[update] Anarchists in France arrested
nn - 25.11.2008 20:37
Nine friends in France have been arrested and accused of terrorism,
although no proof has been brought against them. please sign the petition.
Far left: petition initiated by the Factory by the publisher Eric Hazan.
( http://www.lafabrique.fr).
To sign it: to return name and quality to the following address: lafabric (A) lafabrique.fr
PETITION
A recent operation
A recent operation, largely mediatized, made it possible to stop and accuse nine people, by implementing the antiterrorist legislation. This operation already changed nature: once established the inconsistency of the charge of sabotage of the overhead lines, the business took a clearly political turn. For the public prosecutor, “the goal of their company is well to reach the institutions of the State, and to manage by violence - I say well by violence and not by the dispute which is allowed - to disturb the political order, economic and social”.
The target of this operation is much broader than the group of the accused people, against whom there does not exist any material proof, nor even nothing precis which can be to them reproached. The inculpation for “criminal conspiracy for a terrorist enterprise” is more than vague: what is this with the Juste who an association, and how should be heard it “for” if not like a criminalisation of the intention? As for the qualifier of terrorist, the definition in force is so broad that it can apply to practically anything - and that to have such or such text, to go to such or such demonstration is enough to fall under the blow to this legislation from exception.
The accused people were not randomly selected, but because they carry out a political existence. They and they took part in demonstrations - lately, that of Vichy, where took place the honourable not very European top on immigration. They reflect, they read books, they live together in a remote village. One spoke about clandestinity: they opened a grocer, everyone knows them in the area, where an support group organized itself as of their arrest. What they sought, it is neither anonymity, nor the refuge, but well the opposite: another relation that, anonymous, of the metropolis. Finally, the absence of proof itself becomes a proof: the refusal of the accused to denounce the ones the others during the police custody is presented like a new index of their terrorist bottom.
Actually, for us all this business is a test. Up to which point we will accept that the antiterrorism makes it possible any time to accuse no matter whom? Where is the limit of freedom of expression? Are the laws of exception adopted under pretext of terrorism and safety they compatible long-term with the democracy? Do we Somme ready to see the police force and justice to negotiate the turn towards a new order? The answer to these questions, it is with us to give it, and initially by asking for the stop of the continuations and the immediate liberation of those and those which were accused for the example.
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Another text by Agamben"
France: "Terrorism or Tragicomedy?" by Agamben FREE
THE TARNAC FIVE! "
TERRORISM OR TRAGICOMEDY?
On the morning of November 11, 150 police officers, most of which
belonged to the anti-terrorist brigades, surrounded a village of 350
inhabitants on the Millevaches plateau, before raiding a farm in order
to arrest nine young people (who ran the local grocery store and tried
to revive the cultural life of the village). Four days later, these
nine people were sent before an anti-terrorist judge and "accused of
criminal conspiracy with terrorist intentions." The newspapers
reported that the Ministry of the Interior and the Secretary of State
"had congratulated local and state police for their diligence."
Everything is in order, or so it would appear. But let's try to
examine the facts a little more closely and grasp the reasons and the
results of this "diligence."
First the reasons: the young people under investigation "were tracked
by the police because they belonged to the ultra-left and the anarcho
autonomous milieu." As the entourage of the Ministry of the Interior
specifies, "their discourse is very radical and they have links with
foreign groups." But there is more: certain of the suspects
"participate regularly in political demonstrations," and, for example,
"in protests against the Fichier Edvige (Exploitation Documentaire et
Valorisation de l'Information Générale) and against the
intensification of laws restricting immigration." So political
activism (this is the only possible meaning of linguistic
monstrosities such as "anarcho autonomous milieu") or the active
exercise of political freedoms, and employing a radical discourse are
therefore sufficient reasons to call in the anti-terrorist division of
the police (SDAT) and the central intelligence office of the Interior
(DCRI). But anyone possessing a minimum of political consc
ience could not help sharing the concerns of these young people when
faced with the degradations of democracy entailed by the Fichier
Edvige, biometrical technologies and the hardening of immigration
laws.
As for the results, one might expect that investigators found weapons,
explosives and Molotov cocktails on the farm in Millevaches. Far from
it. SDAT officers discovered "documents containing detailed
information on railway transportation, including exact arrival and
departure times of trains." In plain French: an SNCF train schedule.
But they also confiscated "climbing gear." In simple French: a ladder,
such as one might find in any country house.
Now let's turn our attention to the suspects and, above all, to the
presumed head of this terrorist gang, "a 33 year old leader from a
well-off Parisian background, living off an allowance from his
parents." This is Julien Coupat, a young philosopher who (with some
friends) formerly published Tiqqun, a journal whose political analyses
– while no doubt debatable – count among the most intelligent of our
time. I knew Julien Coupat during that period and, from an
intellectual point of view, I continue to hold him in high esteem.
Let's move on and examine the only concrete fact in this whole story.
The suspects' activities are supposedly connected with criminal acts
against the SNCF that on November 8 caused delays of certain TGV
trains on the Paris-Lille line. The devices in question, if we are to
believe the declarations of the police and the SNCF agents themselves,
can in no way cause harm to people: they can, in the worst case,
hinder communications between trains causing delays. In Italy, trains
are often late, but so far no one has dreamed of accusing the national
railway of terrorism. It's a case of minor offences, even if we don't
condone them. On November 13, a police report prudently affirmed that
there are perhaps "perpetrators among those in custody, but it is not
possible to attribute a criminal act to any one of them."
The only possible conclusion to this shadowy affair is that those
engaged in activism against the (in any case debatable) way social and
economic problems are managed today are considered ipso facto as
potential terrorists, when not even one act can justify this
accusation. We must have the courage to say with clarity that today,
numerous European countries (in particular France and Italy), have
introduced laws and police measures that we would previously have
judged barbaric and anti-democratic, and that these are no less
extreme than those put into effect in Italy under fascism. One such
measure authorizes the detention for ninety-six hours of a group of
young – perhaps careless – people, to whom "it is not possible to
attribute a criminal act." Another, equally serious, is the adoption
of laws that criminalize association, the formulations of which are
left intentionally vague and that allow the classification of
political acts as having terrorist "intentions" or "inclinat
ions," acts that until now were never in themselves considered terrorist.
— Giorgio Agamben
Libération, November 19, 2008
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http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0101267186-terrorisme-ou-tragi-comedie
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