The prosecutor consistently requested jail time, stating outright that an
example should be set: “It is important that the accused and the other people
in the courtroom all understand that these are serious charges and that the
court has the intention of giving out heavy penalties…” Several times (and
not only in this courtroom, it seems) the mere fact of having been in the
street served as evidence against the accused. Anonymous denunciation was
used as evidence for, according to the prosecutor, in this community “the
population is afraid of reprisals.” Here was the tough stance called for by
[Justice Minister] Clement :
6 months suspended sentence for a student arrested in Montreuil, who
admitted throwing a rock at a motorcycle cop after having been tear gassed
on his way home. He was all beat up: a broken nose and bruises all over his
face.
2 months jail time for a student who allegedly turned over a sports
car in Montreuil. He was picked up along with a minor out of a larger group
fleeing the police; the minor confessed, and so confession is contagious.
A young man arrested outside his home in Blanc-Mesnil, who allegedly
smashed up some trucks belonging to a business on the street, he was ordered
kept detained. They could not show that it was him but there was nothing to
be done, even though his family was there. What’s moe he denied everything
and the testimony of people who worked at the business in question was contradictory,
many of them could not identify him.
Four months jail time for having allegedly set fire to a garbage can.
A young many was officially identified by a police patrol as having
thrown a bottle at their car, breaking the windshield – according to their
notes this happened at 6pm. Two hours later they claim they spotted the young
man in question and brought him in. Then, according to their testimony, he
was surrounded by his friends and this led to a fight in which a window was
broken. It turns out that this young man was working at 6pm according to testimony
from his boss and that the attack in question amounted to two of his friends
who brought him a sandwich! He is acquitted for having thrown the bottle,
but gets 1 month jail time for breaking the window.
In Villemomble the police identify a young man with a baseball cap
in the middle of the night when he allegedly throws a rock which does not
hit them (he must have been really far away). They fire back twice with their
flash-balls [a gun that fires rubber bullets] and then go and get the young
man. It turns out that he has to be treated for a dislocated shoulder, but
who cares: three months, two of which are suspended. The main thing that aggravated
his situation, as both the prosecutor and judge repeated several times, was
that he did not want to give the name of his friend where he was spending
the night.
The last guy was from Aulnay, and he had the strange habit of keeping
the following in the trunk of his car : a rag (oh no!), an empty container
in case he ran out of gas (I swear, they went on about this for an hour!),
and another container which (I am quoting the police notes): “was half full
of a blue liquid on which was a label that read ‘coolant’”, and then one with
(horror of horrors!) “a clear odourless liquid that we were not able to identify,”
all of which was in the notes that were obviously taken by a cop who does
not put a lot of water in his booze! In short, the investigators felt that
all of this confirmed the anonymous testimony that someone with a similar
car was selling gas to neighbourhood kids… All of which they said without
cracking a smile! He managed to get released…
What I heard in the hallways :
A young man was picked up in the streets where some molotov cocktails
had been thrown earlier. He claimed he had not been there at the time. He
has no gas on his hands or on his clothes, just on his shoes as must have
also been the case with the cops who picked him up because the street had
been full of it: he gets 10 months, 6 of which are suspended. And the courtroom
was cleared as it was felt to be too rowdy.
In Montreuil an young man was picked up at his parents home early in the
morning. He was accused of turning over a car the night before. His older
brothers were worried he would be cold, and wanted him to take a pull-over
with him [when he war arrested]: one got a broken hand and 3 weeks ITT [not
sure how to translate this – it obviously is some kind of time in medical
care], the other got 4 days ITT; everyone was outraged and indignant! Finally,
after several hours, the first brother was acquitted: it turns out it was
not him who turned over the car! Their father got to take two of his sons
home, though they are also charged with contempt, the son who is the most
badly beaten was kept detained but i am not sure why. They are supposed to
show up today at 1:30pm. But the cops were not finished with them and so this
morning the cops - from Bobigny this time – came to get the first son for
a new car that he is accused of having smashed up as he left the courthouse
(when his father was bringing him home). I left before this came before the
court, the lawyer has some questions, perhaps i will have more information
later…
- rossalinda (posted to Indymedia Paris)
Please note that the above text about the court
appearances of people arrested during the past twelve days riots comes from
the Indymedia Paris
website and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation
philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the
original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning
stays the same. I felt this was an important text as it gives the first indication
of how the repression is actually playing out in the working class and immigrant
areas affected by the rebellion. Unfortunately, it was written with a lot
of slang and with terms and spellings that were not the usual, so it was
difficult to translate, though i believe i got the meaning of everything
correct The original document can be seen in French.
A few points can be ascertained from this report:
All of the people arrested who this writer saw in court were men
– which makes me wonder where are the women who live in these neighbourhoods?
What is their perspective on this rebellion?
Arrests seem arbitrary and unrelated to what one may or may not
have actually done. Just a matter of being on the street at the time that
the police decide they want to make an arrest. Police making up stories and
passing it off as “anonymous testimony of people afraid to come forward.”
Gratuitous police violence is an essential feature of what it means
to “be arrested”
Though one may be acquitted of the charges for which one was arrested,
one may end up doing time for what happens after one is arrested – allegedly
breaking a window, or not giving information, or giving your brother a sweater.
All of the above is very true for “normal” interactions with the
police, and not only in France, so one imagines that much of this is simply
the intensification of the same old daily shit.
Unfortunately, “Rossalinda” does not give many details about the people
arrested, beyond that some of them were students. One imagines, given the
description that has been given of Bobigny, that most of these men are from
immigrant communities, and that this plays a role in who gets arbitrarily
picked up. But this is conjecture, as such details were not included in the
Indymedia posting…
This originally came from my blog - Sketchy Thoughts
- and is one of a number of pieces i wrote or translated regarding the riots
that rocked France in October and November 2005. To see the a complete list
of such posts, i suggest you check out the 2005 Riots In France page on the Kersplebedeb
site.