Tag: Police

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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As Nahel is buried, Macron cancels trip to Germany

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President Emmanuel Macron has scrapped an official trip to Germany after a fourth straight night of rioting in France.

Macron postpones trip to Germany

President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday scrapped an official trip to Germany after a fourth straight night of rioting and looting across France in defiance of a massive police deployment. Hundreds turned out for the burial of Nahel, a  17-year-old boy, whose killing by police triggered the unrest.

France’s Interior Ministry announced after Friday night’s violence that 1,311 people had been arrested and 45,000 police officers had fanned out in a so-far unsuccessful bid to restore order. On Tuesday, the fist night of the unrest, around 2,400 arrests had been made.

The protesters and rioters turned out on the streets of cities and towns, clashing with police, despite Macron’s appeal to parents to keep their children at home. About 2,500 fires were set and stores were ransacked, according to authorities.

The violence in France has damaging Macron’s diplomatic profile. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s office said that Macron phoned on Saturday to request a postponement of what would have been the first state visit by a French president to Germany in 23 years. Macron had been scheduled to fly to Germany on Sunday evening for the visit to Berlin and two other German cities.

Macron’s office said he spoke with Steinmeier and, “given the internal security situation, the president (Macron) said he wishes to stay in France over the coming days.”

Given the importance of the French-German relationship on the European political scene, the scrapping of the official trip was a clear sign of the gravity of France’s unrest. Earlier this year, King Charles III cancelled his first foreign visit as U.K. monarch, initially planned for France, because of intense protests over Macron’s pension reform plans.

Nahel’s Funeral

Hundreds of mourners attended Nahel’s Saturday afternoon – his killing by a police officer has so far resulted in four nights of rioting in many urban areas across France.

Rituals to bid farewell to Nahel with a viewing of his open coffin by family and friends and ended with his burial in a hilltop cemetery in that town.

At the cemetery’s entrance, with central Paris visible in the distance, hundreds of people stood along the road to pay tribute to Nahel. The crowd carried his white casket above their heads and into the cemetery for the burial, which was barred to the media. Some of the men carried folded prayer rugs. Before the burial, prayers were held at a mosque.

Applause resounded as Nahel’s mother Mounia M., dressed in white, walked through the gate and toward the grave. Earlier in the week she told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer who shot her son, but not at the police in general.

“He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life,” she said. “A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, take our children’s lives,” she said. The family has roots in Algeria.

The police officer was given a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide, meaning that investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing, but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said that his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of his weapon wasn’t legally justified.

Nahel was shot dead during a traffic stop Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Video showed two officers at the window of the car, one with his gun pointed at the driver. As the teenager pulled forward, the officer fired once through the windshield.

Anger over Nahel’s death erupted in violence in Nanterre and in many major cities, including Paris, Marseille and Lyon – and even in French territories overseas) where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.

Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured, including 79 overnight. Authorities haven’t released injury tallies for protesters.

Discrimination and deprivation

The reaction to the killing was a potent reminder of the persistent poverty, racial discrimination, unemployment and other lack of opportunity in neighbourhoods around France where many residents trace their roots to former French colonies – like where Nahel grew up.

“Nahel’s story is the lighter that ignited the gas. Hopeless young people were waiting for it. We lack housing and jobs, and when we have (jobs), our wages are too low,” said Samba Seck, a transportation worker in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Clichy was the birthplace of weeks of riots in 2005 that shook France, prompted by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation while fleeing from police. One of the boys lived in the same housing project as Seck.

Like many Clichy residents, he lamented the violence targeting his town, where the remains of a burned car stood beneath his apartment building, and the town hall entrance was set alight in rioting this week.

“Young people break everything, but we are already poor, we have nothing,” he said, adding that “young people are afraid to die at the hands of police.”

France’s national soccer team — including international star Kylian Mbappe, an idol to many young people in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods where the anger is rooted — pleaded for an end to the violence.

“Many of us are from working-class neighbourhoods, we too share this feeling of pain and sadness” over the killing of Nahel, the players said in a statement.

Early on Saturday, firefighters in Nanterre extinguished blazes set by protesters that left scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighboring suburb Colombes, protesters overturned garbage bins and used them for makeshift barricades.

Looters during the evening broke into a gun shop and made off with weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said.

Buildings and businesses were also vandalised in the eastern city of Lyon, police said.

Despite the escalating crisis, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency. But government ratcheted up its law enforcement response, with the mass deployment of police officers, including some who were called back from vacation.

The rioting puts new pressure on Macron, who blamed social media for fueling violence.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown of all public buses and trams, which have been among rioters’ targets. He also said he warned social networks not to allow themselves to be used as channels for calls to violence.

“They were very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities were providing the platforms with information in hopes of cooperation identifying people inciting violence.

Thirteen people who didn’t comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year. This year, another three people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances.

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More than 900 arrested overnight as rioters clash with French police

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Young rioters clashed with police and looted stores overnight Friday in a fourth night of unrest in France triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teen, piling more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron after he appealed to parents to keep children off the streets.

While the situation appeared to be somewhat calmer compared to previous nights, turmoil gripped several cities across the country.

Firefighters in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, where the shooting occurred Tuesday, extinguished the blazes set by protesters that left scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighbouring suburb Colombes, protesters overturned garbage bins and used them for makeshift barricades.

Looters during the evening broke into a gun shop and made off with weapons, and a man was later arrested with a hunting rifle, police said, and in the southern Mediterranean port city of Marseille, officers arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters lit cars on fire and broke store windows to take what was inside.

Buildings and businesses were also vandalised in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of the roughly 30 arrests made were for theft, police said. Authorities reported fires in the streets after an unauthorised protest drew more than 1,000 people earlier in the evening.

By about 3 am, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told cable news channel BFMTV that 471 arrests were made at night.

The fatal shooting of the 17-year-old, who has only been identified by his first name, Nahel, was captured on video, stirring up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Nahel’s burial is scheduled for Saturday, according to Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry, who said France needs to “push for changes” in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stiffer policing, Friday saw brazen daylight violence, too. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

Violence was also erupting in some of France’s territories overseas.

Some 150 police officers were deployed Friday night on the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, authorities said, after protesters set garbage bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police and damaged cars and buildings. In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet Thursday night when rioters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said.

In the face of the escalating crisis that hundreds of arrests and massive police deployments have failed to quell, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency. This option was used in similar circumstances in 2005.

Instead, his government ratcheted up its law enforcement response. Already massively beefed-up police forces were boosted by another 5,000 officers for Friday night, increasing the number to 45,000 overall, the interior minister said. 

Some were called back from vacation. The minister, Darmanin, said police made 917 arrests on Thursday alone and noted their young age – 17 on average. He said more than 300 police officers and firefighters have been injured.

It was unclear how many protesters have been injured in the clashes.

Darmanin on Friday ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown of all public buses and trams, which have been among rioters’ targets. He also said he warned social networks not to allow themselves to be used as channels for calls to violence.

“They were very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities were providing the platforms with information in hopes of cooperation in identifying people inciting violence.

“We will pursue every person who uses these social networks to commit violent acts,” he said.

Macron, too, zeroed in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of vandalism and cars and buildings being torched, saying they were playing a “considerable role” in the violence. Singling out Snapchat and TikTok, he said they were being used to organise unrest and served as conduits for copycat violence.

Macron said his government would work with technology companies to establish procedures for “the removal of the most sensitive content,” adding that he expected “a spirit of responsibility” from them.

Snapchat spokesperson Rachel Racusen said the company has increased its moderation since Tuesday to detect and act on content related to the rioting.

The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities are due to host 10,500 Olympians and millions of visitors for the summer Olympic Games. Organisers said they are closely monitoring the situation as preparations for the Olympics continue.

The police officer accused of killing Nahel was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide, which means investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of his weapon wasn’t legally justified.

Prache said officers tried to pull Nahel over because he looked so young and was driving a Mercedes with Polish license plates in a bus lane. He allegedly ran a red light to avoid being stopped and then got stuck in traffic.

The officer said he feared he and his colleague or someone else could be hit by the car as Nahel attempted to flee, according to the prosecutor.

Nahel’s mother, identified as Mounia M, told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer but not at the police in general. “He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life,” she said, adding that justice should be “very firm”.

“A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, take our children’s lives,” she said.

Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States, although 13 people who didn’t comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year. This year, another three people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances. 

The deaths have prompted demands for more accountability in France, which also saw racial justice protests after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.

Race was a taboo topic for decades in France, which is officially committed to a doctrine of colourblind universalism. In the wake of Nahel’s killing, French anti-racism activists renewed complaints about police behaviour in general.

This week’s protests echoed the three weeks of rioting in 2005 that followed the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, who were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois.

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Who are the armed men in civilian clothes seen with police in Senegal protests?

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During a press conference on June 4, Senegalese police showed the press a series of video clips that they claimed documented the presence of armed protesters at recent demonstrations. However, the full videos, which have been widely circulating on social media, show the same armed individuals alongside the police. So who are these armed men? And whose side are they on?

“On this recording, you can see a man armed with a military weapon. He knows what he is doing, he knows how to use his weapon. You can see that he isn’t there to protest.” These were the words of the Senegalese head of police Mohamadou Gueye to the press as he showed them videos filmed during recent protests at a press conference held on June 4. The footage shows a man wearing a red jersey with a white “9” on it, firing at a target off-screen. Another man, also in civilian clothes, throws a projectile in the same direction.

The Senegalese police are claiming that this footage shows violent, armed people among the protesters. Police Chief Mohamadou Gueye said the man in red was “with a weapon, facing security forces”. © Observers

This is proof, according to Senegalese police, that these protests in support of opposition figure Ousmane Sonko were infiltrated by people “accustomed” to using military-grade weapons.

Deadly protests broke out at the end of last week after Sonko, the leader of the PASTEF party, was sentenced on June 1 to two years in prison for “corrupting youth”. Sonko has already announced his bid for president in 2024, which he obviously couldn’t do if he is in prison. Protests in support of him quickly turned deadly, killing 16 and injuring 350, according to the Red Cross. 

Senegalese police blamed the clashes on “violent protesters who aren’t trying to express their opinion but are engaged in subversive activities”, in the words of the head of Public Safety Ibrahima Diop during the press conference on June 4. 

During the same conference, the police showed excerpts from three videos showing what they said were armed men amongst the protesters. Police Chief Gueye that these men came to “cause damage”. 

“They will shoot at civilians and then blame the security forces,” Gueye alleged. 

However, two of the clips shown by police at the press conference show something else. In the longer versions of the videos, which were widely circulated on social media, you can see these men in civilian gear, bearing arms, interacting with and seemingly working alongside armed police. 

 A man ‘face to face with security forces’ spotted in the back of a police pick-up 

Let’s start by looking at the example of the man wearing a red jacket marked with the number nine. The video shown by Senegalese police (at 7:53) stops after showing the individual firing his weapon and then running into a small street. However, a longer version does exist. In this version, taken from a series of stories published by a user of the Snapchat app, you can see the man in the red jersey in a white pickup, being driven by a man in a striped tee-shirt. He is riding alongside four other men wearing riot gear labelled “police”. 

In this full version of the video, first published in a Snapchat story, you can see the scene where the man wearing a red shirt with a number 9 on it shoots off screen— what police showed in their press conference. However, this longer version contains more crucial footage. At the end of the video, you can see the same man getting into a pickup truck full of police.
In this full version of the video, first published in a Snapchat story, you can see the scene where the man wearing a red shirt with a number 9 on it shoots off screen— what police showed in their press conference. However, this longer version contains more crucial footage. At the end of the video, you can see the same man getting into a pickup truck full of police. © Observers

Another video, widely shared on social media, also shows this man in red, followed by the white pick-up, just a few metres behind him. The four officers aren’t trying to arrest him and don’t react when he fires his weapon.

This other video, published the evening of June 3, places the incident at the roundabout near the Grand Yoff city hill, an area in the north of Dakar. You can see the same man with the number 9 jersey. He is being followed by a pick-up truck, with four police officers in the back. The driver, wearing a striped shirt, is also visible.
This other video, published the evening of June 3, places the incident at the roundabout near the Grand Yoff city hill, an area in the north of Dakar. You can see the same man with the number 9 jersey. He is being followed by a pick-up truck, with four police officers in the back. The driver, wearing a striped shirt, is also visible. © Observers

However, during the press conference, Police Commissioner Mohamadou Gueye insisted that the man in the red jersey was “facing off with the security forces”. The footage of the same man alongside police had been removed in the edited version shown to journalists. 

Another armed individual alongside security forces 

The same goes for the second video, which Gueye claimed shows “a person carrying an automatic pistol” (at 7:14). The man, wearing civilian clothes including a distinctive white bandana, has his back against a wall. Next to him is another man, also wearing civilian clothes but carrying a riot helmet.

The commissioner said:

If you look closely, you’ll see that he isn’t used to carrying this weapon. You can tell by the way he is shooting it. That could result in an accident that could hurt both himself or others. It’s really dangerous to protesters.

Senegalese police say that this image shows an armed individual with an automatic pistol who “doesn’t know how to manage his weapon”.
Senegalese police say that this image shows an armed individual with an automatic pistol who “doesn’t know how to manage his weapon”. © Observers

However, this video clip is just an excerpt.  The full version of the video, published on June 3, includes a wide shot that lasts about two seconds. That crucial shot shows the armed man standing just a few metres away from two men in police uniforms.

The post sharing this footage, published on June 3, states that the incident took place in Bargny, a neighborhood in southeastern Dakar. You can see the man in the white bandana, who appeared in the video shown by police during the press conference (in yellow.) But that video was just an excerpt and was missing a crucial part. In the longer, original video, the first few seconds show the man standing next to two men in uniforms (in blue) who aren’t doing anything to stop him.
The post sharing this footage, published on June 3, states that the incident took place in Bargny, a neighborhood in southeastern Dakar. You can see the man in the white bandana, who appeared in the video shown by police during the press conference (in yellow.) But that video was just an excerpt and was missing a crucial part. In the longer, original video, the first few seconds show the man standing next to two men in uniforms (in blue) who aren’t doing anything to stop him. © Observers

These officers aren’t making the slightest move to stop the armed man, even though his weapon is visible. The fact that the two officers are looking in the same direction as the armed civilians and the positions they are maintaining would indicate that they are surveilling the right part of the street and acting in a coordinated fashion. The riot helmet visible in the images – which has both a visor and an element to protect someone’s neck – is very similar to those used by police. 

If you compare it to recent photos of Senegalese police uniforms, you can see that the helmet worn by a man in civilian clothes— a blue tee-shirt— looks a lot like the helmets worn by security forces. It has the same viser with a metallic clip, the same neck protection and the same way of attaching on the side.
If you compare it to recent photos of Senegalese police uniforms, you can see that the helmet worn by a man in civilian clothes— a blue tee-shirt— looks a lot like the helmets worn by security forces. It has the same viser with a metallic clip, the same neck protection and the same way of attaching on the side. © AFP

The spokesperson for the Senegalese ministry of the interior supports the police version of events 

The FRANCE 24 Observers team contacted the spokesperson for the Senegalese Minister of the Interior Maham Ka. We provided Ka with our findings, but he still supported the version of events presented by police during the June 4 press conference. 

“What’s important for us is that what the police say is truthful,” he said: 

If the police say that they were confronted with armed people on the ground who did not come to protest and that they published video to support their statements, then, for us, this is the truth.

So how does Ka explain the presence of individuals in plain clothes alongside the police in two of these videos? Ka says that the people wearing anti-riot helmets and police vests may not be part of the security forces.  

Seeing people in police uniform in these videos is not proof that they are members of the police. In fact, it is something we’ve seen in the past in Senegal. I don’t want to go into detail, because investigations are underway. But if the police showed this footage to the press, then what’s certain is that these people are not police

In the full version of the second video showing the man in the red jersey, you can see someone in a police uniform opening fire with what looks like a riot gun. Our team contacted a Twitter account specialised in arms called “Calibre Obscura”. They explained that the shape of the weapon and the way it was shooting make them believe it is a Cougar launcher, designed by the French firm Alsetex for use by security forces in crowd control situations.

In these two screengrabs, taken from two videos where you can see the man in the red jersey, you can also see security forces using what looks like a less-lethal grenade launcher. An arms expert identified the weapon being used as a Cougar grenade launcher manufactured by the French company Alsetex.
In these two screengrabs, taken from two videos where you can see the man in the red jersey, you can also see security forces using what looks like a less-lethal grenade launcher. An arms expert identified the weapon being used as a Cougar grenade launcher manufactured by the French company Alsetex. © maintiendelordre.fr

Who are the men who appear alongside the security forces?

There are a number of publications on social media that accuse these armed men in civilian gear of being “nervis”, a term for young men hired by political parties to shut down protests by force. There have been documented cases of these men – usually wearing civilian gear and moving around in a pickup – in Senegal in the past during different moments of social tension, especially back in 2021.

Dozens of videos showing convoys of white four-door pickups, carrying men in civilian clothes, sometimes armed with batons, have been circulating on TikTok and Facebook (examples here, here and here): the models shown in these images resemble the pickup that appears in the videos of the man wearing the red number 9 jersey. 

Numerous videos of convoys of white pickups published by Senegalese social media accounts, like these images from June 4, show vehicles that look like those visible in the videos of the man in the red number 9 jersey.
Numerous videos of convoys of white pickups published by Senegalese social media accounts, like these images from June 4, show vehicles that look like those visible in the videos of the man in the red number 9 jersey. © Observers

We spoke to a young man, who wanted to remain anonymous, who said that he saw, on June 3, a convoy of this type in his neighbourhood, Parcelles Assainies: 

There were eight pickups: seven white ones and one dark one. Inside, there were men in uniform that looked like a police intervention brigade.

There were people in the back of the white pickups. Some had sticks on the truck bed. Most of the people looked young.  

This young man, who says that he is “politically, more pro-government” is convinced that he encountered “nervis”. 

But where do these white pickups come from? Several Facebook posts say that a large number of vehicles of this type were visible in front of the headquarters of the political party that President Macky Sall belongs to – l’Alliance pour la République (Alliance for the Republic, or APR). The information was also confirmed by RFI in Dakar. 

Pape Mahawa Diouf, an official from the ruling coalition, said that the presence of these vehicles was not strange. 

There are all kinds of vehicles in front of the headquarters, especially those belonging to party supporters, who gathered there during the protests. We hold conferences there, people gather there.

I don’t think that the supporters participated in the protests. I don’t know about any of this.

It’s hard for the time being to establish clear links between the security forces and these young “nervis”. However, while violence from the protesters did indeed occur during protests, the videos shown as “proof” during the press conference on Sunday, June 4 seem to actually show the presence of armed men in civilian clothes alongside police. 

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A police station or a high school? Deadly clashes in Senegal as locals and gendarmes dispute land use

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Violent clashes between the gendarmerie and the Lebu community erupted on May 8 and 9 in Ngor, a district of Senegal’s capital Dakar. The conflict began over a land dispute: the gendarmes want a police station while locals want to build a high school. According to four eyewitnesses who spoke to the FRANCE 24 Observers team, the gendarmes fired live bullets during protests. A 15-year-old girl lost her life, in circumstances that remain under investigation.

Images shared on social networks show violent clashes on May 8 and 9 in Ngor. The conflict broke out between the Lebu people, who have lived in the area for centuries, and the gendarmes, local police.

It began on the main street in Ngor, where residents had gathered to protest the evening of May 8.

Photo taken in the evening of May 8, 2023 on the main road of Ngor, Dakar, where clashes between the population and the gendarmes took place. Photo provided to the FRANCE 24 Observers team

‘We had to evacuate the injured by canoe’

The next day, clashes continued on the same street as well as a nearby beach. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke with several protesters who requested to stay anonymous for their security. They said the police used live ammunition against protesters.

Malick (not his real name) told us more:

When we arrived on the beach, reinforcements came. The gendarmes wanted to surround us. Some of the protesters got stuck and started to retreat into the water to avoid being caught. Some of us were able to swim, I was able to take refuge on a boat. The gendarmes first fired tear gas, then live ammunition.

Several videos taken on the beach show tear gas grenades exploding. In one video, at least five shots can be heard, though a ballistics expert we spoke to said it is impossible to determine from this video whether they were live rounds.

Video shared on social networks showing the clashes that took place on May 9, 2023 on the beach of Ngor, Senegal.
Video shared on social networks showing the clashes that took place on May 9, 2023 on the beach of Ngor, Senegal. © Observers

Death of a 15-year-old girl

A 15-year-old girl was killed during the clashes. A statement issued on Wednesday, May 10, 2023 by the Senegalese ministry of the interior said that the girl had been “fatally hit while in the water, probably by the propeller of a canoe”.

The ministry has not yet responded to our request for comment.

However, several of our Observers who witnessed the scene say the girl was in fact hit by a police bullet while she was taking refuge in the water. 

During the confrontation, several protesters were seriously injured and had to be evacuated, explains Habib (not his real name), another protester:

The emergency services could not enter the village because the gendarmerie had blocked the way. We had to evacuate the injured by canoe to the surrounding communes, such as Yoff, thanks to the help of the Red Cross.

Video showing the evacuation of the injured on Ngor beach, on Tuesday May 9, 2023.
Video showing the evacuation of the injured on Ngor beach, on Tuesday May 9, 2023. © Observers

Several videos taken by residents, such as this one taken near the beach, also show officers violently beating residents.

Vidéo partagée sur les réseaux sociaux, montrant une personne à terre violemment frappée par des gendarmes, à proximité de la plage de Ngor, mardi 9 mai 2023.
Vidéo partagée sur les réseaux sociaux, montrant une personne à terre violemment frappée par des gendarmes, à proximité de la plage de Ngor, mardi 9 mai 2023. © https://goo.gl/maps/F5L3uJ3pa4QfghZt7

Residents also claim that gendarmes entered houses and discharged tear gas grenades.

‘We need to change the way we think about policing’

Thirty people were reportedly wounded in the clashes. Images provided to the FRANCE 24 Observers team by protesters attest to significant injuries.

In a statement issued on May 11, 2023, Amnesty International denounced “the excessive use of force by the gendarmerie in Ngor” and called “on the authorities to investigate the use of lethal weapons by the police“.

Locals, such as Mamadou Ndiaye, president of the citizen movement Ngor Debout, denounced the repression carried out by the police:

The gendarmes have beaten up protesters, shot at people, entered homes. This is not law and order. We don’t deserve that in a country like Senegal. We need to change the way we think about policing, to stop using grenades and live ammunition. We need more diplomacy when people demand things.

‘Ngor is the only district in Dakar that does not have a high school’

At the root of these tensions is a 6,000 m2 plot of land located in the heart of the village. Since the beginning of March, the gendarmerie has voiced its desire to set up a police station there, while the community wants to build a high school.

On Monday, May 8 the day before the clashes, the state said it would give 4,000 m2 to the gendarmes and 2,000 m2 to the municipality for a high school. Many residents, including our observer Habib, felt this decision was unfair:

Ngor really needs a high school: it’s the only district in Dakar that doesn’t have a high school and a CEM [Editor’s note: for Collège d’enseignement moyen, the equivalent of a secondary school]. Young people have to leave Ngor to study. Most people don’t have a car: they have to take transport. And they also have to eat at lunchtime. All this is expensive. Many stop going to school at 13 or 14 years old because of this. Education should be a priority. 

‘The indigenous population gradually had to give up their land’

Oumar (not his real name), a resident of Ngor, says that the indigenous Lebu population has gradually had to cede its land to the state:

The indigenous population of Ngor originally lived from agriculture, but gradually had to give up their land. For example, the posh district of Almadies was built on agricultural land. Now ministers, deputies and colonels live there. 

Now there are no more fields. The local people have fallen back on fishing, but even fishing doesn’t work like it used to because of the pollution. Poverty is increasing. And there is no more space, people are forced to build new floors to be able to have housing.

The land at the heart of the dispute is all the more important in the eyes of the residents as it has a spiritual value. It is known as “Arrêt Mame Tamsir”, in reference to El Hadji Tamsir Mamadou Ndiaye, an important imam for the Lebu population of Ngor.

Following the clashes, Senegalese President Macky Sall announced that the land would be split in half and granted in equal parts to the gendarmerie and the municipality. The decision put a halt to protests for the moment, but several residents we spoke to say they “want to continue fighting”.

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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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Biden’s rebuke of a bold, reform-minded crime law makes all Americans less safe

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President Joe Biden’s support for a Republican-led effort to nullify the Washington D.C. City Council’s revision of its criminal code, signed into law on Monday, plays into the fear narrative that is being increasingly advanced across the U.S.

Biden could have used his platform and clout to clarify the actual substance of the carefully crafted District of Columbia proposal — and adhere to his campaign commitment to reduce the number of incarcerated Americans.

Instead, the president ignored the glaring problems in D.C.’s existing criminal code, which the 275-page long package of revisions was designed to address. This included reforming the draconian and inflexible sentencing requirements that have swelled the District’s incarceration rate and wasted countless resources imprisoning individuals who pose no danger to public safety. By rejecting this decade-plus effort, the president decided that D.C. residents have no right to determine for themselves how to fix these problems.

“ There are communities across the U.S. that see virtually no violent crime, and it isn’t because they’re the most policed. ”

Biden’s decision is the latest backlash to U.S. justice reform coming from both sides of the political aisle.

Instead of doubling down on failed tough-on-crime tactics, Americans need to come together to articulate and invest in a new vision of public safety. We already know what that looks like because there are communities across the country which see virtually no violent crime, and it isn’t because they’re the most policed.

Safe communities are places where people (even those facing economic distress) are housed, where schools have the resources to teach all children, where the water and air are clean, where families have access to good-paying jobs and comprehensive healthcare, and where those who are struggling are given a hand, not a handcuff.

This is the kind of community every American deserves to live in, but that future is only possible if we shift resources from carceral responses to communities and shift our mindset from punishment to prevention. 

“ Too often it’s easier to advocate for locking people up than it is to innovate and advance a new vision for public safety.  ”

In the wake of particularly traumatic years, as well as growing divisiveness that has politicized criminal justice reform, it is not surprising that many people believe their communities are less safe. While public perceptions of crime have long been disconnected from actual crime rates and can be heavily influenced by media coverage, the data tells a mixed story. Homicide rates did increase in both urban and rural areas in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and record levels of gun sales.

While early available data suggests these numbers are trending down, it’s too soon to tell, especially given the nation’s poor crime data infrastructure. What is clear is that there is no evidence that criminal justice reform is to blame for rising crime, despite well-funded attempts by those resistant to change and who are intent on driving a political agenda to make such a claim stick. 

Yet fear often obscures facts; people are scared for their safety and want reassurance. Too often it’s easier to advocate for locking people up than it is to innovate and advance a new vision for public safety. 

We need leaders who can govern with both empathy and integrity – who can provide genuine compassion to those who feel scared while also following the data about how to create safer communities. And all the data points to the need for reform. 

“ Mass incarceration costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated $1 trillion annually.”

Mass incarceration costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated $1 trillion annually, when you factor in not only the cost of confinement but also the crushing toll placed on incarcerated people and their families, children, and communities. Despite this staggering figure, there’s no real evidence that incarceration works, and in fact some evidence to suggest it actually makes people more likely to commit future crimes. Yet we keep pouring more and more taxpayer dollars into this short-sighted solution that, instead of preventing harm, only delays and compounds it. 

We have to stop pretending that reform is the real threat to public safety and recognize how our over-reliance on incarceration actually makes us less safe. 

Reform and public safety go hand in hand. Commonsense changes including reforming cash bail, revisiting extreme sentences and diverting people from the criminal legal system have all been shown to have positive effects on individuals and communities.

At a time of record-low clearance rates nationwide and staffing challenges in police departments and prosecutor’s offices, arresting and prosecuting people for low-level offenses that do not impact public safety can actually make us less safe by directing resources away from solving serious crimes and creating collateral consequences for people that make it harder to escape cycles of poverty and crime. 

Yet, tough-on-crime proponents repeatedly misrepresent justice reform by claiming that reformers are simply letting people who commit crimes off the hook. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reform does not mean a lack of accountability, but rather a more effective version of accountability for everyone involved. 

Our traditional criminal legal system has failed victims time and again. In a 2022 survey of crime survivors, just 8% said that the justice system was very helpful in navigating the legal process and being connected to services. Many said they didn’t even report the crime because of distrust of the system. 

When asked what they want, many crime survivors express a fundamental desire to ensure that the person who caused them harm doesn’t hurt them or anyone else ever again. But status quo approaches aren’t providing that. The best available data shows that 7 in 10 people released from prison in 2012 were rearrested within five years. Perhaps that’s why crime victims support alternatives to traditional prosecution and incarceration by large margins. 

For example, in New York City, Common Justice offered the first alternative-to-incarceration program in the country focused on violent felonies in adult courts. When given the option, 90% of eligible victims chose to participate in a restorative justice program through Common Justice over incarcerating the person who harmed them. Just 7% of participants have been terminated from the program for committing a new crime. 

A restorative justice program launched by former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón for youth facing serious felony charges was shown to reduce participants’ likelihood of rearrest by 44 percent within six months compared to youth who went through the traditional juvenile justice system, and the effects were still notable even four years after the initial offer to participate.

Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt launched a groundbreaking program last year to allow people convicted of violent offenses to avoid prison time if they commit to behavioral health treatment. As of January, just one of 60 participants had been rearrested for a misdemeanor. 

While too many politicians give lip service to reform, those who really care about justice are doing the work, regardless of electoral consequences. We need more bold, innovative leaders willing to rethink how we achieve safety and accountability, not those who go where the wind blows and spread misinformation for political gain. 

Fear should not cause us to repeat the mistakes of the past. When politicians finally decide to care more about protecting people than protecting their own power, only then will we finally achieve the safety that all communities deserve. 

Miriam Aroni Krinsky is the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, a former federal prosecutor, and the author of Change from Within: Reimagining the 21st-Century Prosecutor. Alyssa Kress is the communications director of Fair and Just Prosecution.  

More: Wrongful convictions cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Wrongdoing prosecutors must be held accountable.

Plus: Senate votes to block D.C. crime laws, with Biden’s support

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‘I never wear a headscarf anymore’: Iranian women continue to defy Islamic regime

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In Iran, women are daring to go out without their headscarves in public places, streets, cafes, banks and even airports. For five months, thousands of Iranians have been pouring into the streets to protest against the Islamic regime. While the protests have waned in recent weeks, Iranians – especially women – have told the FRANCE 24 Observers team that the movement has caused irreversible changes in Iranian society. Our Observers say these changes are not due to any reduced pressure from the regime, but rather a newfound courage in Iranian women and support from society.

Protesters began seeing fewer morality police vehicles in the streets in December 2022, fueling rumours that the regime had disbanded the controversial unit. However, our Observers have underlined that no rules have changed.

>> Read more on The Observers: ‘We continue our revolution’: Iran protesters dismiss claims that morality police were ‘disbanded’

Even if the morality police are patrolling less, there is still pressure on Iranian women to observe mandatory veiling laws. However, the Iranians we have spoken to say that the progress made in five months of protest is something they never could have thought possible.


A shopping Centre in north of tehran showing Iranian women without headscarves.

‘You get the feeling that society has put an invisible safety net around women without headscarves to keep them in the fight’

Mahi (not her real name) lives in Tehran, where she works in a startup.

It’s true that we want much more than not wearing headscarves. We want the end of the Islamic Republic, but in a way I feel that with the “Woman Life Freedom” revolution we have already won something over the Islamic Republic.

I literally burnt my headscarves a few months ago. I never wear a headscarf anymore. I go out on the street, I go to cafés, even in banks, and I took a flight without wearing a headscarf. When I wanted to go through the security gate, which is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, they asked me to cover my head and I said I do not have anything on me, I had a hoodie that I put on for a few seconds in front of the IRGC guards, then I took it off as well.

Until a month or two ago, men and other women would smile at me when I went for a walk in public and say encouraging words like “Well done” or “I am proud of you”. Now I’ve been seeing for weeks that not wearing a headscarf has become the norm – people don’t even see it as something special.

No one looks or stares at women without the hijab. Even men who seem to be religious look away but say nothing. That this has changed so quickly it’s inconceivable to me.

While it’s true that there are more women without headscarves in the more affluent neighbourhoods, the reality is that even in the southern parts of Tehran, which are poor and more conservative, women without headscarves aren’t uncommon. Many women –  especially the younger generation – refuse to wear the Islamic hijab even in this part of Tehran, and by many I mean 20 or 30 percent. It’s amazing that I even felt safe there when I went for a walk. No one stared at the women, no men showed even the slightest signs of misbehaviour. You get the feeling that society has put an invisible safety net around women without headscarves to keep them in the fight.

But the real battle with the Islamic Republic is still ahead of us. It’s winter now, and we have to cover up anyway because it’s freezing outside. But in the one or two months when it usually gets hot in Tehran, I don’t see any reason to cover up like I used to. And I think many other women feel the same way, especially the younger generations. Even now, I sometimes see teenage girls walking down the street wearing crop tops, and when I imagine how these brave girls will dress in the summer, I already get excited. I think that our real fight to push these Islamists back even further starts there.

However, Iranian women still face pressure from the regime to continue wearing the veil, in the form of threats, restrictions and acts of violence.

Hossein Jalali, an Iranian MP, told Iranian media on December 20,2022 that “the restrictions regarding the hijab are very much in place, it’s just the way they are enforced that has changed.”

Several local governors in Iran have banned all organisations from offering services to women without hijabs. On December 25, 2022 the governor of South Khorasan province in eastern Iran informed all banks, government agencies and businesses that providing services to women without a hijab are breaking the law.

On February 18, engineer Zainab Kazempour threw her headscarf on the ground after being disqualified in an official ceremony for participating in the Tehran Construction Engineering Organisation’s board elections. According to Iranian media, she was charged with disrespecting the Islamic hijab.


Zainab Kazempour threw her headscarf on the ground after being disqualified in an official ceremony for participating in the Tehran Construction Engineering Organisation’s board elections.

On January 29, February 15 and 21, three pharmacies were closed in Amol, in northern Iran,Tehran and Shar-e-Rey a poor suburb of Tehran after the “extremist Islamists released videos showing women working without hijabs and refusing to wear headscarves. The three women are being prosecuted.


A Basij member harasses a woman working in this pharmacy in Amol, northern Iran. After this video was published, the pharmacy was closed and the woman is being prosecuted.

On November 26, 2022 a bank manager in Qom lost his job after serving a woman without a hijab and was prosecuted by the governor of Qom. A video of this was posted on social media two days earlier.


A bank director in Qom was fired after this video was published on social media.

Ali Khanmohammadi, spokesperson for the organisation “Enjoining Good and Forbidding Bad”, which is responsible for enforcing Islamic Sharia law in public spaces in parallel with the morality police, said in an interview with local media on January 1, 2023: “The police are responsible for closing down shops that do not comply with the law […] We receive videos where someone has asked the shopkeeper to comply with the law [wearing the hijab or asking customers to do so] and they refuse to do so, we can not tolerate that, people have to comply with the law.”

And on January 4, 2023 Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, stressed in a speech that the hijab law in Iran must be upheld: “The hijab is an inalienable commandment of the Sharia.”

However, it seems to be becoming more and more difficult for the theocrats in Tehran to confront the growing demand for freedom. Women are defying the veiling laws not only in the big cities like Tehran, Tabriz or Mashhad, but also in rural towns, which are known for more conservative values.

‘Not wearing the hijab has turned into a political act, a sign of courage’

Faranak (not her real name) lives in Tehran, but originally comes from a small town in southwestern Iran. She visits her family there regularly.

When I visited my hometown a few days ago after several months, I could see that the people there have also changed. I saw many women walking the streets without headscarves, teenage girls chatting and laughing in the streets without hijabs. Not wearing the hijab as a sign of boldness or, at best, weirdness has turned into a political act, a sign of courage to stand up for one’s rights.

Many women wear their headscarves on their shoulders, many teenage girls wear it as a scarf, and some others just do not have it on at all. And I am surprised that I was there only four months ago. This is not reversible. If you close the shops or lay people off, it does not work anymore. Personally, I have decided not to wear a headscarf, no matter what. Even if I lose my job, even if they arrest me a hundred times, if they beat me, arrest me… it does not matter, I will not cover my body the way they think I should. And I am sure a lot of women feel the same way I do.

The death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police in September 2022 sparked the largest wave of protests in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since September 2022, more than 480 Iranians have been killed and thousands injured in Iran’s continuing protests.



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Police Diversity Won’t Stop Police Brutality

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It was not a shocking development that the five Memphis police officers who beat Tyre Nichols to death were also Black. Richard Pryor commented on this phenomenon back in 1971:

“In my neighborhood, cops were dangerous, because we had, like, ‘I Spy’ cops. You know, white cop and Black cop worked together. And the Black cop had to do more shit to keep his job. He had to whoop more [Black people] than the white cop.” Pryor would then act as the Black cop kicking a Black civilian: “I ain’t gonna lose my pension, [n-word].”

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Race is a rigid form of classism, and the police consider themselves a separate class. “We all bleed blue” is a popular slogan, meant to suggest there is no racial prejudice among the ranks. However, that lovely homily serves only to distance police officers from the people they supposedly protect and serve. Once they put on the uniform, they are no longer “one of them.”

Just months prior to George Floyd’s murder, US News & World Report addressed the question of whether “hiring more Black officers” was “the key to reducing police violence.” Writer Jennifer Cobbina interviewed residents of Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, and her research suggested that “increased representation might not solve the problem.”

Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Twin Cities-based organization, said in 2020, “Throughout our research, we have never encountered a shred of evidence that requiring or incentivizing police officers to live in the communities in which they work has any positive effect on the quality of policing.”

Nonetheless, well-meaning politicians have pursued residency requirements for police officers. Kenyatta Johnson, a member of Philadelphia’s City Council, said, “It’s a plus if we have officers who live in the city. They grew up in the city. They have a stake in the city because it’s home. It goes a long way to building community trust.”

But more Black cops don’t turn cities into Mayberry. The system is what it is and before an officer receives their badge and gun, they must fully become part of that system.

Tamar Manasseh, who runs a community anti-violence initiative called Mothers Against Senseless Killing in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, insists, “You’d be less likely to crack a head if you know where they live and they know where you live. People who eat dinner with each other don’t kill each other.” Unfortunately, domestic violence statistics would seemingly disprove this theory.

Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice, has practiced law in Memphis for a decade. She agrees that the race of the officers who killed Nichols is not as relevant as the problem with policing in general.

“Policing in this country is focused on control, subordination and violence — regardless of the race of the officer,” she said. “Society views black people as inherently dangerous and criminal … even if you have black people in the position of law enforcement, that doesn’t mean that proposition goes away.”

This observation is arguably one of the more controversial ones from journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who draws a direct line from modern policing to antebellum slave patrols.

During a 2020 interview, Hannah-Jones said, “Slave patrols were put in place to deputize white Americans, to police enslaved communities, to ensure that enslaved people were only in the places they were allowed, to put down slave insurrections, and these slave patrols had the right to stop and question any black person, enslaved or free, whom they deemed to be suspicious.” That is arguably the foundation for “stop and frisk.”

She goes into further detail about this in Hulu’s “1619 Project” documentary. Rightwingers reflexively took a “how very dare you!” response to her argument, insisting that US policing’s origins are rightly traced back to Britain and have nothing to do with slavery. This perhaps deliberately ignores the shocking militarization of US police and the “warrior cop” mentality, which is both toxic and lucrative.

Former police officer and law professor Seth Stoughton wrote, “[Cops] are taught that they live in an intensely hostile world. A world that is, quite literally, gunning for them. Death, they are told, is constantly a single, small misstep away.” The civilian public only tolerates this training if they are also conditioned to view Black people, especially young men, as inherently dangerous.

According to the Washington Post, the five officers who killed Nichols were part of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION Unit, which the city is now shutting down. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who’s Black, oversaw the REDDOG drug unit in Atlanta. That was also shut down. (Davis was fired, then reinstated, for an unrelated issue before moving to the Memphis police department.) Neither unit’s name was encouraging. Personally, the BUNNY unit would make me feel safer.

SCORPION was created in 2021 — yes, after George Floyd’s murder and a supposed “racial reckoning” — and designed to “saturate high-crime areas with police officers.” The unit’s dehumanizing acronym stands for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods.” Obviously, no real “peace” was restored to Tyre Nichols’s neighborhood.

[USA Today / US News & World Report / BBC / Vox]

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