American ideas of free speech and those more common in Europe. (I don't understand the variety of European views very well.) Most Americans are going to view anything that smacks of lèse majesté as a thought crime and react accordingly. And I don't think we're wrong to do so.

skitout3• 6 years ago

One journalist get arrested cause he had a camera: if you throw the camera, then it can hurt people, so he had a weapon and could get arrested...

barumi5• 6 years ago

One journalist get arrested cause he had a camera

Do you have any source that mentions that case but also supports your assertion? Because if you don't then people can claim with the same level of honesty that the person you're referring to was actually an alien and instead of a camera it was holding a grenade.

drummer• 6 years ago

This is what always happens when you allow yourself to be fooled to vote away your souvereignty to others who will rule over you. It is incredible that people still expect a different outcome after thousands of years of history. Einstein called this behavior insanity.

sleepysysadmin2• 6 years ago

France has been under martial law long before covid.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/wi...

The state of emergency which enabled the martial law has never gone away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Sentinelle

Yellow vests aka protests against the government have been banned before covid even happened.

Did the yellow vests just give up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#21_Septe...

Interesting how wiki just stopped covering the yellow vests.

https://apnews.com/article/bf7bc0dc7c2f49bb86ebf1e2595418fc

https://www.newsbreak.com/tennessee/paris/news/2057961521309...

The reason wiki stopped recording about the yellow vests is because the martial law and banning of protests. They arrested the yellow vest folks. The entire leadership have been imprisoned.

If you look back as well. Sarkozy barely won. Hollande barely won. Then after martial law had been declared and general freedoms of the French people have been removed Macron won convincingly? Dominated his opponent.

Then when covid came around he 100% banned protests. They have issued 500,000+ tickets for "non-essential movement outside" and it's currently not recorded how many arrests have occurred under the name of covid 19.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/12/clashes-and-arrest...

The movement is dead because France's martial law has banned protests.

This amnesty article doesn't go far enough. Coverage of France's martial law that has been ongoing for 5+ years and practical banning of basic human rights is quite scant.

wott• 6 years ago

In the France of the universe in which I live, martial law hasn't been in use for over 2 centuries.

sleepysysadmin2• 6 years ago

In the France of the universe in which I live, martial law hasn't been in use for over 2 centuries.

As established, the military has been deployed as police. Protests are 100% banned and you're not allowed to leave your home. People are being arrested for thought crimes.

Right... not martial law...

polotics• 6 years ago

Some months back on holidays in France: turned on the TV, this was BFM a news channel. There was a demonstration in the center of Paris, riot cops in full gear. It was hot and one had his vest open, showing a "LONSDALE" brand t-shirt where conveniently, the center part of the word that remains visible with a vest says "NSDA". If you are clued up on this you will know NSDA can stand for National Sozialistische Deutsch Arbeitspartei, ie. the forebear of the Nazi party. It's a know thing among certain wrongheaded folks. Consider this a public service announcement. I have not gone back.

0xmohit• 6 years ago

Unfortunate that Amnesty wouldn't be able to produce a similar report [0] about India [1] now.

Protestors in India are being charged under UAPA [2]. In 2019, the act was amended allowing the government to designate an individual as a terrorist without trial.

[0] Amnesty International India Halts Its Work On Upholding Human Rights In India Due To Reprisal From Government Of India - https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/amnesty-international-ind...

[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314054705455144962.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Preventio...

macspoofing• 6 years ago

Peaceful protests have been banned under draconian COVID-19 powers ..

Most regions have draconian regulations on public gatherings (including religious services) but somehow protests (peaceful or otherwise) should be exempted?

raverbashing2• 6 years ago

"Peaceful protests", the GJ have been taking major cities hostages every weekend for a year now (with some Covid pause). It's gone way beyond reasonable now

And yes, Covid is an exceptional situation and the limitations need to be obeyed. "Wrongly punished" is AIs opinion.

goku99• 6 years ago

is amnesty even trustable?

France: Thousands of protesters wrongly punished under draconian laws

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