Ahmed trail update
30.Nov.99 - During the international No Border Camp that took place from July 18 to 28 2002 in Strasbourg, dozens of people were arrested. Charges are presed against seven people, six of whom will have charges between february 22 and 28 2003.
Ahmed has already been condemned, falsely, to 8 months in prison with parole after 3 months. Since his arrival at the Elsau jail, and for 38 days afterward, he was held in solitary confinement. For almost a month and a half, he was denied all visitation rights. He can now see his family, but not his girlfriend.
His appeal was held on October 8 in the appeals court in Colmar. Despite the inconsistencies of the accusation and the supporting testimonies, his sentence was confirmed, making it impossible for him to contest the false verdict of guilt. Ahmed wlil be relesed from prison Tuesday morning, October 15. Despite the fact that his sentence was converted to time served (with his time in pretrial preventative detention included) Ahmed has paid heavily for the State's repressive policy.
The example of Strasbourg clearly shos the State's will to control. Besides Ahmed and the six other defendants from the camp, 20 other people have charges pending. Seventeen of them occupied an office of the Ministry of Justice in Strasbourg to demand that Ahmed be released from solitary confinement and have access to visits: three people present outside the occupied building were also arrested.
This is only one example of the State's policy of repression, to beat down social movements through force or through violence: other examples include the Peasants' Union, Yves Payrat, Alain Hebert in Cherbourg, Batasuna, Paolo Persechitti, the arrestees at the concert in Saint-Etienne, and many more.
Repression allows those who hold economic and political power to preserve their own self-interest and maintain a system of dominanance and submission.
Besides activists, young people, immigrants, and people stigmatized by the label of "popular classes, dangerous classes" are attacked daily by this repression. To do this, the State uses repressive laws (such as the Computer Security Laws, the Daily Security Laws, and the Sarkozy project) and its "guard dogs": the police, the national guard, the Anti-Criminal Brigade, and the Republic Security Company (CRS - riot police).
We demand:
that all charges against the activists be dropped,
that the Anti-Criminal Brigade be dissolved,
that all racist security laws and the racist practice of "double penalty"
(incarceration followed by deportation) be abolished.
We will not be terrorized.
Committee to Support Ahmed