After the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, the French government declared a state of emergency, which has now lasted three months and violated the rights of hundreds, according to a new report from Amnesty International.
After thousands of house searches, nighttime raids, travel bans, and curfews, hundreds report being traumatized and stigmatized, according to the report which is titled “Upturned Lives: The Disproportionate Impact of France’s State of Emergency.”
According to Amnesty International:
Amnesty began documenting the impact of the three-month state of emergency shortly after it was announced. Many of those interviewed said that they received almost no information showing how they were supposedly implicated in any security threats. Intelligence files presented in court have contained little information to substantiate claims that individuals represent a threat to public order, yet many have struggled to challenge the restrictions imposed on them.
Almost all of the 60 people Amnesty interviewed said they had been left with stress and anxiety as a result of police actions. They said that harsh measures were applied with little or no explanation and sometimes excessive force was used. One woman told Amnesty that armed police burst into her house at dawn while she was looking after her three-year-old child. Some of those targeted have lost their jobs.
… On 4 December, police searched the house of Issa and his wife Samira in south-eastern France. The police justified the raid on the basis that Issa was allegedly a “radical Islamist” – a claim that Issa says left him ‘flummoxed’. Although the police never pursued any criminal investigation against the couple, they copied all data on Issa’s computer, imposed a nightly curfew on him, required him to report three times a day to a police station and banned him from leaving the town he lives in. He had to turn down a job as a delivery man as a result and has spent most of his savings on legal fees.
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