[ad_1]
Published:
Updated:
From: TT
Published:
Updated:
1 of 3 | Photo: Francois Mori / AP / TT
A protester holds up a poster with the bitter message “Rule of law for the police” during a protest in Paris against a bill that would restrict the right to publish photographs of police officers on duty.
The French government is backing away from a bill that has sparked major protests across the country.
It had restricted the right to photograph police officers, while sparking a debate about violence, especially when four police officers are charged with a racist assault in Paris.
The bill was part of a broader security policy package and would have made it a crime to photograph and disseminate images of police officers if it was deemed to harm the integrity of the police.
Critics noted that it could restrict the ability to review police work or document abuse. Tens of thousands of people have protested in cities and towns in France in the last week.
“The proposal will be completely rewritten and a new version will be presented,” Christophe Castaner, leader of the ruling Republican Party group in parliament, told a news conference.
Castaner, who until last summer was the interior minister in the government of President Emmanuel Macron, says the new proposal will come soon and admits that many questions remain. The National Assembly had passed the law and was on its way to the Senate in a next step.
Viral video clip
Demonstrations for press freedom grew during the week with protests against police violence. This weekend, they exploded after a violent police movie was released online.
The film showed the assault of the black music producer Michel Zegler, who a little more than a week ago was arrested and assaulted by four policemen in his Paris studio. The recordings show him being hit multiple times in the face, while racist curses are poured out on him.
He was featured in the French media and received great support, also from French soccer stars and celebrities. On Friday, four alleged policemen were arrested and the suspicions have been formalized in the prosecution.
Three of the police officers are charged with crimes that can roughly translate into police violence and false statements, Le Monde reports in reference to prosecutors. The fourth is suspected of assaulting Zecler and nine other people who were in the music studio where the attack took place. Two of the four are in custody awaiting trial.
Clashes in Paris
Prosecutor Rémy Heitz announced on Sunday that he believes Zecler’s beating was racist. That point of view is supported by the victim’s own testimony.
– They called me “dirty black” several times, right in the face, while they beat me, he says.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the capital last Saturday. It was a largely peaceful expression of dissatisfaction, but parts of the crowd ended up in clashes with riot police. Several smaller fires were started in the uprising, and police used tear gas and water cannons.
Among other things, award-winning Syrian photographer and AFP employee Ameer al-Halbi broke his nose after taking a photo of a policeman striking a person lying on the ground, according to his own testimony on the BFMTV television channel.
According to estimates by the authorities, up to 133,000 people participated in the demonstrations, which took place in more than 70 locations.
Captured on film
A neighbor who captured Michel Zecler’s beating on film claims that one of the policemen hit Zecler in the face “maybe seven times” while he was on his knees, with such force that the policemen themselves suffered pain in the hand.
President Emmanuel Macron condemned it all as shameful. However, many observers bitterly pointed out that it would not have caught the public’s attention at all if the law at issue had gone into effect.
Published:
Published:
