 From the Dept. of Who Do They Think They're Kidding?, because the lady at the Dept. of Cry Me a River was on break.
BOBIGNY, France - "It wasn't me!" the 22-year-old insisted at his trial, three days after he was arrested during France's wave of rioting. The magistrate has heard the story countless times. The youths being rushed through the heavily guarded courtroom in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bobigny faced charges of vandalism or carrying explosive devices — usually homemade gasoline bombs. Almost all said they were guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
| "I was jus' standin' on the corner with my homies, lookin' for muslim chicks to harrass, and dese coppers start beatin' on us ..." |
Human rights groups fear fast-track trials like the ones held in Bobigny this week could fuel a sense of injustice among the defendants, most of them French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants who already feel shunned by a country that promised them "liberty, equality, fraternity."
| I think the French promised themselves 'liberty, equality, fraternity' during their revolution. Then they hacked each other up with gulliotines. I wouldn't go there if I were you ... |
Bands of teenage boys in sweat shirts, hoods pulled low over their eyes, shuffled through metal detectors to sit in on the hearings of friends or relatives arrested in the riots that have rocked the suburbs of Paris for nearly two weeks and have spread across France. Armed policemen in bulletproof jackets, tear gas and cuffs at the ready, warily patrolled the courtrooms and waiting hall of the fortress-like red-brick building where the unusual crowds have created an atmosphere of electric tension.
| Courts are supposed to be fortress-like. Conveys a certain set of expectations ... |
A police report read to the court said the 22-year-old 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 the suburb of Pantin. "I only came to Pantin to buy some cannabis," said the man, whose parents immigrated from the former Yugoslavia.
| "I dunno how the gasoline residue got on my hands, must be some powerful weed, dude." |
The man's lawyer insisted that his client only be identified by his first name, Alexandar. The magistrate was unimpressed. After examining the evidence for 15 minutes, she sentenced Alexandar to four months in prison "given the exceptional disturbances" and called the next case amid jeering and insults from the floor.
| If she were really unimpressed Alexander would have gotten a year, and the jeering section would have gotten four months each ... |
The court, which has called in three extra magistrates, is dealing with some 60 riot-related cases a day under France's fast-track procedure in sessions stretching late into the night. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told parliament that police have made 1,500 arrests since the riots began Oct. 27. The number of those sentenced is increasing by the day. The Justice Ministry said Tuesday that 52 adults and 23 minors have been sentenced to prison or detention centers.
Jean-Pierre Dubois, president of the League of Human Rights, expressed concern the government was much faster in dealing out sentences than it was in addressing the social problems at the root of the troubles. "I am afraid that public authorities are currently playing with fire," he said in a telephone interview. "It is a well known fact that prison is a place where you learn how to commit more serious crimes."
| The alternative is to ship the non-citizens back to their country of origin. A stretch in the slammer might start looking pretty good. |
Dominique Sopo, head of the anti-racism group SOS Racisme, claimed that to his knowledge, witness accounts suggested that at least three people who'd been sentenced to prison were in fact innocent. "In the heated atmosphere currently gripping France, the fast-track procedure leaves people totally at the mercy of the mood of the moment, and so there is no serenity possible," he said.
| The witnesses being totally reliable, of course ... |
Prosecutors denied they were making an example of rioters. "The sentences demanded match the crimes," said Veronique Jacob-Desjardin, a prosecutor at the Bobigny court. "It is necessary that people who appear before the court know that the punishment for this type of crime is extremely serious. They risk up to 10 years in prison," she said. The message did not impress the teenagers milling around the waiting hall of the court. They have little faith in the system, saying police routinely stop and search them because of their appearance and skin color. "The police are constantly provoking us," said 19-year-old Djamel Nawar from the suburb of Aubervilliers, who had come to support a friend. "The day the police treat us decently, things will improve."
| That's a two-way street, Djamel ... |
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