French courts are fast-tracking trials for scores of youths arrested in the wave of rioting, and human rights campaigners fear jail sentences will only fuel the sense of injustice roiling the mostly immigrant communities.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told parliament that police have made 1,500 arrests since the riots began on Oct. 27.
The Justice Ministry said on Tuesday that 106 adults and 33 minors have been sentenced to prison or detention centers.
Human rights groups are warning the quick trials could intensify the anger and feelings of neglect in communities hit by the unrest.
One heavily guarded courtroom in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bobigny alone is handling about 60 riot-related cases a day and has called in three extra magistrates to deal with the overflow. The hearings continue late into the night.
Youngsters rushed through the courtroom -- most of them French-born children of Arab and African immigrants -- faced charges of vandalism or carrying homemade gasoline bombs.
Almost all said they were guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"It wasn't me!" a 22-year-old insisted at his trial, just three days after his arrest.
A police report read to the court said the young man reeked of gasoline and had traces of fuel on his hands when police caught him running from a fire. He insisted that two other people set the blaze in trash cans in a towerblock in the nearby suburb of Pantin.
"I only came to Pantin to buy some cannabis," said the man, whose parents immigrated from the former Yugoslavia.
The magistrate was not impressed. After examining the evidence for 15 minutes, she sentenced him to four months in prison "given the exceptional disturbances" and called the next case.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS