At the Vincennes administrative detention centre, the police kill, the police murder

At the Vincennes administrative detention centre, the police kill, the police murder

27 May 2023 Off By passamontagna

Source: Abaslescra.noblogs

On Friday 26 May, a detainee at the Vincennes administrative detention centre (CRA) was found dead in the early hours of the morning by his cellmate. He had been beaten up by the cops the day before and the day before.

“He had been ill for a week, asking to go to hospital. The infirmary refused and just told him to take some doliprane. It’s like that here. You never get proper care. To see a doctor, you have to shout and go on hunger strike”, explains one detainee.

“The cops beat him up and beat him up. They put him in solitary confinement and now you know how things are. There are no cameras and the cops hit you and hit you…” he continued.

The cops then took him back to his room on Thursday. “In the evening, he was having trouble breathing. He told me he was going to die. He was having trouble eating because they broke his teeth. I went to the infirmary on his behalf, but they wouldn’t come and see him. I’d known him for a month and we got on well”, says another detainee at theCRA (detention centre).

The firemen, whose access to the centre is regularly prevented by the cops, were unable to reanimate him. The cops took his belongings and his phone and started saying that he had died of an overdose. “They’re going to do everything they can to make it look like they didn’t do it. But we know what happened”, explains another detainee. In what is one of the largest detention centres in mainland France, the impunity of the police officers is such that they have continued to provoke the detainees. This morning, we were crying and the police were laughing”.

As for Assfam (Association service social familial migrants), the association paid by the State to provide a semblance of access to the law and to justify its practice of confinement, it initially hid the death from us, as usual “not being aware of anything”. It’s the same story with the CRA infirmary, which we regularly have to deal with when it comes to refusing access to care and medical violence.

News of the death spread quickly throughout the detention centre. After those in building 1, the detainees in buildings 2A and 2B immediately went on hunger strike. In the late afternoon, clashes broke out between the detainees in 2B and the police. Several people were injured by the police, four were taken to solitary confinement and two decided to mutilate themselves.

An initial support rally was held late on Friday. Around 70 people shouted against the CRAs, the PAF (border police) and the police officers, marching along the buildings to give strength to those locked up. There was also shouting on the other side of the walls and barbed wire.

Then, during the night, tags such as “Vengeance for M, killed by the cops in the Vincennes detention centre”, “CRA Assassin”, “Vincennes – Plaisir, CRA on fire, police in the middle” sprang up on the walls around the Plaisir detention centre.

This is not the first death in a detention centre, and there will be others for as long as there are detention centres.

Every day, detainees in detention centres suffer the violence of confinement and the stress of probable deportation. Every day they suffer racism and psychological, physical and sexual violence at the hands of the cops. Every day they are ill-treated by the medical team.

Let’s burn down the immigration detention centres, the borders and the PAF with them.

Meet at 3.30pm on Sunday 28 May in front of the JOINVILLE-LE-PONT RER station to support the revolt.

PUBLIC MEETING of the Assembly against the Île-de-France immigration detention centres, Wednesday 31 May at 7pm, Place de la Réunion, Paris.