Tag: police brutality

Iran uses arrests and intimidation to stop families commemorating protesters’ deaths

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Since September 16, Iranian authorities have been using arrests, death threats and direct attacks to prevent families from celebrating the anniversaries of the deaths of their loved ones killed during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests. The aim: to prevent these commemorations from giving rise to new anti-regime demonstrations throughout the country.

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The Iranian authorities had been scrutinising the date of September 16 for months. It was on that day in 2022 that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by the Islamic Republic’s morality police. Her death launched a movement of protests that deeply shook Iranian society.

While the country remained relatively calm on the anniversary of Amini’s death, each day since then has marked the anniversary of the death of a protester killed by Iranian security forces during the first demonstrations. Families of those who lost their lives report house arrests, threats and summonses in what appears to be an attempt by the regime to silence all those who want to commemorate the death of a loved one.


Security Forces Vehicles Arrive In Rahmatabad, The Village Of Javad Heidary’s Family, On September 21.

The Heidary family wanted to commemorate the death of Javad Heidary, a 40-year-old protester in Qazvin, a town 150 km east of Tehran. He was killed by Iranian security forces on September 22 last year. On Thursday September 21, the day before the anniversary of his death, a convoy of security force vehicles descended on his family’s village. The security forces cut off roads leading to the village, and to the cemetery where Heidary is buried. The village’s internet connection was also cut. The security forces went so far as to attack the Heidary family home with tear gas and live ammunition.


Videos taken inside the house show family members, including children, hit by tear gas.


Une membre de la famille de Javad Heidary blessée après l’intervention des forces de securité.

In a voice message posted on X (formerly Twitter), a family member said that several of Heidary’s relatives, including his mother, were taken to hospital when authorities allowed ambulances to enter the village after a blockade that lasted several hours. The same source said that two of Heidary’s brothers and his father were arrested.


“Your other child will end up in the grave next to the one who died”

The attack on the Heidary home is the regime’s highest-profile reaction since the start of the planned commemorations for those who were killed last September. But in recent days, many families who had announced on social media that they were going to organise ceremonies in memory of their family members who were killed have cancelled the commemorations.

In a live chat on X that FRANCE 24 was able to listen to, several members of different protesters’ families recounted the pressure and threats they have faced. 

One explained: 

“The security forces call or summon family members, including distant cousins, to threaten us and put pressure on us.” 

Another added:

“We are told that if something bad happens to one of our relatives, it will be our fault. Or they’ll say: ‘Your other child will end up in the grave next to the one who died. Your child will be buried next to his father or mother if you go to the cemetery in the coming days’.”

Another participant in the live chat said that security forces had stopped children as young as seven years old in the street and threatened them to get the message across to their families. 

Another said: 

“The families themselves are not afraid of death, but the security forces threaten to kill distant family members or people attending the memorial ceremonies. The families can’t take the risk and are cancelling the ceremonies.”

Families of high-profile ‘martyrs’ targeted 

Among the families under threat is that of Nika Shakarami, one of the best-known “martyrs” of the protests, who was killed at the age of 17. Her relatives say they cancelled a planned commemoration ceremony after officials warned her mother she would be arrested if she went to her daughter’s grave site. Shakarami’s aunt, with whom she lived, suffered a stroke as a result of this intense pressure, the family said.

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The family of Hadis Najafi, another protester whose name became famous after she was killed by a police shotgun blast, also reports receiving threats. Several members of her family were arrested on September 15, then released. Najafi, 22, had posted a video on social media in which she declared, “I take part in these demonstrations so that, after a few years, when I look back, I’ll be happy and see that everything has changed”.


The family of 22-year-old Hananeh Kia, who was killed on September 21 last year in a protest in Noshahr in northern Iran, has also suffered apparent intimidation. Her father, mother and 15-year-old sister Helia were arrested on August 27 and released three weeks later.

At least 537 demonstrators were killed during 2022’s anti-regime protests. The security forces also injured thousands of demonstrators and arrested at least 90,000 people, according to official figures.



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Proposed hijab penalties in Iran: ‘They can’t prosecute millions of women’

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One year ago this Saturday, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for wearing her hijab “improperly”. Her death led to massive anti-regime protests, known by their now-iconic slogan: “Woman, Life, Freedom”. The Observers team has been in regular contact with dozens of women across Iran over the past 12 months. Many of them have told us that it has become the “new normal” for millions of women in Iran to go out in public with their hair uncovered. But with a new law under discussion that would massively increase the penalties for hijab-related offenses, how long will these new freedoms last?

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While a year ago it was unusual to see women without hijab in public spaces in Iran, thousands of amateur images posted online – and the accounts of women inside the country – show that millions of Iranian women now routinely go out in public without the Islamic head covering. 

A new law is under discussion in the Iranian parliament that would increase the penalties for the improper wearing of hijab from the equivalent of 1 euro to 3,000 euros, and the maximum prison sentence from two months to 10 years. The proposed law has special measures for so-called “celebrities”, including the confiscation of 10 percent of their assets.

‘I no longer wear hijab in public spaces’

Sita (not her real name) is a young Iranian university student who lives in Tehran. Although she grew up in a religious family, she has decided to stop wearing a hijab.

After the protests started, this question in my head became louder and louder: Why do I have to seek permission from the state – from an ideology that I don’t even believe in – to live the way I want to live? I have found new courage to stand up for my choices, despite the risks.

In the last year, many things have changed for me. The first change was in my family. I feel that they are much more open-minded and look at women differently than they used to.

Since the death of Mahsa Amini, I no longer wear hijab in public spaces. Society has generally been supportive. Before the protests, if you went out in public without hijab, people would stare at you, even other women. Now, the most common reaction is a simple smile. Sometimes people say encouraging words when they pass by.

History has taught us that any change in society is difficult, and entrenched ideologies are difficult to crack. Despite all this, I see many changes in society. I have the feeling that many people who are religious and observant have asked themselves this question: “If I have the freedom to lead the lifestyle I choose, then girls and women on the street who do not wear hijab should have the same right to dress the way they want.” 

We’ve seen that Iranians are willing to pay the price for supporting women. The café owner accepts that his café might be closed down for a few days, but he does not ask the women in his café to wear the hijab. When men fight like this for women’s rights, it shows that a revolution has happened in a macho society.


Dancing for girls in public in Iran with no Islamic hijab could have a severe consequences, however many Instagram infeluencers share their videos.

‘They can’t prosecute the millions of women in the streets’

The “celebrities” targeted by the draft law could include social media influencers. One of the favourite targets for arrests by Iranian security forces in the weeks before the anniversary has been female influencers who post images of themselves without hijab to their tens of thousands of followers.

In recent months, several Iranian influencers have been arrested, among them a female motorcyclist, a young lifestyle and fashion influencer, a travel blogger and Sar, a teenager whose video of her with her friends in a shopping mall went viral.

Varia (not her real name) is a lifestyle influencer who lives in Shiraz. She talks about the pressure influencers face.

It’s scary. Every day I hear that a friend or colleague has been arrested, their bank account frozen or their car impounded. But I am glad that there are so many women who resist despite the threats and pressure by the regime. Even if they silence women who are so-called “celebrities”, they cannot prosecute the millions of women in the streets.

The most impressive change I have observed since a year ago is that verbal harassment of women on the street – which used to be not uncommon – has decreased. I have not had a bad experience in a year, even though I’m downtown working every day.

The private sector does not dare to require its female employees to wear hijab. As far as I can tell, people have made their peace with women’s personal choice. And what is even nicer is that these changes can be observed not only in the rich neighbourhoods of Tehran, but also in the poor neighbourhoods in the south of Tehran and in other cities. These changes are permanent, I think, they are the result of 40 years of resistance.


Elaheh Asgri is a travel blogger, she was recently arretsed for weeks.

Iranian authorities have also targeted Iran’s fast-growing start-up industry, accusing it of propagating Western values by allowing women to go to work without a hijab.

In recent months, several start-ups were targeted by security forces. Some of them had to stop working for weeks, others had their headquarters attacked or their executives arrested.

Shamila (not her real name) is a senior executive at a start-up in Tehran. She talks about her experience over the past year.

Most people who work in startups support the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests. Most women at start-ups like ours refuse to wear hijab. However, it is easier to bully start-ups than millions of women on the streets, one by one. The authorities send threatening letters and sometimes order start-ups to close their office for a few days. The companies that own the start-ups just want to avoid headaches and keep the money flowing.

I think this will force more Iranians than ever – especially talented women working in these startups – to migrate abroad.

The women we have been speaking to believe – or hope – that the protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death have changed Iranian society forever. But they say there is more to be done to remove the theocratic regime that governs their lives, and they will keep fighting.


Sar, a teenager influencer who’s one her video went viral and the she was arrested for days

Varia, the influencer, says:

For months I was preoccupied with the price we pay for these changes: People, teenagers and even children who have lost their lives. I wish all that spilt blood had made a bigger difference. But I think all that pain has led our society to where we are now.

This bloodshed has made the equation clear to everyone in Iran, I think: either we put an end to them or they put an end to us, there is no middle ground.

Sita is also optimistic about the future:

The war is not over yet, but so far we have won some battles. You can see by their actions that the regime is desperate; they are arresting singers, journalists, university professors. But I’m optimistic about the future of our country. I’m really focused on the present. What can I do? How can I help the protests to succeed?



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Protesters in Georgia drive away Russian cruise ship, allege violent police response

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After two days of demonstrations, protesters in Georgia forced out the Russian cruise ship Astoria Grande, which had been docked at a Black Sea port in the southwest of the country. Police responded by using force on protesters, who cited their disapproval of the cruise ship’s passengers’ views on Russian policies in Ukraine and Georgia. According to our Observer, the clashes highlight a disparity between the Georgian government and the population’s stance on Russia.

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The Russian cruise ship Astoria Grande stopped at Georgia’s Batumi port on the Black Sea for the first time on July 26. Hundreds of Georgians met it with anti-Russian signs, determined to stop the 800 tourists aboard from disembarking.

Protesters were even more incensed to learn that Russian television personalities who spoke in support of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine were among the tourists on board. 

When they were interviewed by Georgian media on their arrival, some passengers declared that the 2008 Russian war against Georgia “liberated” Abkhazia, an autonomous republic and state recognised by only seven countries in the world, that is a breakaway region bordering Russia considered occupied territory by Georgian law. These statements, as well as deliberate provocations, rallied more people against the cruise ship.

The ship left port early on July 27, but returned on July 31 only to be met once again by demonstrators. The protesters threw eggs and plastic bottles at the minibuses taking Russian tourists on the ship. 

The cruise operator told Russian media RBC that Batumi was no longer a destination for the Astoria Grande. 


Video taken by Tazo Makharadze during the protest in Batumi on August 31.

‘We won this battle. But the struggle continues’

Tazo Makharadze is the cofounder of the association Dafion, a pro-European youth movement. He launched the call for protest against the cruise ship on both days. 

The gathering of people in Batumi started when the Russian cruise arrived in Batumi and the “guests” on the cruise insulted our territorial integrity and said that Abkhazia and Samachablo were not Georgian. 

Soon after, I posted an appeal calling on people to come out and protest this disparity. Other organisations were involved besides us. And most importantly, completely nonpartisan people took part in this protest, and this means that these sentiments are present in the people. 

The protests were mostly self-organised, because this is the mood of the people right now and they don’t want Russia. More than 20 percent of our country is occupied by Russia. Despite this, our government pursues a pro-Russian policy. That’s why Georgian youths often have to stand on the street and protest these disparities. 

We won this battle and drove out the occupiers ahead of time. But the struggle continues.


Hundreds of people gathered in the port of Batumi on August 31. The police intervened to allow the passage of minibuses transporting Russian tourists to the ship.

Irakli Kobakhidze, chairman of “Georgian Dream”, the majority party in the Georgian parliament, publicly condemned the protests on August 1. 

“Hypocrisy and the double standard of pseudo-anti-Russians clearly indicate that all political provocations, including the rally held yesterday in Batumi, are dictated only by anti-state political goals and external influence,” Kobakhidze said. 

He added that cruise ships provide tourist revenues to the country.

‘The participants of the rally did not comply with their legal demands’

The police intervened to provide safe passage to tourists and used violence against protesters, according to eyewitnesses. At least 23 people were detained on July 31. Among them are well-known activists and a local leader of the opposition party Droa. 

The Georgian ministry of interior released a statement about the protests in Batumi on July 31:  

“Despite numerous calls by law enforcement officers at the port of Batumi, the participants of the rally did not comply with their legal demands […]. We call on the participants of the rally not to go beyond the limits of the freedom of assembly and expression allowed by law.”

The police did not make any further official declarations following the departing of the cruise ship. Our team tried to contact the Georgian police and the regional police section in Batumi for a comment, but did not receive a response. 

‘There was no reason for violence. People were arrested because of fear’

Tazo Makharadze told us that the police violence was exaggerated. 

The police intervened when we did not allow the Russian tourists to get off the cruise. They physically assaulted the protesters. There was a case when a fallen person was kicked in the leg. There was no reason for violence.


The police attempted to move protestors out of the way to let minibuses with Russian tourists pass

Multiple legal associations declared that pre-trial detention was used in an abusive way. Some detainees stated that the police were physically violent even after they were arrested. One Ukrainian protester that was arrested had to be transferred to the hospital because of her injuries. 

‘Police violated protesters’ rights to freedom of expression’

While arrested protesters have the right to see their lawyer right away, information about the identity of the detained as well as on the location of their detention was released only in the late evening of July 31, according to a press statement by the Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia (GYLA).  

The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to a representative from Union Sapari, one of the volunteer legal associations that is striving to prove that protesters were illegally detained. 

The police arrested the protesters under traditional articles, which they always use in similar cases: petty hooliganism and disobedience to the request of the policeman. 

Police violated protesters’ rights to freedom of expression. The three people we are representing have been detained already for 48 hours and several of them are injured. We are collecting the video archives of the detention and disputing the detention in the court as illegal.


A video posted on Twitter on August 1 shows the Georgian police violently arresting a Ukrainian demonstrator. While in detention she had to be transferred to the hospital.

Several police officers are under investigation for engaging in abusive behaviour, as stated by the Georgian Special Investigative Service on August 1. 

As of August 3, 15 protesters have been released on bail. At least eight protesters remain in detention, where they have been held for longer than 48 hours – the maximum term of pre-trial detention under Georgian law. 



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Macron walks tightrope as French police protest challenges rule of law

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French President Emmanuel Macron has declined to condemn the country’s top police chiefs for appearing to suggest officers were above the law, seeking to stave off unrest among security forces wearied by repeated bouts of street violence. Critics, however, lament a missed opportunity to reassert the state’s authority over an increasingly restless police force.

Just weeks after the police killing of 17-year-old Nahel M. kicked off massive riots across France, the country’s top police official sparked a fresh row on Sunday by slamming the decision to jail an officer whose actions during the unrest are being investigated. 

The controversial remarks by national police chief Frédéric Veaux were aimed at staving off a revolt in the southern city of Marseille, where officers have staged a rare walkout in protest at a court decision to remand one of their colleagues in custody. 

Police clash with protesters in the streets of Nanterre, near Paris, on June 30, 2023, following the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. © Gonzalo Fuentes, Reuters

The jailed policeman is one of four officers placed under investigation over the alleged beating of a 21-year-old man of North African origin, who has undergone multiple surgical procedures and had part of his skull removed after what he said was a deliberate attack by police using an LBD blast-ball gun. 

“Knowing that (the officer) is in prison stops me from sleeping,” Veaux said in an interview with French daily Le Parisien, after travelling to Marseille to bring a message of support to police from Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. 

“In general, I believe that ahead of a possible trial, a police officer should not be in prison, even if he may have committed serious faults or errors in the course of his work,” Veaux added in remarks backed by Paris police chief Laurent Nunez, France’s second-highest-ranking officer. 

The comments promptly raised eyebrows among members of the judiciary, who denounced an attack on their independence and the principle of equality before the law. 

Cécile Mamelin, the vice president of the Union of Magistrates, described Veaux’s words as “scandalous” and “extremely serious in a state of law”, while Marseille’s top judge Olivier Leurent issued a statement urging “restraint so that the judiciary can pursue the investigation (…) free from pressure and in complete impartiality”. 

Macron on the police in France


Meanwhile, the left-wing opposition blasted the government for failing to rein in “a police hierarchy that places itself above the law”.  

Macron’s balancing act 

France’s latest policing dispute caught up with Macron as he touched down in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia on Monday, some 16,000 kilometres away, for the start of an Indo-Pacific tour. 

The French president steered clear of commenting both on Veaux’s remarks and the judicial decision to remand the officer in custody. Pressed for a response, he stressed that “no one in the Republic is above the law” and that the police “obviously (…) fall under the law”. 

Above all, Macron praised police in the face of “an unprecedented surge of violence” during the riots, in which some 900 law enforcement officers were injured. He said he understood “the emotions of our officers”, adding that they “must be heard while respecting the rule of law”. 

Read moreMacron government shifts stance on police violence to quell unrest after death of teen

His choice of words reflected the government’s concern at the mounting anguish voiced by police after a gruelling year marked by rioting and sometimes violent protests, said Jean-Marc Berlière, a historian of the French police. 

“There is widespread discontent and a sense of injustice among police officers who feel that they are sacrificing their lives and well-being to maintain public order – while being finger-pointed and reprimanded in return,” Berlière said. 

He cited the increasingly vocal criticism of police’s heavy-handed tactics, both at home and from abroad, which has seen rights groups, the Council of Europe and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association each voice their concern at French police’s “excessive use of force” in tackling protests against Macron’s deeply unpopular pension reform, which the government rammed through parliament in March without a vote. 

While police cannot go on strike, Berlière added, “the government is also well aware of the risk of further roiling a police force that is still perfectly capable of paralysing law enforcement.” 


Over the past week, several hundred police officers in Marseille have gone on sick leave in protest over their colleague’s detention, according to unnamed union sources. Others have put themselves under so-called “code 562”, which means that they only respond to emergency and essential missions. 

While the exact numbers are not known, they are sufficiently high to alarm the authorities in Paris, said Berlière.

“In recent months, the government has already seen its legitimacy challenged by street protesters and parts of the opposition,” he said. “It cannot afford a challenge from the police, too.”   

Seeking to stave off further unrest in the ranks, France’s interior minister on Thursday said he understood the frustration and anger voiced by overworked security forces after repeated bouts of street violence.

“I want to say that I can understand this fatigue, sadness and emotion,” Darmanin said before heading into a meeting with police union representatives. He also urged police not to let down the population and serve the public interest.

A crisis of authority 

Critics of Macron’s cautious response have argued that it trivialises what amounts to a serious challenge to the rule of law. 

In an editorial on Wednesday, French daily Le Monde described the president’s stance as an “admission of weakness” in the face of a police force that “is becoming increasingly difficult to control”. 

A noted police expert, Sebastian Roché, tweeted his concern about what is at stake, warning that the police chiefs’ comments undermined the “cardinal principle” of equality before the law. 

In an interview with investigative weekly Mediapart, Roché said Macron’s words left the impression that “he doesn’t really know, or at best doesn’t appreciate, the extent of this unprecedented transgression under the Fifth Republic”. 

The president’s refusal to comment on Veaux’s remarks “reflects his political weakness and fragility”, he added. “It’s as if he were saying ‘I’m not in charge’.” 

Speaking to FRANCE 24 at the height of the pension unrest earlier this year, Roché described the police crackdown on protests as a consequence of both a French policing tradition and the government’s fragility. 

Heavy-handed policing stems from the “crisis of authority” undermining Macron’s minority and deeply unpopular government, Roché explained. “When a government chooses force it is always because its authority is weakened,” he added. 

Read moreUse of force signals ‘crisis of authority’ as France’s pension battle turns to unrest

Echoing such views, political analyst Emmanuel Blanchard argued in an interview with left-leaning daily Libération that the government’s reliance on law enforcement to quell social unrest “has weakened its position in relation to the police”. 

“It’s a cyclical trend: the less popular legitimacy the government enjoys, the more it relies on the forces of law and order, which it needs to suppress social movements,” Blanchard explained. “So it gives them (the police) guarantees. This leads to forms of empowerment, which can lead to protests like the one we are currently seeing.” 

A history of unrest   

France has a long history of police protests and unrest – one governments are well aware of. 

“Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the police are not always a passive and obedient instrument in the hands of the executive power,” Berlière noted. “One doesn’t have to be a historian to have some idea of the perils for a government of alienating law enforcement.” 

In 1958, widespread police unrest helped precipitate the fall of the troubled Fourth Republic, a parliamentarian regime that was replaced by the current presidential system instituted by World War II hero Charles de Gaulle. 

Decades later, in March 1983, some 2,000 officers marched on the justice ministry in Paris calling for the removal of Robert Badinter, the justice minister who helped abolish the death penalty and whom they deemed soft on crime. That move backfired, however, as then-president François Mitterrand swiftly moved to dismiss France’s top police chiefs and punish union leaders. 

“If certain police officers, an active minority, have failed in their duty, the duty of those in charge of the Republic is to strike and ensure that the authority of the state is respected,” Mitterrand said in televised remarks that have resurfaced on social media in recent days, posted by critics of Macron’s more cautious approach. 

Such comparisons have little pertinence, Berlière argued, pointing to widely differing contexts. 

“Back in 1983 there were no riots and no street protests to be wary of,” he said. “And while the revolt against Badinter was led by a fringe, far-right union, Macron and his government are aware that hardline unions are more powerful today and that the officers’ protest in Marseille is broadly supported.” 

One thing that hasn’t changed is the longstanding animosity between the police and the judiciary, which has underpinned this and other disputes. 

In May 2021, police unions vented their anger at the justice system during a rally outside the National Assembly in Paris, attended by politicians of all stripes. Union leaders could be heard stating that “the police’s problem is the judiciary” and calling for “constitutional constraints” to be “breached”. 

Police protesters rally outside the National Assembly in Paris on May 19, 2021, venting their anger at a judiciary they deem too lax.
Police protesters rally outside the National Assembly in Paris on May 19, 2021, venting their anger at a judiciary they deem too lax. © Thomas Coex, AFP

Police unions routinely accuse the judges of being too lenient with criminals and too harsh with officers. Magistrates’ unions, meanwhile, accuse police authorities of “hijacking” the judiciary to repress protest movements, notably through the use of arbitrary or “preventive” arrests that seldom lead to prosecution. 

The comments by Veaux and Nunez, France’s most senior police officials, take the dispute to a new level, reflecting the police hierarchy’s concern to appear in step with an increasingly disgruntled – and radicalised – base. 

“Many in the police perceive the decision to jail their colleague in Marseille as a case of judges abusing their powers and seeking to settle scores,” said Berlière, noting that officers are seldom remanded in custody pending a trial. 

“As for magistrates, they see the police action as a form of interference with the judiciary and of disregard for the separation of powers,” he added. 

‘Worrying silence’ 

In its editorial on Wednesday, Le Monde said Veaux’s remarks threatened to open “a new chapter in the war between police and the judiciary”, while also “calling into question the principles of the rule of law, namely the independence of the judiciary, the separation of powers and equality before the law”. 

In such a context, the newspaper expressed concern at the government’s “worrying silence”. 

Éric Dupond-Moretti, the justice minister, waited until Macron’s comments before tweeting that the independence of judicial officials is “an indispensable condition for respect of the rule of law”. 

His colleague at the interior ministry, who is Veaux’s direct boss, waited a full week before breaking his silence on the matter. In his comments on Thursday, Darmanin expressed support for the police chief, whose remarks in Le Parisien had been approved by the minister’s cabinet.

“Police officers cannot be the only people in France for whom presumption of innocence (…) is replaced by a presumption of guilt,” the minister told reporters outside a police station in Paris, in remarks that a representative body of French magistrates promptly described as an “alarming” attack on the judiciary’s “impartiality”.

Darmanin later told police unions he would examine their demands for greater protection for officers, including those facing legal investigations. He also pledged to visit Marseille in the coming days to express support for police in the southern city plagued by gang violence.

Overall, Macron and his ministers appear more concerned to “calm things down” than to reassert the state’s authority over the police, Le Monde wrote, pointing to a delicate balancing act as France prepares to host a series of major sporting events. 

With the country set to host the Rugby World Cup from September and the Olympic Games next year, Macron “certainly cannot afford the luxury of an open crisis with those who maintain public order”, the paper noted. 

But the president’s decision to shirk a fight will do little to appease the wider nation and address the root causes of urban riots in France, Le Monde cautioned, noting that the worst cases of rioting this century have been triggered by police blunders and that the country “is suffering from a very poor relationship between the police and a section of the population”. 



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Morality police patrols return to Iran’s streets after 10 months

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Nearly 10 months after Iran’s so-called “morality police” disappeared from the streets during mass protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian police announced July 16 that they had resumed patrols targeting “immoral clothing.” Amateur videos and first-hand reports from our Observers in Iran indicate that the patrols had resumed in the days before the announcement. But with many Iranian women having gotten used to going out with their heads uncovered in recent months, it remains unclear whether the patrols will be able to stop them. 

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Amini, 22, was arrested by members of Iran’s Guidance Patrol on September 13, 2022 for allegedly not wearing a headscarf, and died three days later. Her death sparked months of mass protests that resulted in more than 500 deaths, thousands of injuries, and tens of thousands of demonstrators arrested.

The protests, under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” led many Iranian women to refuse to wear the Islamic hijab in public, defying Iran’s mandatory hijab laws. Guidance Patrol units stopped patrolling, and Iran’s regular police had to focus on breaking up the protests, not enforcing hijab rules.

Now the Iranian regime is cracking down.On July 16, Saeed Montazer Al-Mahdi, spokesman for the Iranian police, announced that the morality police would resume conducting morality patrols. “Following massive demand by several groups of people, and the urging of the president and the head of the judiciary to achieve a safer society and enforce family values, police patrols will, from today, alert persons wearing immoral clothing and, if they insist, report them to the courts.”

 


In this video posted on Twitter the man filming says the woman in black is an officer of Iran’s Gasht-e-Ershad morality police making an arrest in the Gisha neighbourhood of north Tehran on July 15, 2023.

 

Many Iranians on social media report seeing police conducting morality patrols on the streets in recent days. They have posted images showing women with their heads uncovered being stopped by women in black chadors accompanied by uniformed male police officers. Police vehicles are visible in the images, along with unmarked white vans. 

Most of the posts on social media report seeing the patrols merely order women to put on a headscarf, but there are also videos suggesting arrests are being made.

Montazer Al-Mahdi did not specifically mention the Guidance Patrol (known as Gasht-e-Ershad in Persian), and it was unclear whether the new patrols are being conducted by regular police or personnel from the religious police unit. Iran’s attorney general had announced in January that the Guidance Patrol was being disbanded, but it was denied by state media.

Iranian authorities have for months been using traffic-surveillance cameras to detect women drivers and passengers without hijabs, and using the vehicles’ licence plates to identify the women and summon them to court to pay fines.

 

“Young women aren’t afraid of arrest or fines”

Niusha [not her real name], an Iranian woman in Tehran who has refused to wear Islamic clothing in public places for more than a year, explains what is now happening on the streets of Iran:

“I go outside as I please, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. However, I have seen patrols of the morality police in several places in Tehran in the north and in the city centre, although I have not seen or heard of them arresting anyone yet.

I have seen their female officers in black chadors as usual. But now they are in white vans, whereas their vehicles used to be white and green [official colours of Iranian police vehicles].

On the other hand, I know many women who have been summoned to court. The Islamic Republic agents have reported them to the authorities for not wearing Islamic dress in public places and the women have been brought before a judge and are now waiting for their verdict.

 


The caption of this video posted on Twitter 17 July 2023 says it shows officers of Iran’s morality police checking women for hijab violations in the western city of Kermanshah.

And the number of threatening text messages to women drivers in cars has increased. Traffic cameras are used to check whether the women in the car are wearing an Islamic hijab or not, and if not, they send a text message and fine the car owner, sometimes impounding the car for a while.

And I don’t see Iranian women actually giving in to the pressure. The main force behind the protests – and most of the women you see without Islamic hijab – are young women and teenagers. I do not see any way the morality police are going to stop them. Young women aren’t afraid of arrest, fines, or parental pressure, or being deprived of their social rights. They’re not afraid of anything.

But middle-class families who have to go to work every day need their car, and some of them might fold. One of my friends, who has not once worn a headscarf in the last few months, put one in her car as a precaution.”

 


This video posted on Telegram shows Iranians in the city of Rasht protesting following the arrest of three women on 16 July 2023 for not wearing Islamic hijab on the street.

On July 17, media outlets close to the state claimed a judge in the Tehran province sentenced a woman to work in a morgue in Tehran for not wearing a headscarf in her car.

The Islamic Republic has once again set out to push back Iranian women with the help of police forces, but many political analysts call this latest act a shot in the Islamic Republic’s own knee.

This photo posted on Twitter on 15 July 2023 shows a suspected morality patrol by police in Tehran’s Valiasr Square. © @NR2OH

 

For the extremists, enforcing Islamic hijab is the last bastion before the regime’s collapse

Tara [not her real name] is a political analyst in Iran. She has been arrested several times for her criticism of the Islamic Republic. She is also one of the Iranian women refusing to comply with the Islamic dress code imposed by the mollahs in Tehran. She explains why, just two months before the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and amid an unprecedented crumbling of legitimacy for the regime, the Islamic Republic is adding fuel to the fire after decades of economic, environmental, political, diplomatic and human rights crises.

“As far as I can tell, there is a struggle between different political factions in Iran. There are extremists, including Ahmad-Reza Radan, Iran’s newly appointed police chief, who want to reintroduce the morality police. They have the upper hand. But there are other blocs who, for whatever reason – maybe fear of more mass protests – disagree. Some hardline websites such as Tasnim News and Javan [two media outlets close to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC] have denied the morality police are being redeployed, saying the amateur images showing such patrols are ‘fake’. 

For the extremists, enforcing Islamic hijab on the streets is critical, the last bastion before the regime’s collapse. It’s a way of showing that the regime is still in control.  That is why the hardliners have recently organised rallies by their supporters to protest the regime’s lack of initiative to enforce Sharia law in public spaces.

We should not forget that we are approaching the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death. Maybe they think that with such a strong presence on the streets they can stop people from marking this day in the coming weeks. But I think that will backfire on them in the end.”



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Police violence: How can France tackle racial profiling without first addressing race?

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Young men in France perceived to be Black or Arab are 20 times more likely to be stopped by police than the rest of the population, according to the country’s human rights ombudsman. Racial profiling runs deep in the French police force, but unlike in the US and Canada, very little action is being taken to combat this form of discrimination. 

The warning signs are there. Non-profit organisations, anti-racism activists and experts in France have been sounding the alarm for decades – long before the police killing of Nahel, a 17-year-old French boy of Moroccan and Algerian descent, triggered several days of rioting across the country. 

The video of the unthreatened police officer fatally shooting the unarmed teenager during a traffic stop reignited calls among left-wing politicians – and the UN – for French police to acknowledge its racial profiling problem.

Young men who are perceived to be Black or Arab are 20 times more likely to be stopped for identity checks than the rest of the population.

However, French authorities deny the existence of systemic racism. While some efforts have been made to tackle racial profiling, like police training on potential discriminatory behaviours, no concrete policies or laws targeting the issue have been implemented.

Faced with a similar discrepancy between theoretical colourblind policing and unfair targeting of minorities, the US and Canada have tried to curb such racial profiling – with little success so far.

Court rulings not enough to modify ‘broader culture of police’

In 1996, New Jersey became the first state to affirm the existence of racial profiling after its court ruled that troopers were unfairly targeting and arresting minorities on the New Jersey Turnpike. A few years later, the Justice Department demanded the state police department track racial disparities in turnpike enforcement and put 2,500 troopers under a federal consent decree to ensure they adhere to regulations.

But allegations of racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike persisted. Thirty years after the initial ruling, an audit found that Black drivers were still being subjected more often to searches, arrests and uses of force during police traffic stops. An ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) report found that in 2018, Black people in New Jersey were still 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white residents, despite similar usage rates.

“[The ruling] didn’t change the broader culture of police,” says Jean Beaman, Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara who has researched state violence in France and the US.

“Just look at the legislation passed in New York [to reform] stop and frisk,” says Beaman. 

Read moreWhy deadly police shootings are on the rise on France’s roads

Body cameras and accountability

A few miles up north in New York City, former mayor Bill de Blasio promised to combat racial profiling. And he did, to a certain extent. In 2013, a federal judge ruled that New York’s stop and frisk practice was racially biased. The practice had previously allowed police officers to stop, interrogate and search residents on the sole basis of “reasonable suspicion”.

The New York Police Department was ordered to make sweeping reforms in policies, trainings and practices to end racial discrimination in stop and frisk cases. Officers were required to wear body cameras and monitoring was put in place for accountability.

“It was a huge victory,” says Beaman. According to the New York Times, de Blasio managed to reduce the total number of arrests, criminal summons and pedestrian stops by 82%. Crime rates fell, too.

But it wasn’t enough. A 2020 report by Data Collaborative for Justice found that Black neighbourhoods continued to be policed at a higher rate than white ones. Racial disparities persisted, with Black and Hispanic people still much more likely to be stopped and arrested than white people.

While Beaman acknowledges the positive outcomes of the ban, she says “it didn’t change the overall practices of racial profiling by police, in the sense of who they’re more likely to harass or think may be suspicious of criminal activity”.

“You can change the practices but the policing logic … which sees certain individuals as criminals or suspects, not regular citizens … is not going to change,” she explains.

‘Remove the tool that incites racial profiling’

French sociologist Anaïk Purenne, who works on youth-police relations with a focus on discrimination and police profiling, agrees that the larger “policing logic” Jean Beaman refers to is one possible explanation for the shortcomings of the reform. “We have to think about the bias that certain public policy priorities can generate,” says Purenne. If “the fight against crime” is a priority for a police force, she says, then it is important to look at what biases that instils in police officers.

But there is another case Purenne was deeply intrigued by. In a book titled “Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship”, researchers observed police behaviour during traffic stops in Kansas City and surveyed 2,300 drivers over a number of years. They found that there was little to no racial profiling by police in stops made after a driver had committed a traffic violation. During investigatory police stops however, which similarly to former stop and frisk practices are based on “reasonable suspicion”, racial profiling was stark.

“[The authors] concluded that the tool itself, investigatory police stops, had to be broken … that the police instrument had to be abolished altogether,” says Purenne. “I find that a really interesting idea. Removing the tool that incites racial profiling could be very beneficial.”

And this approach is being tested in some parts of the world like Canada, the sociologist explains. In Nova Scotia, police have not been allowed to conduct random street ID checks since 2019. “It’s too recent for us to be able to really measure the effects,” says Purenne, “but it is something to monitor.”

First step: Acknowledging the problem

There are myriad ways to reform policing in order to put an end to racial profiling. Examples from the US may be imperfect, but they are a start.

When it comes to reforms that could be made in France’s police to curb racial profiling, both Beaman and Purenne are pessimistic. The two sociologists agree that a crucial first step would be for French authorities to acknowledge that there is a problem.

“It’s very simple,” says Purenne, “we start by acknowledging there is a problem and naming it”. 

She adds that “being open to the notion that there could be structural causes driving this behaviour” within the police force is also essential.

For Beaman, both France and the US “need a full-scale accountability mechanism for police officers”.

“Part of that is recognising how systematic [racism or discrimination] actually is, which even in the United States we’ve pretty much avoided dealing with, but that’s the first step,” she says.

However, Beaman knows that it can be challenging to achieve accountability in France. It is illegal to compile racial statistics in France, for example. “Without an infrastructure to talk about race, you can’t talk about racial profiling,” she says.

Read moreFrance sees itself as colourblind – so how do the French talk about race?

Lack of statistics

What’s more, police in France are not obliged to keep a record of pedestrian stops they make. “Police only fill in a stop form if they deem the information they gathered relevant or interesting [for another case],” says Purenne. “We need more transparency.”

NGOs and anti-racist activists have made countless suggestions to combat police violence and racial profiling in France. In low-income neighbourhoods like the one young Nahel was from, for example, there is talk of “proximity police”. French sociologist Julien Talpin told FRANCE 24 in a TV interview that “residents are asking for ‘proximity police’, officers who are in the neighbourhoods on a daily basis and who can actually build trust with residents”.

In July 2021, six NGOs including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch filed a class action suit with France’s highest administrative court to finally put an end to racial profiling, given authorities’ inaction on the issue. They alleged that French police target minorities when choosing who to stop and check, saying the practice is rooted in a culture of systemic discrimination.

The case is still pending.

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Teen’s killing raises a French policing issue that dare not be named

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The killing of 17-year-old Nahel M. during a police traffic stop this week was a depressingly familiar addition to France’s list of police brutality cases. But when the UN called on the government to address racial discrimination in its police force, the official reaction was just as familiar and depressing for France’s minorities.

On Friday, just a few days after a French police officer shot dead a teenager during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, the UN Human Rights Office urged France to tackle racial discrimination.

“We are concerned by the killing of a 17-year-old of North African descent by police in France,” UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing in Geneva.

“This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement,” she added.

Shamdasani’s comments echoed innumerable statements released over the past few years by international rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, calling on the French state to address “systematic discrimination” particularly “the use of ethnic profiling” during identity checks.

If the UN human rights office believed the police killing of the teenager of Algerian descent, named Nahel M., could be the “moment” for an official French reckoning, it proved to be mistaken.

Shortly after the press conference in Geneva, the French foreign ministry released a statement rejecting the UN’s accusation of racism among its police. “Any accusation of racism or systemic discrimination in the police force in France is totally unfounded,” the foreign ministry said.

Race is a thorny issue in France, a nation that has become multi-ethnic since World War II and the subsequent decolonisation of several African and Asian countries.

The atrocities committed during World War II – including the complicity of the Vichy regime in deporting French Jews to Nazi concentration camps – continue to haunt the issue of ethnic and racial identity in France. The post-war state that emerged from the ashes of World War II is officially colour blind, grants equality to all its citizens, and tends to address social inequalities using class or geographic criteria.

But in the geographic neighbourhoods that experience the worst of police brutality and discrimination, that argument fails to persuade ethnically diverse residents.

Many cases, same message on policing

Nahel’s killing in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre was the latest in a string of cases of police violence in France’s deprived, multi-ethnic banlieues, or suburbs. These include high-profile cases, such as the 2005 deaths of two young men in Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb, and the 2016 death of Adama Traoré in Val d’Oise, a banlieue further north. The victims were all non-white young males.

At a demonstration in Nanterre two days after Nahel’s death, protesters told journalists they were there to voice their horror over the killing of a teen they never knew, but who was “like” them. “Nahel could have been my brother,’’ a young woman of North African origin told the New York Times. “He was a nonwhite person in this country … Nonwhite people are targeted by the police.”

It’s an allegation that has been frequently repeated at anti-police brutality protests across France over the past few years.

Back in 2020, when the death of George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the US, similar demonstrations erupted in France.

Floyd’s killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis evoked comparisons with the case of 24-year-old Traoré, whose death while in police custody in July 2016 sparked days of clashes in the suburbs. Two autopsies and four separate medical examinations have offered conflicting reasons for Traoré’s death, with his family maintaining that he suffocated under the weight of the three officers who used a controversial technique to restrain him.

“Of course France and America are very different countries, but they have a common enemy: racism,” a demonstrator told FRANCE 24 at a June 2020 “Justice for Adama Traoré” protest. “Nothing will ever change until people are educated about racism. Starting with the police.”

One bad apple, not the orchard

The message on the streets is frequently criticised by French government officials, security experts and police union representatives.

No evidence has emerged so far that Nahel was singled out by the police because of his race. The police officer, who was recorded in a video clip shooting into the yellow Mercedes at point blank range, has been charged on two counts: voluntary homicide and “lying” in his initial account that the car had tried to run down the police officers.

Speaking to reporters after Nahel’s killing, French Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti chastised protesters and activists calling for systemic changes in law enforcement agencies.

“The case is against a police officer, not the police in general. This lumping of them all together is intolerable,” said Dupond-Moretti.

Several French officials and security experts conceded that the video footage appeared to show the policeman acting in breach of procedures. But they insist it’s a case of one bad apple, not a rot in the orchard.

“I understand the anger, losing a 17-year-old is tragic. But I think the way the procedure is going, it’s going in the right direction. I think we’re facing a policeman who acted badly, who’s not representative of the whole police force,” André Rakoto, a defence and security analyst at Paris 8 university, told FRANCE 24’s The Debate show.

His fellow panelist, Inès Seddiki, a French-Moroccan activist and founder of GHETT’UP, an NGO working in Paris’s deprived banlieues, disagreed.

“I don’t agree with the justice minister that this officer is on trial, it’s not the whole police. I disagree. I think it’s the whole police,” said Seddiki. “I think it’s a structural problem that we should try to address.”

At war with rioting ‘vermin’

The official position that the police force does not have a discrimination problem because racism has no place in a republic proclaiming equality exasperates academics and activists working in the field.

Reacting to the foreign ministry’s statement that the UN call on France to address police was “unfounded”, Fraser McQueen, a French studies lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, did not mince his words.

“First of all, the denial that there isn’t any systemic racism in the institution of the police is really unconscionable in my view,” said McQueen.

“It’s been consistently picked up on by bodies like France’s ombudsman and by non-governmental organisations like the Open Society, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. In last year’s presidential election, certain figures calculated that as many as 68% of French police officers voted for far-right candidates. So, this idea that there is no systemic racism is just incorrect, it’s false,” he noted.

 


Studies have consistently shown a rise in the far-right vote among France’s security establishment.

A July 2019 study by the left-leaning Fondation Jean–Jaurès found that more than 50% of French military and law enforcement personnel said they voted for far-right politician Marine Le Pen’s party in recent elections.

In the first round of the 2022 presidential election, 39% of police and military personnel voted for Le Pen while 25% voted for another far-right candidate, Éric Zemmour, according to polling institute Cluster17.


Police unions have come under particular scrutiny following Nahel’s killing. Following consecutive nights of unrest last week, unions representing half of France’s police on Friday said they were at war with “vermin” rioting in many cities.

“Today police officers are at the front line because we are at war,” the Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police unions said in a statement echoing a far-right discourse. “Faced with these savage hordes, it’s no longer enough to call for calm, it must be imposed,” they added.

Friday’s police union statement sounded emollient compared to a tweet posted by France Police, a far-right union, shortly after Nahel’s death hit the headlines in France.

“Congratulations to the colleagues who opened fire on a young 17-year-old criminal. By neutralising his vehicle, they protected their lives and those of other drivers. The only ones responsible for this thug’s death are his parents, who were incapable of educating their son,” it read.

The tweet has since been deleted, and French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has said he will seek the dissolution of the small far-right union.

‘People are scared of the police’

Law enforcement officials and their representatives frequently cite the increasing dangers of their job amid rising levels of anti-police animosity particularly in the banlieues.

“Look at the context. In the last ten years, we’ve had twice more refusals to comply than in the previous period. Things are getting difficult to handle for the police forces,” said Rakoto.   

A 2017 law allowing French police to fire on people failing to make a traffic stop if they posed a future danger has come under severe criticism over the past week.

The law, which was passed following a spate of terror attacks in France, has been slammed as a “licence to shoot” legislation. In 2022 alone, 13 people were shot and killed by police in cases of non-compliance. While French authorities have not released the racial or ethnic identities of the victims, sociologist Sebastien Roche told a local French daily that there was an “overrepresentation of ethnic minorities among those killed during refusals to obey” police traffic stops. 

When confronted with statistics of increasing cases of people in cars refusing to stop when asked to by the police, Seddiki said it was indicative of a lack of public trust in the police.

“I think what this means is that people are scared of the police more and more. People don’t think the police will be able to have a fair judgment in some situations. So they prefer to flee or face fines or be prosecuted instead of complying with a stop-and-frisk, for example, or with a traffic control. That’s something we should take into consideration because the police is meant to protect people and not scare people,” she said.

Days after Nahel’s killing shocked the nation, a law-and-order discourse has dominated the headlines following consecutive nights of rioting. It has swiftly superseded the initial expressions of outrage over the teenager’s killing. Many fear the real lessons of the tragic loss of a young life will not be learned as the numbers of police officers on duty and arrests mount – until the figures decrease and the news cycle moves on.

“What we’ve seen over the past few days is a lot of discourse about law and order, about restoring order, about how awful this violence is,” said Ariane Basthard-Bogain, a lecturer in French and politics at Northumbria University. “What we haven’t heard is a discussion of the structural causes of all of this and a long-term solution from it by the authorities. So, it’s very much framed as a violent uprising. But what we really need to focus on is why it was created in the first place.

That is a question the French establishment has been reluctant to address since a world war, a genocide and anti-colonial struggles shook the country in the previous century, locking the nation in an official equality that overlooks the experiences of many minorities today.



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French pension protests: Brav-M, the special police unit accused of using excessive force

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They ride in pairs, are armed with handguns, expandable batons and tear gas grenades, and have been specially trained to prevent protests from spiralling out of control. But since France’s pension protests began, officers belonging to France’s special Brav-M motorbike unit have increasingly been accused of taking the law into their own hands, intimidating and threatening people, and in some cases, resorting to the use of excessive force.

On Friday, four days after Paris was the scene of one of the most violent demonstrations in years as hundreds of thousands of people thronged the streets to protest the government’s pension reform, French daily Le Monde and online video broadcaster Loopsider published a troubling audio recording.

In the nearly 20-minute-long clip, police officers are heard humiliating and menacing a young man, who claims to be from Chad, telling him that if they see him on the streets again “you won’t be getting into a police van to go to the station, you will be getting into something else, called an ambulance, and go to hospital”.

Two slaps can also be heard in the audio.

According to the two media outlets that published the recording, the police officers heard speaking belong to the Motorised Brigades for the Repression of Violent Action (Brav-M) which has increasingly come under fire for its unorthodox and violent methods of dealing with protesters.

 


 

Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez immediately condemned the incident, calling the behaviour both “unacceptable” and unethical, telling French broadcaster France 5 that: “Like everyone else, I’m very shocked.”

Nuñez said the incident had been referred to the special police unit for internal investigations.

 

 

So who are they?

Brav-M saw the light of the day in the spring of 2019, in the midst of France’s Yellow Vest movement, after suspected anarchists vandalised and plundered shops and cafés along Paris’s famed Champs-Elysées boulevard and set fire to the renowned Le Fouquet restaurant.

“The idea was to be able to intervene quickly [in places] larger units couldn’t get to” or to which regular officers were too heavily equipped to access fast enough, Patrick Lunel, a police commander who helped set the unit up, told the AFP news agency.  

Since then, Brav-M has grown into six units comprised of 18 so-called operators each and just as many motorbike drivers for a total of 92 “duos” . By the 2024 Paris Olympics, that number is set to rise to 150, according to Stéphane Boscariol, who heads the force.

The fact that they ride in pairs (one driver, and one operator who can immediately jump off the motorcycle to chase down a suspect), makes the unit much faster and more efficient than regular riot police forces (CRS) and gendarmes in vans and cars.

The Brav-M unit is deployed to Paris and its closest suburbs with the main task of containing demonstrations or dispersing them should they get out of hand, but also to intervene in situations of urban violence and vandalism and to support other police units should they encounter difficulties. Thanks to their agility, Brav-M officers can carry out arrests within crowds, which they then hand over to judiciary officers.

Each Brav-M officer is equipped with either a white (driver) or a black (operator) helmet, a bulletproof vest, a police radio and a body cam which is handed in at the end of each shift. But they are also armed, and carry SIG-Sauer handguns, expandable truncheons, hand-held tear gas grenades and blast balls. Each of the Brav-M’s six units also has four riot shields, a flash-ball gun and a grenade launcher.  

Reminiscent of France’s notorious ‘Voltigeurs’?

Brav-M is not France’s first motorbike-carried unit. Its predecessor was called “Les Voltigeurs” (The Acrobats) and was founded in 1969 as a response to France’s violent student riots that broke out in May, 1968. The squad was disbanded in 1986, however, after a 22-year-old French-Algerian student, Malik Oussekine, died at the hands of three of the unit’s officers.

Oussekine had been walking near a student protest when he was suddenly chased down by police and beaten to death in the entrance of a building. Oussekine had not been involved in the protest, and his death, which was witnessed by a civil servant, sparked outrage in France – especially since Oussekine had a history of health problems and therefore was an unlikely participant of demonstration violence – and led to the force being shut down.  

Since Brav-M was founded four years ago, some have likened it to the Voltigeurs force, but according to police, it would be “a mistake” to draw any similarities.

“We have people who are specialised in maintaining order, and are trained to do just that, who are on motorcycles and who intervene like paratroopers,”  Jérôme Foucaud, a senior police officer, told AFP.

Under investigation

Still, since the pension protests began in mid-January, AFP, which cites a police source, says at least two Brav-M police officers have come under investigation for applying brutal tactics while “maintaining order”.

In the first incident, which was filmed, a Brav-M officer was accused of using excessive force after punching a man in the face while the man was lying on the ground. Nuñez called the act “improper”. Brav-M, however, claims the images that show the incident have been taken “badly out of context”, and that the man who was beaten was “drunk”.

In the second case, a woman claims to have been beaten by Brav-M officers in Paris’s central Châtelet neighbourhood – a day before the latest pension protest was held.

READ MORE>> Use of force signals ‘crisis of authority’ as France’s pension battle turns to unrest

In a letter sent to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Wednesday, three lawmakers representing the hard-left La France Insoumise (France unbowed) – Thomas Portes, Antoine Léaument and Ugo Bernalicis – called for the “temporary dismantlement of Brav-M”. On Thursday, a petition to dismantle the unit was also posted on the National Assembly’s website.

Nuñez, however, told French broadcaster Franceinfo on Saturday, that a dismantlement was “obviously not on the agenda”.

“The behaviour of a few individuals shouldn’t make a whole unit pay and which has in recent years, and particularly at the moment, proved its usefulness,” he said.

Nuñez insisted that the unit is “an indispensable unit for the maintenance of republican order”.

 

 

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)



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Use of force signals ‘crisis of authority’ as France’s pension battle turns to unrest

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Fury at President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass parliament on pension reform has sparked days of unrest across the country, reviving scrutiny of police’s heavy-handed tactics and leaving French cities shrouded in tear gas and smoke – with no end in sight to an increasingly bitter standoff.

First an epic tussle with the unions, then a bitter standoff in parliament, and now a full-blown crisis in the streets: France’s festering pension dispute took a turn for the worse this week, with protests against Macron’s deeply unpopular plans hardening and escalating amid scenes of chaos in Paris and other cities.

The unrest – which began last Thursday after Macron used special executive powers to ram his pension reform through parliament – has seen security forces fight running battles with protesters late into the night even as firefighters race to extinguish hundreds of blazes.

Outrage at Macron’s perceived “denial of democracy”, coupled with his refusal to bow to millions of peaceful protesters, have produced an explosive cocktail – with tonnes of uncollected rubbish providing the fuel. Heavy-handed police tactics have in turn exacerbated the unrest, in a spiral of violence that France is all too familiar with.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said more than 450 people were arrested on Thursday during the most violent day of protests against Macron’s bid to raise the retirement age, which polls say a large majority of the French oppose. The minister blamed radical anarchist groups for clashing with police, smashing shop windows and setting uncollected litter ablaze.

A firefighter and a local resident try to extinguish a fire during unrest in Paris on March 23, 2023. © Anna Kurth, AFP

“We will yield nothing to violence,” Macron told a news conference on Friday after an EU summit in Brussels. He has been in unapologetic mode since he ordered his government to trigger article 49.3 of the constitution to bypass parliament.

The unrest did, however, force the French president to postpone a planned visit by Britain’s new king Charles III, whom Macron – dubbed a “presidential monarch” by his critics – was due to host at the gilded royal palace of Versailles.

“The reunion of kings in Versailles has been dispersed by the people,” leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a fierce critic of Macron, promptly mocked in a tweet. “The English are well aware that Darmanin is useless when it comes to security,” he added in a dig at France’s interior minister, who was savaged by the British press following the fiasco of last year’s Champions League final in Paris.

‘We’re on the eve of an insurrection’

Darmanin, typically considered a hardliner in Macron’s government, was among ministers who pleaded with the president not to trigger article 49.3 – and for good reason. He knew the backlash would fall under his remit as months of peaceful protests gave way to violent outbursts of anger.

From the start of the protest movement, trade unions had urged the government not to ignore the millions of peaceful demonstrators turning out in cities, towns and villages up and down the country, warning of dire consequences should it remain deaf to their anger.

“I’m warning the president, he must withdraw this reform before the catastrophe unfolds,” Laurent Berger, the head of the moderate CFDT union, France’s largest, repeated on Monday. “We’ve been scrupulously legit so far, but the temptation of violence is there.”

Macron's use of article 49.3 of the French constitution to force his pension reform through parliament has incensed his opponents.
Macron’s use of article 49.3 of the French constitution to force his pension reform through parliament has incensed his opponents. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24

The warning from the violence-averse CFDT leader was indicative of how much the mood has soured three months into a bitter dispute pitting Macron against a large majority of the French – a dispute many police officers are reluctant to end up on the wrong side of.

“We’re on the eve of an insurrection,” a senior riot police officer was quoted as saying in a Mediapart feature on Tuesday, flagging the risk of casualties as exhausted and overstretched forces face mounting levels of anger and violence.

“The president is playing with fire,” the officer added, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This could end up in tragedy: the death of a protester.”

More than 400 police officers were injured in street clashes on Thursday alone, Darmanin told reporters, without giving a figure for the number of injured among protesters and members of the public caught up in the unrest, which saw one woman lose a thumb in the Normandy city of Rouen.

In northern Lille, the local police chief was lightly injured by a stone, while a video of Paris clashes that went viral showed a police officer in helmet and body armour being knocked unconscious and plunging to the ground after he was struck in the head by a projectile. Many more videos showed police officers beating and pepper-spraying protesters and bystanders at close range.

Even before Thursday’s escalation, the rising violence had prompted Amnesty International, France’s human rights ombudswoman, Claire Hédon, and even the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association, Clément Voule, to each voice their concern about the heavy-handed policing as well as restrictions on people’s right to protest. On Friday, the Council of Europe became the latest body to condemn police’s “excessive use of force”.

The unrest has revived a longstanding debate on police brutality in France, and once again highlighted the lack of checks on law enforcement in a country where the minister in charge of police oversight is commonly referred to as “France’s top cop”.

‘Like the Yellow Vests – if not worse’

At the start of the protest movement, the French capital’s new police chief Laurent Nunez had won plaudits for his apparent change of tactics, which saw riot police stand well away from the huge crowds of peaceful protesters – in contrast with his predecessor’s more confrontational approach.

“I don’t want us to be accused of causing rallies to degenerate into violence,” Nunez told reporters at the time. “By remaining invisible, we avoid contact with the hardliners who are merely looking for a fight.”

However, the apparent change of approach did not prevent sporadic incidents from occurring. As early as January 19, on the first day of rallying, a young photographer was severely injured during a police charge, resulting in the amputation of a testicle. Such incidents have become more frequent in recent days, with violence escalating in the wake of Macron’s use of article 49.3.

According to Christian Mouhanna, a policing expert at the CNRS research centre, the dramatic surge in violent clashes witnessed in recent days reflects a return to “traditional” policing methods introduced in the wake of Islamist terrorist attacks.

“Policing and crowd control have hardened since the terrorist attacks of 2015, becoming more aggressive and less inclined to negotiation,” he said, citing police crackdowns on protests against labour reforms in 2016 and the Yellow Vest unrest that started two years later.

“Protest movements without a clear structure or leadership are of course harder to contain, but the authorities’ tendency to downplay cases of police abuse only encourages the more repressive elements in the force,” Mouhanna said. He pointed to a special motorised unit known as the BRAV-M, whose baton-wielding officers are frequently accused of beating people at random – be they protesters, bystanders or journalists covering the rallies.

“Members of the BRAV-M are not trained to maintain public order and their actions often stoke tensions, including with riot police and gendarmes whose are the real specialists in this domain,” he explained.


 

Exhaustion and overstretch are compounding difficulties for security forces as they contend with multiple challenges at once. Over the past week, the interior minister has counted around 400 daily “protest actions” across the country, ranging from spontaneous marches to the occupation of motorways, fuel depots and train stations.

“The protesters’ strategy is to wear us out,” one officer told Darmanin during a visit to a police station in Paris on Tuesday, witnessed by a journalist from Le Parisien. “We start at 6 in the morning with students blockading schools and end late at night (chasing protesters in the streets). Fatigue is kicking in and this can lead us to lose our focus at times.”

In the thick of protests, “We have only a few seconds to distinguish between Black Blocks, peaceful protesters and journalists. It’s not always easy,” said a second officer. Another said the situation was “just like the Yellow Vests – if not worse”.

Compromise or force

Claims of arbitrary or “preventive” arrests – a tactic widely deployed at the height of the Yellow Vest insurgency – have drawn particular scrutiny, with lawyers, magistrates and opposition parties accusing the authorities of “hijacking” the judiciary to repress the protest movement.

In Paris alone, more than 420 people were detained during the first three days of protests triggered by Macron’s decision to bypass parliament last Thursday. All but a handful were released within 48 hours free of charge. They included “minors, homeless people and others who had just walked out of a meeting,” lawyer Coline Bouillon told AFP, adding that she and other lawyers would file a complaint for “arbitrary detention”.

“The judiciary is not at the disposal of those seeking to repress social movements,” the Syndicat de la magistrature, a union of magistrates, wrote in a press release on Monday, condemning “illegal police violence”, the “misuse of police custody” and attempts to “hijack the judiciary”.

Meanwhile, lawmakers from the left-wing opposition denounced a campaign aimed at intimidating protesters with threats of arrest. They flagged Darmanin’s wrongful claims in the media that taking part in undeclared protests constitutes “an offence”.

Protesters use umbrellas as shields during scuffles with riot police in Nantes, western France, on March 23, 2023.
Protesters use umbrellas as shields during scuffles with riot police in Nantes, western France, on March 23, 2023. © Jeremias Gonzalez, AP

The escalating arrests are a consequence of both a French tradition and the government’s current predicament, said Sebastian Roché, a sociologist who has written extensively about policing methods in France and other European countries.

“Maintaining public order is the most political of police tasks, coming directly under the control of the interior minister, which is a French specificity,” he explained. “It follows a nationwide strategy, which is why you see large-scale arrests everywhere and not at the discretion of local police forces.”

In the current context, Roché added, heavy-handed policing stems from the “crisis of authority” undermining Macron’s minority and deeply unpopular government. “When a government chooses force it is always because its authority is weakened,” he said.

Breaking his silence on the pension dispute this week, Macron said the “crowd” had “no legitimacy” in the face of France’s elected officials. In an interview on Wednesday, he appeared to draw a parallel between violent protests in France and the assaults on the US Congress and Brazil’s state institutions staged by supporters of former presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. He also accused trade unions of refusing to seek a compromise.

So far, the strategy has failed to pay off. An Odoxa poll conducted after his interview found that 70 percent of respondents felt the government was to blame for the clashes and that 83 percent thought the unrest would worsen.

“This crisis stems from a lack of political compromise and the solution cannot come from the police,” said Roché. “The president seems in no mood to compromise, so we can only imagine the crisis will drag on.”



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‘They spit on us’: What’s really going on in the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis

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Officially, the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis is meant to serve as a reception centre to “welcome and orient” new arrivals to Tunisia. However, what is actually happening there has long remained opaque because NGOs and lawyers aren’t allowed access. The FRANCE 24 Observers decided to investigate the nightmarish conditions inside. Our source told us that about fifty migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, most of them Black Africans, are being arbitrarily detained in the squalid centre.

Léopold (not his real name) came from the Ivory Coast to Tunisia several years ago to attend university. When he graduated, he decided to stay and work in the country. He also got married and had a child. However, Léopold was not a legal resident of the country where he had made his home. And so, in 2021, he began sorting out his papers and regularising his situation.

However, before Léopold was able to finish the process, he was arrested alongside several other Ivorians when police raided the headquarters of the Association of active Ivoirians in Sfax (AIVAS) on August 21, 2021. He was placed in detention in Tunis.

‘There is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do’

A judge at the Ariana tribunal said that Léopold should be released on July 22, 2022. However, instead of being allowed to return home to his family, police brought him to the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis, where he has been arbitrarily detained ever since. He has received no legal or administrative support.

According to a judge, I was freed last summer. But there is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do.

From the moment I stepped into the migrant centre, I realised that the guards there were ready to harm us and it gave me a good indication of what to expect during my stay there. They spit on us, they called us “kahlouch” [Editor’s note: a derogatory term for Black people in North African Arabic] or “guirguira” [Editor’s note: a word that is supposed to imitate the sounds made by a monkey].

“Tunisia is our country, we’ll do what we want with you,” the guards told us.


This video was filmed from the back of a police car on February 27 by a person being taken, along with others, from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. “We don’t know where they are taking us,” the man says. He was arrested along with others on February 13 during a campaign to arrest Black Africans.

Most of the people detained in the centre don’t want to go back to their countries of origin, but they are also being denied their freedom. I came to study in Tunis and then started working there. My family and my child are in Tunisia, I don’t plan on going back [to my home country].

Since February, police in Tunisia have been carrying out a campaign of violence and arrests of Black African migrants living in Tunisia. The campaign intensified in mid-February when Tunisian President Kais Saied called for the deportation of the “hoards of clandestine migrants” in the country.

>> Watch on The Observers: The growing xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia

‘Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there’

Before the arrests began in February, there weren’t many of us in the centre. But since then, we’ve seen many people brought to El Ouardia even after a judge has ordered their release – like me. There are also migrants transferred to the centre after spending months in prison. 

 

There are about fifty men in the centre and four women.

 

“There are fifteen of us in this room,” says our Observer. The footage shows metal beds and mattresses on the ground. In another room (shown at right) ten people sleep on the floor. Screengrabs taken from videos sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there. One of the people who was detained there said that he spent six nights without a bunk, so, here, we take turns sleeping. 

There are so many of us in the dormitories. It’s chaotic. There are a lot of sick people who then spread their illnesses to others. A number of people ill with COVID were transferred here without ever being given a test.

 


In this video, a group of Black African migrants in Tunisia call for help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in this video posted on February 26.

 

This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre.
This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre. Screengrab from a video sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

‘What happens in the centre rarely gets out’

Since I’ve been here, we’ve called on the authorities several times to give us papers. On February 27, those of us detained here in El Ouardia held a protest, calling on the UN High Commissioner to take an interest in our plight. 

Even though the centre is run by the National Guard [known as the gendarmerie], when we started protesting, they brought the border police in to shut down the protest. They handcuffed us, stripped us and beat us savagely. Some of the men here got terrible injuries including wounds and dislocated shoulders. 

But what happens in the centre rarely gets out.

 

@monsieurleministre25 ♬ son original – monsieurleministre

This man was transferred from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. He protested the morning of February 27 along with other people detained at the centre, calling for restoration of their rights and freedom. “The police were deployed this morning to prevent us [from protesting]. They say that we aren’t in prison, but they are lying to us,” he said.

 

‘Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre’

The number of detainees fluctuates in the El Ouardia “Reception and Orientation Centre” – as it is officially known – according to Romdhane Ben Amor, the spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum of Economic and Social Rights.

There are migrant centres in each region in Tunisia. However, the El Ouardia centre is the only one run by the ministry of the interior, which means that it is the only one where migrants are being arbitrarily detained in this extreme way.

Ben Amor explained:

The Tunisian National Guard, and thus the ministry of the interior, transfers migrants to this centre from prisons and other detention centres before either deporting them or liberating them. According to the latest figures from the World Organisation Against Torture, one of the only NGOs that has managed to access this centre, 51 people are currently being detained there.

Between 2011 and 2013, the centre was open to humanitarian organisations. However, since 2013, only organisations that have an agreement with the Ministry of the Interior have been able to access it.

And, since July 25, 2021 [Editor’s note: the date when President Kais Saied suspended parliament], the centre has only been used for detaining migrants and operates at maximum capacity.

 


In this video, filmed on February 27, an Ivorian man shows the injuries inflicted on him by border police. “They stripped us to beat us, they beat us like dogs,” says the man.

 

The legal status of El Ouardia centre isn’t completely clear. Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre.  

‘It’s like they are in prison without any hope of getting out or getting a decision’

There’s also another aspect of how the El Ouardia centre operates that remains unclear. At El Ouardia, detention and liberation are administrative matters and not judicial. That means that a detainee can not appeal their case or ask for judicial support, like help from a lawyer. On the contrary, the decision to detain the person is taken by public servant. There is no guarantee that the person can contest the decision.

Unfortunately, the detention is arbitrary and the migrants who are detained have no information about when they might be released. As if they were in a prison, without any hope of getting out or judgment.

 


This video filmed in the El Ouardia migrant centre in March 2020 shows officials treating migrants roughly and grouping them together before deporting them to the border with Algeria.

 

When the people detained in the migrant centre try to insist that they have rights, they are met with violence, but that isn’t new. These police were transferred to El Ouardia in a punitive role. They aren’t used to working with migrant populations and use violence as a response to everything. 

The Tunis administrative tribunal declared in 2020 that the way that people were detained in the centre was illegal. And even though the Ministry of the Interior promised reforms under the Mechichi government, nothing has changed since.

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