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Amnesty International Report 2004 - France

Covering events from January - December 2003

An Ethiopian national died during forcible deportation. There were frequent reports of ill-treatment of foreign nationals in holding areas within airports. Complaints about race-related police ill-treatment rose, notably in Paris. Police officers were under investigation for the collective rape of sex workers. In a landmark decision, France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, restricted the use of weapons by the national gendarmerie. Detainees continued to face lengthy provisional detention, and seriously ill detainees or convicted prisoners continued to be held in conditions that raised fears for their physical or mental integrity. Prison conditions were aggravated by serious overcrowding. There were acts of racist violence against members of Jewish and Arab communities, as well as other Muslim groups.

New legislation

A new law on internal security came into force in March. It aggravated concerns about an increase in the number of abusive identity checks carried out by police officers. The law covered a range of new offences. These included gatherings in public spaces within residential apartment blocks, public soliciting, "aggressive" collective begging, swearing at or insulting public officials, and insulting the national flag and national anthem at certain public events. A controversial draft law on organized crime went through a second reading in November. The law aimed, among other measures, to extend the 96-hour special custody regime to a wider range of offences, including "organized crime". This would increase the numbers of people, including minors between 16 and 18, likely to be denied access to a lawyer for the first 36 hours of police custody. In December a government-appointed commission on the application of secular principles recommended a law banning conspicuous religious symbols or uniforms from state schools. The proposed law was widely seen to be targeting the Muslim headscarf.

Deaths during forcible deportation

In January AI called on the authorities to fully and impartially investigate the deaths of two foreign nationals, which had occurred in close succession during forcible deportation attempts. Both deaths occurred after the deportees were placed at the rear of the aircraft, their hands cuffed behind their backs. AI stated that existing expert advice on postural asphyxia had shown that handcuffing a person behind their back could restrict their ability to breathe, while any weight applied to the back in that position could further increase breathing difficulty. AI urged that the conclusions of all inquiries be made public, and asked the authorities for clarification of the procedures in place for forcible deportation.

• In June, in a letter about the death of Argentine national Ricardo Barrientos in December 2002, the Ministry of the Interior, Internal Security and Local Freedoms, informed AI that no restraint techniques involving asphyxiation had been applied and that the members of the police National Escort, Support and Intervention Unit (UNESI) had received adequate training. However, the Ministry did not clarify exactly what techniques had been used.

• Mariame Geto Hagos, an Ethiopian national, died in January after being taken ill on board an aircraft awaiting departure to Johannesburg from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport. He had reportedly arrived in France five days earlier and was held in the waiting area at Roissy. After his asylum application was rejected he resisted attempts to deport him and apparently became ill on two separate occasions. He was, nonetheless, deemed medically fit to leave. He was escorted onto the aircraft by three frontier police officers. Before take-off he reportedly again made efforts to resist departure and was, according to reports, restrained by the "customary techniques". Three police officers were suspended pending further inquiries.

Ill-treatment in border areas

In March, two separate reports from groups which assist refugees and asylum-seekers at border areas described frequent police ill-treatment – such as blows, beatings with batons, tight handcuffing, racist insults – at the holding area at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport. A group of 54 Senegalese and Côte d'Ivoire nationals subsequently complained that they had been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment during a charter flight from France to Dakar and Abidjan in March. They alleged they had been held under restraint throughout the flight with hard rubber cable wound round wrists and ankles. Tape had also allegedly been placed round faces and legs and some individuals had been beaten. The allegations were rejected by the Ministry of the Interior and the frontier police.

In December the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment published its report of a visit to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in June 2002, to examine the situation of foreign nationals. It referred to "allegations of ill-treatment of foreign nationals (slaps, kicks, baton blows, tight handcuffing, threats and insults) by police officers during passport controls, requests for asylum and attempts to force detainees to board aircraft". The Committee recommended that procedures concerning forcible removal by air be clarified and updated. It found an improvement in conditions in two holding areas.

Police ill-treatment in Paris

In February statistics released by the General Inspection Services (IGS), which investigates complaints against police officers in the Paris area, showed that complaints about police ill-treatment had doubled between 1997 (216 complaints) and 2002 (432). According to a new human rights committee set up at Saint-Denis following established cases of police brutality, many incidents in the Department of Seine-Saint-Denis continued to arise out of identity checks and to be race-related. A report published in April by the National Commission of Deontology and Security (CNDS), a police oversight body, examined a number of cases of police ill-treatment and expressed concern about the operation of Paris police patrols at night and the lack of supervision of officers in Seine-Saint-Denis.

In March new instructions governing police custody were issued. The Interior Minister ruled that body searches should be exceptional, and called, among other things, for improved access for detainees to telephones and confidential communication with lawyers.

• In February the Correctional Court of Paris threw out charges brought in December 2002 by National Police officers against Omar Baha, a French national of Algerian origin, who had been held in extended custody on charges of "incitement to riot", "insulting behaviour" and "resisting arrest". Omar Baha had allegedly been ill-treated by police officers – sustaining a broken nose – during an identity check which he had witnessed and in which he had intervened. He was reportedly struck on the nose with the end of a gas canister and beaten by three officers after he reminded them of a recent public statement by the Minister of the Interior that police abuses would not be tolerated. He was detained for an extended period on the grounds that he faced a charge of incitement to riot. However, all charges were thrown out after the court found that such a charge did not exist in French law and appeared to have been invented for the purpose of holding him. Omar Baha, who received no medical treatment while in custody, lodged a complaint for ill-treatment, which was still pending at the end of the year.

Violence against foreign women

An investigation was opened by the IGS in December into complaints lodged by human rights associations about the alleged collective rape of foreign sex workers, reportedly a widespread practice among a section of police officers.

• Three police officers of the 7th section of the Compagnie républicaine de sécurité (CRS), a special police unit, in Deuil-la-Barre (Val-d'Oise) were detained after being placed by the IGS under investigation for the collective rape of several women in April. One woman was reportedly abducted by officers who ordered her to accompany them to the police station because her papers were not in order, but instead took her to a parking lot near the Stade de France sports stadium where she was allegedly raped. Two other women, Albanian and Lithuanian nationals, were then allegedly raped by the same officers. One woman noted the registration number of the patrol car. It was anticipated that other officers would be drawn into the investigation.

Restrictions on gendarmes' right to shoot

An important decision restricting the use of weapons by the national gendarmerie was made in February, when the Court of Cassation, the country's highest court, ruled that gendarmes should use their weapons only when "absolutely necessary". One of AI's most long-standing and serious concerns, the continued use of a 1903 decree, had until then allowed gendarmes to fire weapons to immobilize suspects in circumstances not permitted in law to other law enforcement officers and prohibited under international standards. According to the decree, gendarmes could fire to stop a person fleeing from them if they were wearing uniform and had given a warning.

• In October Nadjib Naceri fell into a coma after a gendarme reportedly shot him in the head at Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne). Gendarmes asked the driver of the vehicle in which Nadjib Naceri was travelling to park in a different position. As the vehicle moved away, one officer allegedly fired several shots at it. He said he was attempting to prevent it escaping. A judicial inquiry was opened and the gendarme was detained.

Ill prisoners

In February the Court of Cassation confirmed the suspension of a 10-year prison term being served by Maurice Papon, a former high-ranking government official and Paris police chief, in view of his age and state of health. Maurice Papon was released from prison in September 2002 under the provisions of a law of March 2002 on the rights of ill people. Under the law, prisoners' sentences can be suspended if they are critically ill or suffering from a chronic condition incompatible with their detention. In March AI retransmitted its request to the Minister of Justice, made the previous December, for information about the number of people who had been released under the law and its concern about the current circumstances of a number of individual detainees and prisoners suffering from serious and chronic medical conditions. To date AI has received no reply from the government.

• In November the Regional Commission on Conditional Liberty of Douai (Nord) rejected a plea for release from Nathalie Ménigon, a member of the former armed group Action Directe. In AI's view, the serious health condition of Nathalie Ménigon, and of other members of the group, such as Georges Cipriani, was related to long periods the prisoners had previously spent in rigorous isolation. Nathalie Ménigon, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988, is partially hemiplegic as a result of two cerebral vascular accidents while in prison.

• Alain Solé, arrested in 1999 in connection with alleged illegal activities by Emgann, the Breton nationalist group, entered a fifth year of provisional detention. In June he underwent a triple bypass operation at a Paris hospital. He reportedly became insulin-dependent in prison. Several applications for provisional release have been rejected by the Paris Appeal Court.

Prison conditions

Rising tension was reported in many prisons, where serious overcrowding reportedly contributed to a high and rising suicide rate, to acts of violence against prisoners by guards and by other prisoners, and to reduced access to visits or medical attention. In April a group of prisoners at Moulins-Yzeure (Allier) complained about a series of restrictive surveillance measures. In November some inmates of the same prison, reportedly demanding an improvement in conditions, held four prison officers hostage for several hours. In November the CNDS, which had been investigating acts of violence and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the prison in Maubeuge (Nord), requested an inspection of its services, which was granted in December.

Racist attacks

Acts of violence were reported against members of Muslim and Jewish communities. A consultative human rights body, the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (CNCDH), recorded an increase in violence towards Muslims. It referred, among other things, to desecration of Muslim places of worship and the dissemination of tracts vilifying Islam, and identified the difficulty in distinguishing anti-Muslim attacks from anti-Arab attacks in general. Government figures for the first half of 2003 showed a decrease in anti-Jewish acts compared to the previous year.

However, fresh government measures were taken against all forms of racism and, after an arson attack on a Jewish school in Paris destroyed a section of the building, police surveillance of synagogues and Jewish schools was stepped up.

AI country visits

AI delegates visited France in February and November for research.