WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE SENEGAL News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #332 - Big Brother (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In Senegal, French weapons used to shoot at the population ----

"December 8 Affair": encryption of communications assimilated to
terrorist behavior ---- Transforming connected objects into snitches:
the government's security escalation -- -- Fines for pans
Olympic Games: The government wants to deport homeless people en masse
far from Paris
Police torturers on trial
Investigation into French police training with the Cougar grenade launcher
In Senegal, French weapons used to shoot at the population
In Senegal, an uprising is underway against authoritarian President
Macky Sall. In power in this West African country since 2012, the head
of state wants to remain at the head of Senegal with a third term in
2024, and has imprisoned his main opponent, Ousmane Sonko, accused of
"corruption of the youth ". Faced with this coup and against a backdrop
of acute social crisis, the population has been revolting for several weeks.
The police and the army of Senegal very violently repress the
demonstrations. Amnesty International records the deaths of at least
twenty-three people, including 3 children, during the demonstrations on
June 1 and 2, 2023. Since June 1, 390 people have been injured according
to the Senegalese Red Cross. Among other unspeakable acts, the
Senegalese police used civilians to protect themselves from stone throwing.
In recent days, several people, including those outside the
demonstrations, have been hit by gunfire. The police and their
pro-government auxiliaries use both live ammunition and law enforcement
weapons to crush the protest. Among the ammunition used, most are
manufactured... in France.
On May 23, at the start of the uprising, a Senegalese protester posted a
pile of tear gas and explosive grenades collected in the city of
Ziguinchor, in the south of the country. They were purchased from France
and produced by the Alsetex company.
To fire these grenades, the Senegalese law enforcement agencies use a 56
launcher manufactured by the Lebel firm, the new name for Verney-Carron.
This company based in Saint-Étienne manufactured the famous Flash-Ball.
Senegalese media also shows police using a battery of Cougar launchers,
the same as those used by French police, but assembled to fire bursts of
grenades simultaneously. Several Senegalese reporters mention the use of
GM2L explosive grenades, weapons of war, the same ones that were
massively fired in Sainte-Soline recently...
The sale of French arms is a lucrative business. Last February, the
Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced the sale of
military equipment to Senegal during a visit to Dakar, as part of an
African tour.
Sources: Counterattack, Streetpress, etc.

"December 8 affair": encryption of communications assimilated to
terrorist behavior
On December 8, 2020, the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI)
arrested nine people, suspected of "criminal association in relation to
a criminal terrorist enterprise". Five people were incarcerated,
including Libre Flot. He had been monitored by the DGSI since his return
from Syria, where he had fought in 2017 against Daesh, alongside the YPG
of Rojava among other internationalist militants.
After a 37-day hunger strike, Libre Flot was finally released under an
electronic bracelet on April 8, 2022, for medical reasons. He denounced
this practice of isolation, and filed several appeals with the
administrative court of Versailles. He ruled in his favor, in April
2023. The two decisions to extend his isolation were recognized as
irregular. The State was ordered to compensate Libre Flot for the damage
suffered. His fight, for him and his comrades, is not over since a
second complaint, awaiting judgment, has been filed against the illegal
and repeated strip searches that an accused person underwent in
pre-trial detention, and he
It remains to contest the "terrorist" qualification put forward by the
DGSI and the investigating judge.
The so-called "December 8" case in which 7 people were indicted for
"terrorist criminal association" in December 2020 should be judged in
October 2023. This will be the first anti-terrorism trial targeting the
"ultra-left" since the fiasco of the Tarnac affair.
The accusation of terrorism is forcefully rejected by the accused. The
latter denounce a political trial, an incriminating investigation and a
lack of evidence. They point out in particular decontextualized remarks
and the use of innocuous facts (sporting practices, digital practices,
readings and music listened to, etc.).  The digital practices of the
accused - first and foremost the use of encrypted messaging for the
general public - are exploited by the DGSI and the judge investigating
the case as "evidence" of a so-called "clandestine" coming to reveal the
existence of an unknown terrorist project. For their part, the police
recognize that at the end of the investigation - and ten months of
intensive surveillance - no "precise project" had been identified.
See you in October 2023!
Source: Laquadrature.net

Transforming connected objects into cookies: the government's security
escalation
"The bill "orientation and programming of the Ministry of Justice
2023-2027 has started to be discussed in the Senate (...)
In the midst of provisions which aim to ratify pell-mell the remote
interventions of doctors in the event of extension of police custody and
of interpreters from the start of police custody, or the extension of
the possibilities of night searches to common law crimes, a new
investigative tool is created to remotely activate a person's electronic
devices without their knowledge to obtain their geolocation in real time
or capture images and sounds. Clearly, for example, judicial
investigators will have to geolocate a car in real time from its
computer system, listen to and record everything that is said around the
microphone of a telephone even without a call in progress, or to
activate a computer camera to film what is in the field of the lens,
even if it is not turned on by its owner. Technically, the police will
exploit the security flaws of these devices (in particular, if they are
not updated by accessing them, or remotely) to install software which
allows them to take control and transform your tools, those of your
loved ones or from different places as snitches (...).
If this text were definitively adopted, it would dangerously increase
the possibilities of police intrusion, by transforming all our IT tools
into potential spies.
It is, in this regard, particularly worrying to see the State enshrine
the right to use security flaws in the software or hardware used rather
than endeavoring to protect them by informing of the existence of these
flaws to provide remedies.
However, the police and intelligence services already have extremely
intrusive tools at their disposal: installation of tracking devices in
homes or cars (GPS tags, video surveillance cameras, sound microphones),
extraction of information from a computer or telephone for example and
implementation of screen recorders or keystrokes (keylogger). These very
wide possibilities, which are particularly intrusive to private life,
are already diverted and used to monitor activists (as in the fight for
Le Carnet, in the opposition to mega-basins, in militant places in
Dijon, or in the photocopiers of anar places, etc.) (...).
Source: extract from the press release of May 31, 2023 from the
Observatory of Liberties and Digital Technology which brings together,
among others, the LDH, the French Lawyers' Union, the Magistracy Union,
Quadrature du Net.

Fines for casseroles
Demonstrators in Dijon and in many other cities received "fixed tort
fines" (AFD) of EUR68 for making noise with a kitchen utensil during a
demonstration. Automated fines awarded by video surveillance because
they were not the subject of any arrests by the police. The Defender of
Rights has just issued a decision on 05/31/2023 requesting the removal
of these AFD. To be continued

Olympic Games: The government wants to deport homeless people en masse
far from Paris
The government wants to "rid" the capital of its most precarious
populations by sending them to "regional airlocks", in order to favor
the wealthy clientele of the Olympic Games.
Since March, prefects have been asked by the government to create
"temporary regional reception centers" in order to "decongest the
accommodation centers" in Île-de-France. In short, keep the homeless
away from the capital. As if the number of emergency accommodations was
sufficient in the rest of France... How many people already spend their
day waiting on the 115 telephone line in the hope of finding a roof over
their heads for the night?
In Île-de-France, an average of 55,845 people are accommodated in hotels
via 115. And who live in constant fear of seeing their accommodation end
overnight. In France, 330,000 people will be homeless in 2023. An
increase of 130% since 2012 according to the Abbé Pierre foundation.

In anticipation of the influx of tourists from around the world for the
Olympic Games in the summer of 2024, the government is preparing to end
the partnerships of many hotels as emergency accommodation. Indeed,
agreements had been signed between hotel establishments and the State to
accommodate families sheltered by 115, during the Covid period.
Agreements which have also enabled many hoteliers to maintain their
activity thanks to financial aid from the State.
Now that tourism has resumed, emergency accommodation places are
disappearing in hotels. 5,000 rooms intended for emergency accommodation
have thus been lost, notes MP Maud Gatel. And in the absence of
sustainable and dignified reception structures, thousands of people find
themselves on the street every day.
Around 15 million tourists are expected for the 2024 Olympic Games, an
event which we already know is both a social and ecological aberration.
But further in its disregard for human rights, the government wants to
forcibly relocate 500 people per month in the region, by evacuating
camps, squats and social hotels. Thousands of people, already in a
situation of great precariousness and isolation, will thus be forced to
be displaced, without their consent. Major sporting events are always an
opportunity for governments to practice exclusion policies. extreme
violence. Paris 2024 will not be an exception!
Source: Counterattack

Police torturers on trial
For three days, from May 31 to June 2 at the Bobigny court, the six
police officers from the Territorial Contact Brigade (BTC) from the
Quatre-Chemins district of Pantin, tried for willful violence, forgery
of public documents and illegal search. Heavy? But not as much as it
could have been!
Many acts of serious violence are blamed on them. One, nicknamed "the
dictator", smashed the hand of a young person in custody at the Pantin
police station. Another is nicknamed "the electrician" for his taste for
electrocuting his victims with an electric pulse gun. Yet another,
nicknamed "the violent one", notably delivered "three punches to the
chest of a building guard who was taking down his trash cans".
The list is long: "Broken arms, beatings, possession of drugs and
weapons, rackets, insults, illegal searches...". The Bobigny prosecution
seized the IGPN on April 24, 2020, the ensuing investigation is
overwhelming. Practices of torture and humiliation ... Acts of barbarism
committed by criminals in uniform.
But only a third of the facts reported to the IGPN were prosecuted in
court. The prosecutor does not consider it necessary to pursue all the
alleged facts, claiming a lack of evidence... Total hypocrisy insofar as
no investigation has been opened to collect this long-awaited evidence!
"No wiretapping of police officers, no searches, no exploitation of the
geolocation of telephones was decided by the prosecution during the
investigation." And he is surprised not to have any evidence... The
public prosecutor has no difficulty in deploying means of surveillance
worthy of anti-terrorism against environmentalists, but when it comes to
protecting police torturers, indulgence is complicit.
As for the defense, it cried anti-cop conspiracy. A "plot fomented on
the one hand by young people from the cities who would like to traffic
quietly "and bring down the police at the same time" (...) And on the
other, by peacekeepers "jealous" of the figures arrests of this brigade".
The prosecution is asking for a 6-month sentence for "the violent one"
(18 months of which 12 are suspended and 5 years of professional ban), a
year's suspension for the "dictator", and 6 months' suspension for "the
electrician and the fourth policeman. The release was requested for the
last two police officers. So minimal penalties... Decision on September 14.
Source: Mediapart.fr

Investigation into French police training with the Cougar grenade launcher
A central weapon for maintaining law and order in France, the Cougar
grenade launcher is in theory designed to avoid injuries by impact. To
do this, you must respect a certain shooting angle, provided by its
manufacturer, the French company Alsetex.
Le Monde was able to consult internal documents from the national police
and the gendarmerie, analyzed the images of 331 shots made by police and
gendarmes and produced a 3D model of the behavior of a Cougar grenade
launcher. This work reveals that French police officers are trained to
fire shots that do not comply with the manufacturer's standards of use,
and thus regularly take the risk of injuring or even killing.
Source: Lemonde.fr/video

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