legal team press release, translated from french
sprout | 02.06.2003 01:47
COMITE ANTI-G8 - PERMANENCE JURIDIQUE LAUSANNE
COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE
The legal support group were working all of sunday, from 6 am in the morning. We estimate having taken about 600 calls, in french, german, italian and english - here is a summary, from 8.30 sunday evening.
1.150 people were stopped at the 'official' camp, at Bourdonnette, and were subject to identity paper checks. They were all detained for between 4-6 hours, in cagelike cells, at a holding station at Mont-sur-Lausanne, in dreadful conditions.
Only one of these people is still detained, held on charges still to be determined.
2.Amongst these people, there were several locals from Bourdonnette.
3.45 people were taken to Mont-sur-Lausanne, on Sunday evening, after being held for 3 or 4 hours on buses parked at the police station at Blécherette.
4.Quite a few minors were detained - their parents were not informed, even though they were detained for so long. This was not seen as a priority by the magistrate (this is apparently what the magistrate said on the telephone)
5.Sunday evening, according to the information from one of the offical legal observers, 30 people are still being held at the police station in Lausanne, and 20 others at the station in Blecherette. A few of them are being brought before a magistrate.
6.2 people stopped at 2am were released at 3.30 pm, after having being interviewed by the Police and being brought before a magistrate.
7. the activist from the bridge action, who dropped after the police cut the rope suspending him, is alive and concious, according to the director general of CHUV, at 2pm.
8. there are still some people for whom the police are looking, who they wish to arrest, but thay have not yet been found - this is a matter of some concern for the legal support group.
9. At this stage, we observe that there has been a violation of the principle of proportionality ( reasonable scale/force)in the length of time people were detained for and the conditions in which they were held.In addition, the rights of minors were not upheld.
translated from the french,
http://www.indymedia.ch/fr/2003/06/10267.shtml
sprout
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differences between french and swiss police
02.06.2003 12:46
On both sides of the french and swiss border, came the same population of altermondialist people. Many nationalities, generaly young people, in great majority peacefull contestators, on both sides.
I was near the VAAAG camp in Annemasse, and in the demonstration that came from Annemasse to Geneva and returned. neither in the camp nor in the the demonstration I saw policemen in uniform. The first uniforms I met were CRS (french riot police) at a crossroad on the way back to the camp. The only thing they were doing was telling the returning demonstrators the best way to go back to the camp, without any agressivity. A bit later, I spoke with some other french policemen, to ask them if there had been troubles. They answered me : "in the french side, all was very good, in the swiss one, all was very bad". I saw they were really upset by the behavior of the swiss police. They told me about teargases launched by helicopters on the demonstrators, and that a catastroph very nearly happened when one of the helico had to land down in emergency because of technical problems.
In the other side, swiss side, I heard and read about police inbelievable behaviors and human rights violations. Agressions, arrestations, detention in untolerable conditions, violences and insults.
So I ask me why. Why, with the same population of demonstrators are the events so different ?
I think the answer is in the perfect lack of experience of the swiss autorities in the "management" of this sort of social troubles, and the great one of the french law forces. French autorities manage demonstrations for hundred years (and a lot for a few months). They know how little are the risks to let the demonstration run peacefully. They are not afraid of the people they saw in the VAAAG and VIG camps, and they' never would have come in the camps to search in the tents and arrest people because they know it's a dangerous provocation.
Entering in force in those places is the best way to cause casualties and increase troubles. I am not telling you french police is "gentle" and french policemen are angels - absolutly not - I am just telling you they are experienced in this sort of thing.
Almost, I think that french government is in a very sensible situation about this G8: an explosive inner social situation for 3 months, with strikes and dayly demonstrations in the whole country againts retirement and educations reforms, and in the other hand the presence in France of the United States president for the first time since the beginning of the second gulf war.
I don't like M. Chirac, for me his place would be in prison for the money he stoled when he was mayor of Paris, but I'm forced to say he managed the counter-summit very well : he decided to work WITH the counter-summit organisators instead of work AGAINST them. A very well known french left sided newspaper, "le Canard Enchaîné", witch can't be suspected of sympathy for the government, told last week that the french president afforded one million euros budget to the counter-summit organisators to allow them to organise everything at best. This is the best way to avoid troubles. In the same time, he told to the police to avoid confrontation with the demonstrators. And it worked very well.
In the other side, we've got a swiss government totally unexperimented with this kind of things, threatened to death for the side windows of his towns, who gave dramatically unreasonnable orders to his police and caused the troubles he wanted to avoid, bringing war situation in the center of his towns where nothing would had happend if the law forces hadn't step in.
So I'm now near my conclusion : With the same demonstrators, and two different polices, the results are totally differents. The troubles of yesterday are not the work of the demonstrators, but the one of the swiss and german riot police who did exactly what it didn't have to do. I hope there will be a legal continuation about their human rights violations and their violences
Hasta la Victoria Siempre !
O_Henry
O_Henry
e-mail:
o.henry@lesud.com