Amnesty International, the NGO that helped the French press make Abu Ghraib a household word, took a moment to glance at France, the seat of abiding respect of the human person.
Police brutality is rarely punished in France and the government has failed so utterly to tackle law enforcement abuses that officers benefit from an "effective impunity", Amnesty International said in a damning report released yesterday.Racism appeared to be a major element in almost all the cases: all but one involved victims of Arab or African origin. Complaints of police violence in France had risen by 18.7% in 2004, the seventh consecutive increase.
"What we are saying is that French police brutality exists, and that the French authorities do little or nothing about it," said Geneviève Sevrin, president of Amnesty France.
In one typical case Virginie Houset, the widow of Sydney Manoka Nzeza, a young amateur boxer of Zairian origin who died of suffocation in police custody, said only two of the six policemen involved in her husband's arrest were convicted, both of manslaughter, and sentenced to suspended seven-month sentences.
"How can anyone say France is a democratic country?" Ms Houset said."Are men really born free here and equal before the law?"
Mdm. Houset is not a regular reader of Pave.
The report, France: The Search for Justice, details "ill-treatment" and shootings to death, though nothing here on a par with the nonfatal horrors of Abu Ghraib, horrors reported by the American military and taken up by the world press as the root cause of terrorism, of evil itself.
In the past decade Amnesty International has expressed repeatedly its serious concern about reports that police officers were resorting to the use of force recklessly and in a manner wholly disproportionate to the situation.Amnesty International is concerned, among other things, about the wide, and on occasion, somewhat imaginative interpretations of "legitimate defence" and "state of necessity", and urges the authorities to review the application of the law by the courts.
Amnesty International has long been concerned at persistent allegations of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officers. The organization has further concluded that there is a pattern of effective impunity for law enforcement officers who commit torture or ill-treatment, because of the failure of the authorities to address the lack of prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations, and to bring perpetrators of such human rights violations to justice.
This is in spite of clear provisions against torture and ill-treatment, and France’s obligations to uphold them, contained in a number of international treaties to which France is party.
Among AI's recommendations, et al.:
On the right to life: 3. incorporate a full definition of torture into the Penal Code which is in conformity with the full definition of torture as set out in the UN Convention against Torture;On racism: 7. sign and ratify Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which sets out a general prohibition of discrimination, including discrimination by any public authority;
8. sign and ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
These should be easy to implement. All France needs do is restrain herself to the restraints she instructs for others.
This surprises no-one, I trust. The whole French opposition to the war in Irak was based on the racist belief that brute force is the only way to deal with Arabs. Saddam could keep order and make the trains run on time. Not only that, but he could be bought, and was willing to sell his country for a colony to France.
What more could one ask? How else does one deal with Muslims? Surely that cretin George Bush can understand such simple, though unpleasant, fact of life? Apparently the simplton can't.
By the way, the second paragraph was intended to be ironic to the point of sarcasm.
BRB,
We wait to see Jack pre-empt some soccer game delivering his personal apology to the French Muslim community for the miserable failures of his government.
Here's a question. How does French police "abuse" differ from the reported abuses at Abu Ghraib? Well, aside from no one being killed and that many Abu Ghraib abuses had a military purpose (scil., the timely procurement of terrorist information), the only difference -- Polaroids. Being old hands at prisoner "abuse", the French police know better than to compromise their fun with unimpeachable evidence.
DGB
Here is another sweet bit of French hypocracy, via the Instapundit. Seems the French have no problem ensuring that the Chinese people do not have open access to information. When will the French stop pretending that they believe in human rights?
http://www.di2.nu/blog.htm?20050413
QUAGMIRE!
Admit it Doug, we miss Zoomer.
*sigh*
