Powers
designed to combat terrorism have been repeatedly misused to curb
peaceful protest, a new report from Amnesty International has found.
A right
not a threat: Disproportionate restrictions on demonstrations under
the State of Emergency in France reveals that hundreds of
unjustified measures restricting freedom of movement and the right to
peaceful assembly have been issued under the guise of countering
terrorism.
“Emergency
laws intended to protect the French people from the threat of
terrorism are instead being used to restrict their rights to protest
peacefully,” said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s
researcher on France. “Under the cover of the state of
emergency, rights to protest have been stripped away with hundreds of
activists, environmentalists, and labour rights campaigners
unjustifiably banned from participating in protests.”
Following
the horrific Paris attacks on 13 November 2015, France’s state of
emergency, introduced a day later, has been renewed five times
normalizing a range of intrusive measures. These include powers to
ban demonstrations on vague grounds and prevent individuals attending
protests. Last week, President Macron indicated that he will ask
parliament to extend it for a sixth time.
The state
of emergency allows prefects to ban any gathering as a precautionary
measure on very broad and undefined grounds of ‘threat to public
order’. These powers to restrict the right to freedom of peaceful
assembly have frequently been used disproportionately.
Between
November 2015 and 5 May 2017, authorities used emergency powers to
issue 155 decrees prohibiting public assemblies, in addition to
banning dozens of protests using ordinary French law. They also
imposed 639 measures preventing specific individuals participating in
public assemblies. Of these, 574 were targeted at those protesting
against proposed labour law reforms. Moreover, according to media
reports, authorities imposed dozens of similar measures to prevent
people from participating in protests after the second round of the
presidential elections on 7 May.
One
labour law protestor told Amnesty International: “You get
the impression that they use any means at their disposal to attack
those who are the most active in the movement.”
Charles, a
young student living in Paris, was prohibited from attending two
protests against labour law reforms on the grounds that he had been
previously arrested, though not charged, at a protest. He told
Amnesty International: “They accused me of being one of the
violent demonstrators…I felt like I had been treated like a
terrorist, like someone dangerous.”
These
restrictions breach the presumption under international law that a
demonstration should be assumed to be peaceful unless authorities can
show otherwise. Protests are being seen as a potential threat rather
than a fundamental right.
In defiance
of the restrictions under the state of emergency, many have continued
to protest. However, those who braved the restrictions have
frequently been met with unnecessary or excessive force by the
security forces. Batons, rubber bullets and tear gas have been used
against peaceful protesters who did not appear to threaten public
order.
Whilst some
of those involved in these public assemblies did engage in acts of
violence, hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters suffered injuries
at the hands of police. The Street Medics, an informal movement of
first-aid workers, estimated that in Paris alone, around 1,000
protesters were injured by police during protests against the labour
law reforms. Amnesty International has seen video evidence of four
police officers kicking and beating Paco, a 16-year-old student, with
batons before arresting him. Two witnesses told Amnesty International
that Paco was not engaging in violence when he was attacked by the
police.
Jean-François,
a 20-year-old student who lost his left eye when he was shot by
police with a rubber bullet, told Amnesty International: “I am
very angry. Before that I tended to trust the police.”
“By
drastically lowering the bar for restricting the right to freedom of
peaceful assembly, France’s state of emergency has resulted in the
egregious misuse of what were designed to be exceptional measures to
counter terrorism. People peacefully exercising their right to
assembly have been swept up in a crude anti-terrorism net,”
said Marco Perolini.
More:
Related:
Comments
Post a Comment