For several years, the Free Party movement has been subjected to
repeated police repression. This escalation, the latest step of which is
a bill aimed at criminalizing these free parties. Submitted on March
18th to the National Assembly, a new, profoundly repressive bill, Bill
1133, sponsored by the members of the Renaissance, Horizon, and Les
Républicains parties, targets free parties. It aims to criminalize all
rave parties under the guise of fallacious arguments unsupported by any
studies or investigations. It cites money laundering, drug use, sexist
and sexual violence, and chemical subjugation.
While for decades, ravers have been self-organizing to bring risk
prevention, community health, and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention
to parties, this bill seeks, among other things, to criminalize these
harm reduction initiatives, contrary to what a consistent public health
and anti-GBV policy should entail.
For the first time, a bill proposes even harsher penalties for party
organizers: prison sentences and fines of up to €5,000, as well as the
systematic confiscation of equipment, and the criminalization of
transporting sound equipment. Simply participating in these parties
would be punishable by a €1,500 fine.
The bill accuses free parties of being the cause of "countless rapes,
injuries, and deaths." She forgets that, in truth, it's repression that
kills and maims. We recall the death of Steve Maia Caniço in Nantes in
2019, drowned in the Loire following the crackdown on a rave on the
evening of the Fête de la Musique. In June 2021, the militarized
repression of a free party resulted in several serious injuries,
including a young man whose hand was amputated after a grenade was thrown.
Techno music, however, is a genre that, through its freedom and its
queer and African-American origins, encourages cohesion and gatherings
between communities. The commitment of artists has never ceased,
including in the 1980s when many DJs died of HIV. From its beginnings,
the free party movement had an anarchist component in the implementation
of temporary autonomy zones, so dear to Hakim Bey. And this is what
bothers the authorities today: people coming together to share a party
outside of commercial channels, outside of private clubs for whom techno
music is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
To counter the repression, demonstrations were organized across France
on April 12. They led to the creation of an anti-repression coordination
effort that brought together numerous collectives and sound systems at
the national level. Except in one city, Strasbourg, where the
prefecture, not daring to ban the demonstration, simply issued a decree
prohibiting "devices playing music" and their movement on the day of the
demonstration. This measure did not prevent the rally from taking place,
but without sound systems, in order to protect the entire procession
from repression.
DJ Puppy Meinhof (UCL Alsace)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Repression-du-mouvement-Free-party-Rien-n-arretera-un-peuple-qui-danse
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
repeated police repression. This escalation, the latest step of which is
a bill aimed at criminalizing these free parties. Submitted on March
18th to the National Assembly, a new, profoundly repressive bill, Bill
1133, sponsored by the members of the Renaissance, Horizon, and Les
Républicains parties, targets free parties. It aims to criminalize all
rave parties under the guise of fallacious arguments unsupported by any
studies or investigations. It cites money laundering, drug use, sexist
and sexual violence, and chemical subjugation.
While for decades, ravers have been self-organizing to bring risk
prevention, community health, and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention
to parties, this bill seeks, among other things, to criminalize these
harm reduction initiatives, contrary to what a consistent public health
and anti-GBV policy should entail.
For the first time, a bill proposes even harsher penalties for party
organizers: prison sentences and fines of up to €5,000, as well as the
systematic confiscation of equipment, and the criminalization of
transporting sound equipment. Simply participating in these parties
would be punishable by a €1,500 fine.
The bill accuses free parties of being the cause of "countless rapes,
injuries, and deaths." She forgets that, in truth, it's repression that
kills and maims. We recall the death of Steve Maia Caniço in Nantes in
2019, drowned in the Loire following the crackdown on a rave on the
evening of the Fête de la Musique. In June 2021, the militarized
repression of a free party resulted in several serious injuries,
including a young man whose hand was amputated after a grenade was thrown.
Techno music, however, is a genre that, through its freedom and its
queer and African-American origins, encourages cohesion and gatherings
between communities. The commitment of artists has never ceased,
including in the 1980s when many DJs died of HIV. From its beginnings,
the free party movement had an anarchist component in the implementation
of temporary autonomy zones, so dear to Hakim Bey. And this is what
bothers the authorities today: people coming together to share a party
outside of commercial channels, outside of private clubs for whom techno
music is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
To counter the repression, demonstrations were organized across France
on April 12. They led to the creation of an anti-repression coordination
effort that brought together numerous collectives and sound systems at
the national level. Except in one city, Strasbourg, where the
prefecture, not daring to ban the demonstration, simply issued a decree
prohibiting "devices playing music" and their movement on the day of the
demonstration. This measure did not prevent the rally from taking place,
but without sound systems, in order to protect the entire procession
from repression.
DJ Puppy Meinhof (UCL Alsace)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Repression-du-mouvement-Free-party-Rien-n-arretera-un-peuple-qui-danse
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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