WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #346 - Politics, Repression: "December 8" trial, all terrorists? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last October, the trial of the "defendants of December 8" was held on
the charge of terrorist criminal association. This is the first
terrorism trial targeting the left since 2012. The gaps in the case
resulted in convictions based more on the ideas of the defendants than
on their actions, raising the question: any radical criticism of the
state and are the police terrorists in the eyes of judges? ---- At dawn
on December 8, 2020, the DGSI and the RAID arrested nine people in
Rennes, Toulouse, Vitry-sur-Seine and Cubjac. At the time, those who
will end up being designated as those accused of December 8 do not
understand what is happening to them, awakened in the middle of the
night by the anti-terrorist police who break down their doors and point
them at them with guns. assault. At the end of police custody, seven
people were indicted for "criminal conspiracy with a view to committing
terrorist acts". Five of them are placed in pre-trial detention under
the status of particularly detainees (DPS), in particularly difficult
conditions.

In February 2022, Florian D., called Libre Flot, began a hunger strike.
He is then the last defendant still in pre-trial detention, held in
solitary confinement for more than a year. After 37 days of strike, the
investigating judge finally accepted his request for release under
judicial supervision for medical reasons, his state of health becoming
critical[1]. At the same time, the State was condemned in July 2023 for
the strip searches systematically suffered during his detention by
Camille, the only woman accused in the case[2]. From the instruction,
the message is clear: the notion of presumption of innocence does not
apply to ordinary detainees, and even more so to those who have been
labeled terrorists.

After three years of proceedings, their trial opened on October 3 and
lasted four weeks. From the first day the president of the court sets
the tone, saying she is ready to "police the audience", warning that she
will not hesitate to exclude people from the public where many
supporters are present. The hearings will often be marked by laughter at
the absurdities of the case, as when a document presented as a map of
the Champs Elysées on July 14 turns out to be in fact a meme, or when
sounds within an audio recording presented as automatic rifle shots
actually turn out to be the impacts of a spoon on a bowl[3].

Police construction
As the trial progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that the case
was constructed to fit a narrative pre-established by the DGSI. This
presents Libre Flot as a "leader" who sought to form a group around him
with a view to committing attacks. The main element he is accused of: a
stay in Rojava in 2018 during which he fought Daesh alongside the YPG.
Investigators see this as a sign of radicalization.

The prosecution will rely mainly on the seizure of a few hunting
weapons, some undeclared, and especially on a stay in the Dordogne in
the middle of the first health confinement during which some of the
accused took part in played airsoft games and made homemade explosives.
The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat) sees this as
para-military training. For the defense, it is simply a group of friends
coping with boredom during confinement. The few documents available
point in this direction, showing a friendly and alcoholic atmosphere. In
the following seven months of police surveillance there will be no
further occurrence of the incriminated activities.

Above all, if the documents are rare, it is by the will of the DGSI and
thanks to the support of the court. Of the more than 11,000 recorded
audio sequences, only 86 are transcribed and included in the file. Video
images from a camera installed by intelligence during the stay disappear
from the file, due to an "unintentional error by an operator" according
to the DGSI. Everything suggests a selection of incriminating elements,
when they are not directly fabricated, such as certain recordings whose
listening in court will reveal content very different from their
transcriptions. Faced with all the questions raised by the
investigation, the defense wanted to call as witnesses two DGSI agents
who had developed it. They both refused to appear, with the support of
the president of the court who could have forced them to do so but
refused to do so.

A large part of the interrogations will ultimately revolve around the
political opinions of the accused. We question the reading of Kropotkin
and Blanqui. The accused are questioned about their tattoos or their
diet. We use each element of surveillance, relating to sentences said in
anger, or drunk in the middle of the night, as incriminating elements.
The use of tools like Signal or Tor is also singled out, with the simple
act of protecting one's private life becoming a reason for terrorist
suspicion[4].

Closed prison for suspicion of intent
After a month of waiting, the decision was delivered on December 22. All
the accused were found guilty and sentenced to sentences ranging from 5
to 2 years in prison and to registration with FIJAIT (see box) for six
of them.

In the brief reasoning given at the hearing, the president declared that
if there was no "proof of a successful project", she considered that the
accused had "the intention". Here we arrive at the culmination of the
police fantasy of anticipatory justice: we no longer condemn acts, we no
longer condemn planned acts, no, we no longer hesitate to sentence
people to prison on the only basis for the hypothesis of an intention.
In other words, we have the possibility of condemning any person judged
to be a little too close to a revolutionary ideology, especially if they
criticize the State and the police.

Six of the accused have announced that they will appeal. Faced with a
legal battle that promises to be long, it will be important to continue
to support them in the face of the violence of anti-terrorist justice to
prevent their conviction from being just one more step in the escalation
of the criminalization of revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anarchist and
internationalist political opinions and commitments.

N. Bartosek

To support the accused:

support812.blackblogs.org
supportauxinculpeesdu8decembre.noblogs.org
solidaritytodecember8.wordpress.com (international support)

Several support committees were created to communicate about the case
and financially support the accused.
The FIJAIT, registered hess
The file of perpetrators of terrorist offenses (FIJAIT) is part of the
arsenal of security measures introduced by the "intelligence law" of
2015, adopted by the Valls government in the context of the attacks of
the same year.

In addition to registering convicted persons, FIJAIT also imposes legal
obligations, under penalty of a sanction of up to 2 years in prison and
a fine of 30,000 euros: obligation to report every 3 months to the
police station to justify home, mandatory declaration of any change of
address and any travel abroad at least 15 days before departure. These
obligations are imposed for 10 years, a period suspended during a
possible prison sentence: the period only begins to run upon release
from incarceration.

Initially presented as a tool to combat Islamist terrorism, carrying the
racist implication that it would only concern the Muslim minority, the
application of FIJAIT was obviously quickly broadened. The "separatism
law" of 2021 will extend its application to convictions for provocation
of acts of terrorism and their apology. Of the seven charged on December
8, six were ordered to register with FIJAIT, despite a "lack of plan"
recognized by the court.

To validate

[1]"After 37 days of hunger strike, activist detained in solitary
confinement Libre Flot was released", April 7, 2022, on Basta.media.

[2]"State condemned for illegal strip searches during pre-trial
detention for "ultra-left terrorism"", July 11, 2023, on Streetpress.com.

[3]"Trial of the "ultraleft": "We were idiots who had fun making big
firecrackers"", October 12, 2023, on Mediapart.fr.

[4]""December 8" case: the right to encryption and privacy on trial",
October 2, 2023, on Laquadrature.net.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Repression-Proces-du-8-decembre-toutes-et-tous-terroristes
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