police violence – Pike & Hurricane

YNTR – June 2020: George Floyd, Antifa, Ebola, and more

EditorChief — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 08:14:30 +0000

USA. On May 25, George Floyd (46) was arrested for allegedly using counterfeit money to buy cigarettes. He died as a consequence of a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on his neck for over eight minutes. Protests against racism and racist police violence have erupted throughout the USA, as well as abroad. Unlike as in many other cases, the officers involved in the murder of Floyd have been charged. The charges against Chauvin have been raised from third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter to second-degree murder. His previously uncharged colleagues are now accused of aiding and abetting murder. A few days after the killing of Floyd, hactivist group Anonymous released a video accusing Minneapolis Police Department of “a horrific track record of violence and corruption” in which the murder of Floyd was “merely the tip of the iceberg”.

France. Despite a police-ban thousands of people in France have protested against racist police violence after the murder of George Floyd. The case bares ressemblance to the killing of Adama Traoré (24) in 2016. Official reports claimed he had died of heart failure due to possible pre-existing health conditions. A second autopsy which had been requested by Traoré’s family, however, suggests he died due to the three police officers, that arrested him after he ran from them since e had no ID card with him, holding him to the ground with their bodyweight. They have not been charged. Two days prior to the killing of Floyd, the hashtag #MoiAussiJAiPeurDevantLaPolice has gone viral after singer Camélia Jordana had spoken out against police violence on TV. She stated that “there are thousands of people who do not feel save in the presence of a cop”.

France. Currently, a new law is being debated that would make it illegal to photograph or film police officers (in a manner that makes it possible to identify them). Diffusion of images of this kind could lead to a fine of 15 000€ and even one year in prison. The proposed law is criticised as disregarding the right to inform and making it even more difficult to hold police officers accountable for police violence. At the same time, French police has interrogated Mediapart journalist Pascale Pascariello who frequently reported on police violence and uncovered the lies of president Macron linked to a case of police violence. It is the fourth time in 18 months that police have tried to uncover the sources of Mediapart. Pascariello refused to answer the police’s questions during the one and a half hours of interrogation and criticised the police’s attempt to reveal her sources condemning “a climate of pressure on our profession and of intimidation vis-à-vis our sources”.

USA. In the wake of a disagreement between Donald Trump and Twitter, the US president threatened to introduce legislation that would weaken Twitter’s protection against liability for content by its users. Previously, Twitter had flagged a tweet by Trump on mail-in voting fraud as needing to be fact-checked and flagged another post as “gloryfing violence”. Yet, they decided to not remove the tweet as it is in public interest. The Trump administration had initially responded by retweeting the latter flagged tweet via the White House account which was subsequently hidden by Twitter.

USA. US president Trump has proposed to classify Antifa as a terrorist organisation. Antifa is a loosely organised anti-fascist movement that sees its roots in the radical left groups which resisted fascist dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini. However, Antifa conspiracy theories are wide-spread among groups and members of the political right. Due to its lack of characteristics typical for an organisation, legal experts view Trump’s plan as impossible and even unconstitutional.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the DRC, the eleventh Ebola outbreak was announced on the 31st of May 2020 in the northwest of the country, while in the East the tenth outbreak is not over yet. In the district around the city Mbandaka, 4 people have died. Meanwhile, in the Kivu province the appearance of new case prevented the previous outbreak from being declared as over. The country is under travel restrictions to prevent a spread of the coronavirus. It is a measure which might now also be helpful to fight Ebola.

Russia/Siberia. Near the city Norilsk in Siberia, 15 000 to 20 000 tons of diesel fuel have been spilled into the Ambarnaya river. The waters are heavily polluted and the installed booms will only be able to collect a small portion of the oil that is polluting the environment. The Russian president Putin has declared a state of emergency in Norilsk. The cause is suspected to be the thawing permafrost, followed by the abnormally warm temperatures in the Arctic regions which made the platform sink deeper into the ground.

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Photo story: Black Lives Matter Malmö [4 June 2020; 9 June 2020]

Merle Emrich — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 15:42:45 +0000

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“Do not talk to me of […] police violence”

Merle Emrich — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 12:46:37 +0000

“He knew that the maintenance of order obeyed strict rules, dictated by political power. No police was as submissive to the State as that of M.O., it incarnated the State in its essence. The order that is to be maintained or re-established, is always that of the State. […] the affair was political […]” – David Dufresne (Dernière sommation)

Shortly after the Gilets Jaunes movement began, the journalist David Dufresne started to keep track of injuries inflicted on protesters, medics and journalists by the police during the weekly protests. The statistics are sobering, the visual images circulating online – including photos and videos of head wounds, protesters being targeted with rubber bullets at close distance, violent interpellations, and protesters losing an eye or a hand due to the so-called “less-lethal” weapons used by the police – are horrifying.

Police violence does not, however, exist only since the beginning of the Gilets jaunes protests, nor only in France where, according to a video, created by multiple people and collectives, featuring journalists, activists and lawyers, 578 people have been killed by the police within the last 42 years, 12% of them aged under 18. Police violence might be more pronounced in France due to factors such as the police forces use of weapons (LBD 40, GLI F4, GMD) that are not used in most other European countries and the presence of the BAC (anti-criminality brigade) at protests even though they are not specialised in keeping public order. However, instances of police violence and disproportional use of force are very real – if to a lesser extent – in other EU countries, as well. The disproportionate use of pepper spray and water cannons against Stuttgart 21 protesters in Germany in 2010, violence against Extinction Rebellion activists in Brussels in October 2019 and the response to the Catalan independence movement are further examples.

“No irreparable violence”

The problem with police violence does not stop at the damage done but extends to the manner in which is dealt with its occurence. The French government point blank denies the existence of police violence, or even reinforces it through policy measures such as the loi anti-casseur passed earlier this year. “Do not talk to me of repression or police violence, these words are unacceptable in a constitutional state”, commented President Macron on one occasion during his grand débat. And Interior Minister Castaner claimed to “not know of any police officer who has attacked Gilets jaunes.“

More recently, Macron said: “No irreparable violence has been committed by the police.” However, the loss of an eye or a hand are very much irreparable. Not to speak of two recent incidents which led to the death of Zineb Redouane (Marseille, December 2018) and Steve Maia Caniço (Nantes, June 2019). Rather than “no irreparable” damage being caused by the police, it is the case that the responsibility for the harm done is lifted from them.

The death of Zineb Redouane

On December 1, 2018, Zineb Redouane, aged 80, went to close the window of her apartment in Marseille to prevent tear gas from the protest happening outside entering the flat. She was hit in the face by parts of a tear gas grenade and died the next day in hospital. Following the incident both Interior Minister Castaner and the responsible prosecutor declared that no link could be established between her death and the injuries caused by the tear gas grenade.

The prosecutor based his statement on the autopsy performed in Marseille on December 3. After Zineb Redouane’s body was repatriated to Algeria, her home country, local authorities performed a second autopsy that concluded a direct causal relation between her death and the injuries inflicted on her on December 1. In July 2019, it was revealed that the CRS officer in charge on the day of her death received a medal from the Interior Minister for his work as a police officer, aggravating the grief and anger of her family.

The inquiry into the circumstances of her death did not establish a basis for justice. The five CRS grenade launchers used near Zineb Redouane’s home on December 1 were not confiscated, the officers using the grenade launchers stated that they could not remember who fired the grenade responsible for the injuries and neither were they able to identify the shooter in video footage. The police officers’ radio exchanges went missing, and the only security camera present apparently malfunctioned.

Selon l’IGPN

In the night from 21 to 22 June, 24-year old Steve Maia Caniço went missing following a police charge at the fête de la Musique, a free party in Nantes, during which 33 tear gas grenades, 10 sting-ball grenades and 12 flash balls were used against the party-goers without warning and resulted in 14 people falling into the Loire. More than a month later, on 29 July, Steve Maia Caniço’s body was found in the river. The following day, Prime Minister Philippe announced that based on the report of a general inspection of the National Police (IGPN), the “police of the police”, no link could be established “between the police intervention and the death of Mr Steve Maia Caniço.“

The reaction to this statement on social media followed soon after. Using the hashtag #selonlIGPN (according to the IGPN), people expressed their indignation at the denial of responsibility pointing out the absurdity of the report’s conclusion. Comments ranged from “we could not establish a link between the intervention of the Prime Minister and the truth, either” to “#selonlIGPN no link could be established between the atomic bomb and Hiroshima.” And indeed, some time later more information was released to the public and generated even more doubt on the accurateness of the inquest. According to mediapart, accounts of witnesses confirming that they had fallen into the Loire since they were unable to see due to the tear gas as they tried to get away from the police were left out. Moreover, the IGPN used Steve Maia Caniço’s last text message, sent at 3:16 am, to conclude that he must have fallen into the river before the police intervention, whereas according to Le canard enchainé his phone continued to transmit signals until 4:33 am, that is, after the police intervention had begun.

Justice and responsibility

The existence of police violence cannot be denied and those who are responsible are rarely held accountable. A statistic published by the University Bochum and the Federal Statistical Office shows that 91 percent of the cases of police violence in Germany in 2017 were dropped, and only 2 percent were followed by charges or a penal order. More often than not filing charges against a police officer leads to being charged with resistance against an executory officer.

So, what are the alternatives to police investigating police – or, in fact, failing to do so properly? In Germany, Die Linke (left-wing party) suggested the establishment of an independent office processing complaints against police officers. Similarly, in France, there are voices being raised demanding the replacement of the IGPN with a more independent commission tasked with inquiries into the police force. Of course, the improvement of such procedures and institutions alone will not eradicate police violence but it might well be a first step towards reducing it.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

La fresque en hommage à Steve Maia Caniço sur le quai Wilson à Nantes – Août 2019, Erwan Corre, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Photo Essay: A Nation Sees Yellow

Merle Emrich — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 13:23:24 +0000

‘When it is pressed or attacked, it changes form and repositions itself. It exerts constant counter force to search for weakness.’ This is a quote from the website The Taoism for the Modern World describing an aspect of the Tao of water. But the quote could also be easily applied to both the Gilets Jaunes and to the French government.

The Gilets Jaunes movement that had started in mid-November 2018 is still going strong. And the government – unwilling to give into demands for more direct democracy, the re-introduction of the wealth tax and higher salaries combined with lower taxes for the working and middle class – appears, in a seemingly helpless manner, to rely on the use of force. Its most recent strategy has been revealed on March 18 by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe introducing new, stricter measures including more autonomy for the police forces employed, the use of drones, declaring certain areas such as the Champs Elysée (Paris) or the Place du Capitole (Toulouse) out of bounds for protests and banning the full or partial covering of faces.

The atmosphere at the protests, however, leaves to conclude that the Gilets Jaunes are as unwilling to give in as the government. As the protesters march through to Toulouse on one of the first warm days of March they shout ‘We are not tired’. And a woman wearing a yellow high-visibility vest – the source of the movement’s name – on which she has written ‘I am scared but I am here’ joins the other protesters in their singing: ‘We are here! We are here! Even if Macron doesn’t want it, we are here. For the honour of the workers, and for a better world, even if Macron doesn’t want it, we are here.’ A few steps away some protesters are collecting donations to pay the defence lawyers of imprisoned Gilets Jaunes – it is only one of many instances in which the solidarity between the protesters becomes evident.

While the French government is trying to staunch what some, more or less in jest, refer to as a revival of the French Revolution, and only seems to even more dam up the anger of the people that is already overflowing, it is no also criticised for excessive use of police force by human rights organisations and international political bodies alike. Criticism and accusations which it refutes or seeks to play down.

In early December 2018 the French human rights organisation Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH) pointed out the disproportional and at time illegitimate use of GLI-F4 and LBD 40. GLI-F4 is a tear gas grenade that contains 25g of TNT which has caused several people to lose a hand. LBD stands for lanceur de balle de défense (defence ball launcher) and is a rubber projectile of about 4 cm size (diameter). It is classified as a ‘less-lethal’ weapon and can cause bone fractures and has cost a number of Gilets Jaunes an eye.

Around the same time as LDH, Amnesty International (AI) issued a report on police violence linked to the Gilets Jaunes protests and urged French authorities to ‘exercise restraint when policing demonstrations.’ West Europe researcher for AI, Rym Khadhraoui stated that ‘[a]s the clouds of tear gas lift, a clearer picture has emerged which shows police have used excessive force against largely peaceful protesters, journalists and even children. […] Whilst policing demonstrations is a difficult task and some protesters have committed unlawful and violent acts, it is essential that both French law and international human rights law is respected.’

On February 14, 2019, the EU Parliament was the first international political institution to criticise the manner in which force had been used against protesters by French authorities. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, issued a memorandum on the situation. She noted a lack of respect for human rights in the attempts to maintain public order and criticised the, then planned and now introduced, measures including ‘excessive restrictions to freedom of peaceful assembly’, as well as the methods used, particularly the use of LBD.

In March, the United Nations (UN) placed France on its police violence list on which it now is the only developed country joining ranks with states such as Venezuela, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Yet, the French government is refuting all criticism of international organisations and human rights institutions, as well as calls from the Council of Europe, AI and the independent French human rights authority le Défenseur des Droits to put an end to the use of LBD. Interior Minister Castaner objected by stating that ‘French people [are allowed] to express themselves every day in our Grand Débat. We are already investigating the issue of police violence.’ And Secretary of State to PM Philippe, Benjamin Griveaux, responded to the UN’s decision: ‘I must say, I am surprised to find ourselves on a list between Venezuela and Haiti, where there have been death [due to force].’

Contributing to tensions are accusations of the police using illegitimate force against journalists and children. In early December 2018, parallel to the Gilets Jaunes protests, high school demonstrations against a planned school reforms, were taking place. In a Parisian suburb a peacefully protesting student was, according to AI, hit in the face by a LBD rubber projectile. Around the same time, a video went viral showing students being forced by riot police to kneel with their hands behind their heads or handcuffed behind their backs. According to lawyer Mourad Battikh, some of the students might have been kept in this position for up to four hours which would constitute a form of cruel and degrading treatment prohibited under international law. In addition to that, a number of journalists were injured. Some of the claim they had been deliberately targeted and repeatedly shot with LBD rubber bullets despite being clearly identifiable as press.

The task of the French police is undoubtedly a difficult one, especially given their already bad working conditions with the result of a worrying wave of suicides among the ranks of the police nationale. The EU Commissioner for Human Rights took note of them ‘working in the context of high tensions and fatigue’ and stressed the importance of adequate salaries, sufficient time off work, as well as psychological support and human rights training throughout the police officers’ careers.

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Les Gilets Jaunes: The Uncovering of Violence

Merle Emrich — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 20:00:57 +0000

It is Saturday. A man wearing a yellow high-visibility vest shouts at a group of police officers in riot gear who are speed-walking past: ‘It is us, the gilets jaunes, who are the nice guys!’ One of the officers sarcastically replies: ‘Oh, really?’. Scenes like these are not unusual these days. Since November, the gilets jaunes (‘yellow vests’) are protesting in France; the media shows images of rioting protesters, comparisons of the police nationale with the Gestapo are thrown into the room by protesters. Yet, the story of police violence and riots leaves more to uncover than might be apparent at first glance.

The Same Procedure as Last Saturday? The Same Procedure as Every Saturday!

Since a good three months, the gilets jaunes are protesting all over France leaving the occasional trail of anti-Macron graffiti, destroyed ATMs and broken windows of luxury shops. Their protests follow a similar pattern every Saturday: It starts with a happily chatting and singing crowd gathering at midday. Some bring drums, others flags and banners. As the protest continues the chants calling for Macron’s resignation begin to mix with those directed against the police. Some have brought white roses as a sign of peacefulness, others hold up pictures of bloody faces – the faces of those wounded by the police.

The clashes and destruction that occasionally follow are not the result of an irrational mob, a ‘hateful crowd‘, set out to destroy whatever stands in their way. Of course, there might be some that see vandalism as a sport. But altogether, it is the anger and frustration of those who felt unheard and forgotten for far too long and where exposed to non-physical violence in form of social injustices. It is an anger which now surfaces with the destructive force of a tsunami. The sad thing is that for some physical violence as response to this economic and psychological violence appears to be the only way to be noticed.

It is a shame that the French government did not react until after increasingly violent protests in early December. It seems to confirm that the only way to be heard by those in power is chaos and destruction. It is a shame that the images of the gilets jaunes shown on the news seem to portray little else but this chaos and destruction. And it is a sad commentary on this society which appears to be only interested in the news if it shows violence and scandal.

Scenes From a Protest

Not all of the violence, however, originates from the few gilets jaunes that are prone to destruction. According to government figures, the protests have seen at least 1700 protesters injured and ten dead in the time until early February. The far-left Parti Ouvrier Indépendant (POI, Independent Workers’ Party) speaks of more than 2000 injured protesters, 124 severely wounded gilets jaunes, 20 blinded by LBD 40 flash-balls, 4 hands torn off by GLI-F4 grenades the use of which has been defended by Interior Minister Castaner despite the known mutilating potential of these tear gas and stun grenades.

It does not come as a surprise that these incidents of police violence only spark more anger. That is, once again, not to say that all gilets jaunes are nothing but peaceful, or that those protesters who resort to violence and vandalism should not be held accountable. Neither is it to say that all measures taken by the police and the government are unreasonable. Yet, it certainly prompts questions about limits of state violence and the legitimacy of the use of force by the police.

The group of protesters stands facing the police in full riot gear. There are metres of empty space in between them and, apart from perhaps one or two bottles that shatter in front of the feet of the police, the situation is peaceful. It is impossible to say whether the trigger was a smoke bomb which someone brought, or if the police decided that the protest had gone on long enough, but suddenly more police are coming from the other end of the square and thick clouds of tear gas hang in the air. From now on the protesters are met with tear gas in almost every street, often launched at them from every direction making the air unbreathable. Shortly after sunset a group of protesters, their hands in the air as a sign of peacefulness, heads down a narrow street that is blocked by the police. All of a sudden, the group of police officers charges at them. One of them fires something, perhaps a flash-ball or a stun grenade, into the crowd that turns on their heels and takes flight.

A Stanford Prison Experiment on the Streets

Does that mean then that all cops are indeed bastards? Not quite. As Jérôme Rodrigues, one of the more prominent figures of the gilets jaunes movement said, ¨this violence is applied by the police simply because they are the shield of the powerful that tremble under the pressure of the people.¨ The Stanford prison experiment helps to better understand the link between the protests, the police and violence. While there is an abundance of criticism directed at the experiment and its findings, it nonetheless demonstrates how our environment influences our behaviour and how power can corrupt and provoke extreme actions.

The first important thing to note is that there is a clear power asymmetry between the gilets jaunes and the police. While the protesters usually don’t have anything but makeshift means to protect their mouths, noses and eyes from tear gas, as well as the occasional glass bottle, the police is equipped with professional protective gear including gas masks and shields, batons, water cannons, pepper spray, stun grenades, tear gas and flash-balls. During the experiment about a third of the participants assigned a role as guard began to abuse their power which escalated into degrading behaviour towards the ‘prisoners’. And even those who did not like their role as guard and where thus not prone to abuse their power did not step in. It implies that if there are institutions and structures creating a power imbalance, people can be corrupted by this power and behave in extreme ways which might explain incidents of extreme responses of the police to the gilets jaunes’ protests.

The second idea the Stanford prison experiment suggests, supported by Milgram’s obedience study, is that we behave as we believe we are expected to behave, especially if these expectations come from a superior authority . Thus, police officers using more force than necessary can be traced to obedience towards superior officers or institutions. In such a case it is very likely that the police officers in question do not act out of an intent to hurt anyone but believe in fact that they merely do what is necessary to control the situation.

What transpired in the analysis following the experiment was that a lack of criticism by authorities can be – consciously or subconsciously – interpreted as approval or encouragement and further increase the abuse of power. And indeed, the responses of the French government to the harm caused by flash-balls and stun grenades were either defending the use of them or an outright denying the injuries caused. On February 8 the Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative jurisdiction, furthermore allowed the police to continue launching flash-balls at protesters, despite criticism by human rights organisations such as the Ligue des droits de l’Homme. This decision legitimises the violence against protesters – and not only against those who actually attempt to start a riot but also against those who peacefully exercise their right to protest since a flash-ball launched into a crowd can hit anyone who happens to stand in its way.

While tear-gas and flash-balls are a relatively effective means to disperse protesters – at least temporarily – they don’t do much to appease the situation. Instead they foster more anger and resentment against the government and its tool of state violence, the police. As Louis Boyard, president of the union nationale lycéene (UNL) who was wounded by a flash-ball or grenade, said according to the POI’s newsletter: ‘A government that uses violence against its youth is a government that is scared, it is a government that is close to giving in. […] I will give in neither to violence nor to fear.’

Macron’s Great Mess

Violence against protesters frequently takes place on the street but also in the courts. It finds expression in preventive arrests that reportedly are at times based on nothing more but a slight suspicion, and in France’s new anti-rioting bill that according to critics does not only target rioters but can easily be abused to limit the people’s freedom to protest in general. It is a form of violence that cannot be explained with simplistic answers pointing i.e. at corrupt police. Rather it has its roots in often undiscovered or invisible institutions and power structures that are now brought to light. It is evidence of a government so out of its depth that it hides behind a shield of an instrumentalised police and judiciary apparatus, and which has lost the trust of the people. Yet, repressive responses to the frustration and despair of the gilets jaunes will not calm tempers. Neither will Macron’s grand débat which is seen by some as a PR strategy giving it the nickname grand dégat (‘great mess’). The only sensible thing Macron’s government can do is to take decisive actions that demonstrate a convincing step towards the ordinary people.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Related Articles:

Les Gilets Jaunes: A Discovery of Revolution

Photo Essay: A Nation Sees Yellow

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