Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Paris police accused of beating Black music producer to remain in custody
Paris' top prosecutor has kept in custody police officers accused of beating Black music producer Michel
Zecler. Protests over his arrest and a draft ban on filming law enforcers have resulted in 81 arrests.
Three police officers remained in custody Sunday on orders of Paris' top prosecutor Remy Heitz over last weekend's arrest of Black music producer Michel Zecler, who was shown being beaten for several minutes in videoed footage.
France's interior ministry, meanwhile, said protests across France on Saturday over alleged police brutality and a draft security law had resulted in 81 arrests in what protest organizers said was a turnout of as many as 500,000 nationwide.
Protests had included Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon and Rennes, with 76 officers reported injured, including 23 in Paris.
Custody to avoid putting pressure on witnesses
Heitz told a press briefing on Sunday that authorities wanted the three officers in custody to "avoid the perpetrators communicating or [putting] pressure on witnesses."
The officers face charges of intentional violence, racial abuse and posting a false police statement.
A fourth officer, who arrived later at Zecler's studio and threw a tear gas grenade, will not be held in custody, but will still be charged with intentional violence.
A lawyer for the three detained officers, Laurent-Franck Lienard, challenged their continued detention, telling French news channel BFM the trio believed the force used was unavoidable.
The lawyer's remarks contradicted comments made by Heitz, who said that the officers admitted to using excessive force during the arrest.
"As they were being interrogated several times, they changed their version and finally admitted that they used disproportionally much force to arrest the music producer," DW correspondent Lisa Louis said, citing remarks made by prosecutors.
Photojournalist, trapped
hurt,
Among those hurt during
Saturday's protests was awardwinning Syrian photojournalist Ameer al-Halbi. The bandaged journalist on Sunday accused police of trapping him and at least four other photographers for two hours, wedged between squads and demonstrators despite al-Halbi's head wounds.
"Images of Syria surged back into my head … I was aged 15 when I found myself blocked in a demonstration in Aleppo, wounded by two bullets in my hand," al-Halbi told news agency AFP, adding that he and his colleagues were "clearly recognizable" as members of the press.
An internal administrative inquiry had been opened into how al-Halbi had been hurt, a police source told AFP.
Reporters Without Borders' secretary general, Christophe Deloire, tweeted that al-Halbi had been wounded by "a police baton" at the Place de la Bastille.
The recent protests in France focus on a bill — passed by the National Assembly but awaiting Senate approval — that would criminalize the publication of
images of on-duty officers with intent to harm their "physical or psychological integrity."
Commentators say images of Zecler's beating — first published by the Loopsider news site on Thursday — might never have gone public if the contentious Article 24 of the bill became law.
On Friday, President Emmanuel Macron said images of Zecler being beaten "shame us" and asked France's government to devise anti-discrimination proposals.
This also followed police forcibly evacuating a Paris migrant camp on Monday.
ipj/rs (AFP, Reuters, dpa)