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The is a translation with some modifications of a text by Cerveaux Non Disponibles.
The ban on broadcasting police actions centralizes all fears, but legalizing drones and surveillance technology is just as damaging to freedoms and democracy.
It is a subject that is little discussed and yet concerns us all. The text provides in these gaps to legalize facial recognition in the public space and the real-time exploitation of information about people. The video stream would be processed live by the police command, as mentioned in Article 22. The text does not mention the term “facial recognition”, but it should be noted that all amendments aimed at clarifying the practice were rejected. An example is amendment n°CL340 which explicitly provided for the prohibition of facial recognition. Rejected! The spirit of this law is to put the entire public space (especially cities) under permanent control. Without blind spots, with all the technology of algorithms and their freedom killing uses in data collection on a daily basis.
The State has lost the battle on police violence since the yellow vests, especially through the profusion of images made available to all on social networks, which have become a true self-media for any individual or collective that finally finds a voice.
The purpose of this law, which provides for 1 year of imprisonment and a 45,000€ fine for broadcasting that “undermines the police” is to limit freedom of expression in order to regain control of a republican narrative that has been completely eroded. In order to regain a hegemonic discourse, the hundreds of arbitrary acts of violence, daily racism, almost permanent impunity, as well as the dirty work that the police carry out on behalf of the State have become realities that must be hidden at all costs.
@TaoualitAmar Twitter photograph Hannah Nelson, arrested by police on 17th nov
Today, the forces of law and order already regularly intimidate professional journalists or simple witnesses who film. The police are already exercising a judgmental practice in the field through the physical and psychological violence they exercise. Imagine their zeal if this law were to be passed… If the National Assembly gave even more power to those who already abuse it with impunity…
Without an image, how many crimes and violence would have been hushed up or would not even have reached the gates of a court? Judges themselves say it: images are useful and without them, the police version always wins.
Let’s remember the importance that images have had for several cases:
This law also poses a major technical problem. Implicitly, it would sign the end of live videos showing police officers. If in their great leniency of falsely naïve playmobils the LREM (Macron’s party) deputies have suggested blurring the faces of police officers, let us recall that it is currently impossible to blur faces in real time. And that, in general, blurring a face on video is a complicated technique that is not within everyone’s reach and that would in fact restrict many images. If, however, this abject law were to be respected…
Last but not least, it should be noted that the police are not worried by the diffusion of their faces, which they have already been in the habit of masking for a long time (as well as not wearing their numbers), and although we have seen barbaric acts committed by them, this has not been the subject of popular reprisals to date. The argument of police protection is not based on anything and is mainly a bluster that makes the oppressors look like the oppressed.
Other aspects of the law should be addressed, such as the extension of the carrying of weapons in public places, even when not in use, or the increased role of private companies in policing.
The journalist Nnoman (his video) is being beaten by police.
What is striking in this text, which was passed on November 17 in the National Assembly, 2 years to the day after the yellow vests began, is its martial aspect. Do we realize that in the same law there is a state response to social protest and one against terrorism? This law intends to globally manage these problems in the same way. The repressive outcome of the November 17 demonstration is particularly strong, especially for the press.
The terrible image of a system that only responds with violence and intimidation… including on totally harmless demonstrators.
But the thousands of people present around the National Assembly could feel the anger rising and that no water cannon will be able to extinguish.
“The last warning for journalists: leave the premises with your press card or you will be arrested.” Quietly, the police muzzle the press covering a press freedom rally… All this knowing that they are being filmed. The law has not even passed and France is already in a totalitarian country. And it’s hard to see how the trend could be reversed. Neither petitions, nor demonstrations, nor the UN will be able to stop the fascinating drift.
At least 7 journalists have been arrested, threatened and/or beaten. Journalists who were covering a rally for freedom of the press and demonstration. It is extremely serious what this government allows itself! In particular, photographer Hannah Nelson was arrested last night and spent the night in police custody.
A political commentary.
2020 has hit us hard. At the beginning of the year the world was not in order, but hardly anybody expected a worldwide pandemic and in the consequence an economic-political crisis. There can be no “back to normality”. How could there be? Fast-moving capitalism is constantly reinventing itself, even or especially during the pandemic. At a very high price: the profound splits at the national and global level have come to an extreme. Where before there was a gap, now there seems to be an unbridgeable hole.
These phenomena become particularly clear in two examples, which are briefly summarized below. On September 9, the overcrowded camp for refugees in Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos was set on fire. For years, the refugees on the small island lived crowded together in the smallest of spaces under the most humiliating conditions. Again and again they succeeded in attracting attention and sympathy in the EU and in appealing to the remains of bourgeois morality, but the EU did not allow real humanism to prevail. What is this sick world in which people are driven to set fire to their own camp to draw attention to their fate? Barely 3 weeks later, on September 26, Amy Coney Barrett is nominated for the Supreme Cort in the White House. She is a legal hardliner against Obama’s health program and an anti-abortion campaigner. While crowds are banned all around the White House in Washington because of the pandemic, Trump and his allies celebrated a humid and cheerful Corona party in the White House. There were hugs, handshakes and nobody really wore masks here, which is why a large part of his administration including the president himself was infected with the corona virus.
While some partied in spite of pandemic circumstances and now enjoy the best medical care, thousands are stuck on the Greek islands and the mainland, cut off from medical care. Liberals and leftists around the world have understood that this has nothing to do with fairness. In Germany, thousands took to the streets in many cities and demanded the immediate evacuation of people and the welcoming of refugees into the communities. With #WirHabenPlatz (#WeHaveSpace), #LeaveNoOneBehind and #Seebrücke, an anti-racist movement has established itself in Germany and internationally over the past months and years. Well-connected at the local level, this movement has always ensured at the right time that the EU’s cruelties at its external borders are not forgotten, and has created structures that are organized in a non-parliamentary and grassroots democratic way and thus are able to catch up with large parts of the liberal political camps.
“The moral compass is off.” (Some German on some TV Show)
Practical action was then taken: Horst Seehofer, German Home Secretary, himself a Corona crisis manager and recently a sudden critic of racism, demanded the admission of a few hundred particularly vulnerable people and was able to present himself as a humanitarian on a European scale. While in 2018 the #Seebrücke had used his “anchor centers” (camps in which refugees would be held in isolation while their case was evaluated) as an opportunity to rebel against the federal government’s asylum policy, two years later he can stage himself as a liberal and humanist. The Corona Party in the White House can not only be described in terms of moral errors either: The President of the United States, who since the outbreak of the pandemic has had the death of thousands of Americans on his conscience because his policy denied them access to medical care and recommended the loyal state inmates to drink aquarium cleaners against the treacherous virus, manages to inspire compassion and to receive global wishes for recovery. That instead people wish him a severe course and a painful death is understandable, but the wrong answer. It’s the other way round: Neither Trump nor Seehofer will put an end to the dying of the nationally excluded and pauperized class. Rather, their openly fascist or supposedly philanthropic policies are an expression of growing nationalisms. As sovereigns of their nations, both defend the national borders and need the national identity on the inside to keep them separate from the outside.
All a question of morality?
These times are terrible. The fear of an infection with the deadly virus is growing, while questions of health care, freedom of movement and migration continue to intensify. What is hidden behind the morally loaded memes, talk shows and net politics are the questions that really matter: What can a society look like in which national borders do not decide on life and death and the socio-economic status of everyone decides on their health care? The prosperity of the global North cannot be redistributed so easily and different neo-fascist governments have unfortunately been able to establish themselves in recent years and enjoy great support from their loyalties. The moral compass of any society depends on the conditions under which it exists. If the Left wants more than share pics and 280 (Twitter-)signs to articulate anger, we must be the motor that changes the conditions for morality. For this, we need to determine at what time and in which fields the living conditions of the next years will be decided under the consequences of the Corona crisis. Or, to try it with Brecht: Food is the first thing, morals follow on.
By Jonas Wagner and Mia Wyborg
The authors are based in Germany and active in social struggles and the antifascist NIKA campaign. The campaign was founded in Germany in 2016 to fight the European right-wing movement in an organized way.
Our friends from Kolektiv 115 in Prague just launched their mutual help campaign for tenants threatened by the crisis with this great video:
Rouška domov nazachrání: Solidární kampaň
ROUŠKA DOMOV NEZACHRÁNÍ: SOLIDÁRNÍ KAMPAŇ[English version below] Kvůli krizi přišlo mnoho lidí o práci a nejsou teď schopni platit za bydlení. Vláda sice předložila návrh zákona, který má nájemníky ochránit, ten je ale děravý jak řešeto – mnohé nájemníky neochrání a uvrhne je do dluhové pasti. Zákon jen umožní o několik měsíců odložit splacení nájmů. Ti, kdo toho v nadcházejících měsících využijí, budou muset na podzim místo jednoho nájmu zaplatit každý měsíc dva. Absurdní, že jo? Zákon navíc neochrání ty, kdo mají smlouvu na dobu určitou a ta jim skončí. Pokud nemůžete platit za bydlení, tak se vás majitel muže klidně zbavit zákon nezákon.Nemůžeme připustit vlnu výpovědí a vystěhování na ulici! Je třeba umožnit dočasné neplacení nájemného všem, kdo na to z důvodu aktuální krize nemají nebo nebudou mít! Pronajímatele, které by ztráta ohrozila, ať podpoří stát.Tam, kde nepomůže stát, musí si lidé pomoct navzájem. Proto jsme se rozhodli spustit solidární kampaň "Rouška domov nezachrání". Pokud jste se kvůli pandemii ocitl/a v těžké situaci, v níž vám hrozí, že přijdete o bydlení, a úřady vám nejsou schopny pomoct (a nebo víte o někom takovém ve svém okolí), zavolejte nebo nám napište: Telefon: +420 773 159 397 Mail: bydleni@k115.orgNaší zbraní je solidarita!#COVID19 #VícNežRoušky★★★[English version]FACE MASKS WON'T PROTECT YOUR HOUSING: SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGNMany people have lost their job because of the crisis and cannot pay for their housing. The government has presented a law which is supposed to protect tenants, but it has many shortcomings: many people won't be protected and risk falling into debts. The law would only allow to postpone rent payments, but those who will use that possibility in the next months will have to play twice as much in rent during the autumn. Absurd, isn't it? Moreover, the law doesn't protect people whose rent contract ends. If they can't pay for housing, the owner can easily get rid of them despite that law. We can't accept a new wave of evictions! It's necessary to allow a temporary halt to rent payments for all those suffering from the present crisis. And let the state support owners whose subsistence depends on rent payments. When the state doesn't help, people have to step up and help each other. That's why we're launching a solidarity campaign called 'Face masks won't protect your housing'. If you're in a tough spot because of the pandemic and you risk losing your housing, with the authorities unable to help you, or if you know about such people around you, let us know! Phone: +420 773 159 397 Email: bydleni@k115.org Solidarity is our weapon! #COVID19
Gepostet von Kolektiv 115 am Dienstag, 21. April 2020
Many people have lost their job because of the crisis and cannot pay for their housing. The government has presented a law which is supposed to protect tenants, but it has many shortcomings: many people won’t be protected and risk falling into debts. The law would only allow to postpone rent payments, but those who will use that possibility in the next months will have to play twice as much in rent during the autumn. Absurd, isn’t it? Moreover, the law doesn’t protect people whose rent contract ends. If they can’t pay for housing, the owner can easily get rid of them despite that law.
We can’t accept a new wave of evictions! It’s necessary to allow a temporary halt to rent payments for all those suffering from the present crisis. And let the state support owners whose subsistence depends on rent payments.
When the state doesn’t help, people have to step up and help each other. That’s why we’re launching a solidarity campaign called ‘Face masks won’t protect your housing’. If you’re in a tough spot because of the pandemic and you risk losing your housing, with the authorities unable to help you, or if you know about such people around you, let us know!
Phone: +420 773 159 397
Email: bydleni@k115.org
Solidarity is our weapon!
One Radical Planet