“We addressed your predecessors, none of them reacted. Are you the one who will finally break the omerta and dare to face the realities of impunity for racist and police violence ”. According to our information, five families and collectives of victims of alleged police violence sent a letter to the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday 23 June.
They demand in particular the abolition of three immobilization techniques (ventral plating, folding, throttling key), the prohibition on the public highway of the LBD (thrower of defense bullets) and grenades qualified as "weapons of war" and finally the creation of an independent body for investigating complaints of violence committed by a person holding public authority.
The authors of this four-page letter that we were able to consult also ask the Head of State to "appoint during the next ministerial reshuffle planned after the municipal elections", a Keeper of the Seals whom he will instruct "as a priority to shed light on complaints of police violence resulting in death. "
The letter is part of a citizen mobilization campaign called "1 million votes against racist and police violence", which to date has gathered 16 petitions and 1,030,903 signatures on Change.org, a platform for online petitions. The title of the letter is unequivocal: “Mr. President, how far should we go? Today we are a million votes […] ”. And the signatories to write “Our George Floyd” (named after this American who died following his arrest by the police in May in Minneapolis), the names of the people they consider deceased at the hands of the police. under the mandate of President Emmanuel Macron.
"A phone call will not be enough"
The letter emphasizes that the Head of State regularly addresses the Nation during his televised speeches or takes "his phone to chat with victims of violence, or even more recently with actors and public figures".
"This million votes, which is the citizen expression of a desire for change, deserves just as much attention," note the authors of the letter, who warn the head of state: "A phone call does not will not be enough to silence this anger that you certainly hear expressed up to the gates of the Elysée Palace ”.
Among the authors of the letter is the family of Lamine Dieng, this young Franco-Senegalese 25 years old, died in 2007 after an arrest - a ventral veneer dixit, his relatives - in Paris. After 13 years of fighting, the Collective Lives Stolen and the Dieng family have just obtained an amicable agreement unveiled very recently by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The French state will pay 145,000 euros to his family to settle any prosecution in this case.
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"After the condemnations of France by the ECHR and the United Nations (UN), it is a new decision of international justice which affirms the right of the victims", notes the mail.
Alongside the Dieng family, we notably find Diana Bah, launcher of the Truth petition for our brother Ibrahima Bah, young man who died on October 6, 2019 on a motorcycle, during a police intervention in Villiers-le-Bel (Val- of Oise). The authors of the letter claim to have "a simple common objective": "To obtain a public trial on the conditions of the death of our loved ones and that the penal code be applied to those responsible."