An individual has been prosecuted by the uspected to be responsible for the publication of an article on IAATA.info, a collaborative and antiauthoritarian website in Toulouse. Informing people about police repression is a right and a necessity : that is why you find here a solidarity statement that denounces the criminalization and intimidation of the freeindependant media.
On Thursday March 7th, the corporate media [1] announced that an individual from Toulouse was prosecuted by the State for a “public provocation to commit a crime or a felony”. S/he is believed to be(alleged to be ?) an “admin” of IAATA.info, an antiauthoritarian website based in Toulouse.
This lawsuit could be linked to the publication of a report about a demonstration held on February 21st 2015 in Toulouse. This protest was organized a year after the demonstration in Nantes against Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, where three people lost an eye due to rubber bullets. The slogan of the demo was “against police violence and in solidarity with ZAD”. This article provides few tips to resist to police crowd control tactics that led to Rémi Fraisse’s death on October 26th, 2014 as well as in the mutilation of many people induring demonstrations and within the suburbsworking-class area.
Let’s keep in mind that in the city of Toulouse about 60 people were prosecuted after the protest held in November following Rémi’s death. 4 of them are still in jail. Let’s also remember that police kills about ten people each year [2]. Recently, Amadou Koumé in Paris, Abdelhak Gorafia in Roissy, Pierre Cayet in Saint-Denis, Abdoulaye Camara in Le Havre, Morad in Marseille, Houcine Bouras in Colmar, Bilal Nzohabonayo in Tours, Rémi Fraisse on the ZAD Sivens, Timothy Lake in Toulouse… all died at the hands of police ; and these numbers don’t take into account the numerous injuries and mutilations caused by police weapons.
Independant media, activist groups and victims’ support groups and families regularly share tips on how to protect oneself during demonstrations, using internet, flyers and posters, or handbooks for self defense against law and justice. Many of these groups have also published advices to secure internet and phone communications.
Police kill and mutilate still with impunity, that whithout being judged. That’s why self-organised media practices need to spread out more and more. We can’t stand being prosecuted and jailed for ’public provocation to commit a crime or a felony’, when calling for resistance against police violence.
Social movements and struggling people have always built their own media in order to spread alternative news, coordinate struggles, and to let different voices than the mainstream media be heard. IAATA.info is an example amongst others.
IAATA is a website on which anyone can contribute anonymously and represents the collective voice of a city. The police is trying to designate one single individual and hold him/her accountable for everything. They seek to isolate him/her by turning his/her prosecution into an individual case. There is no individual editorial responsibility since this site – as others – operates on a collective, participatory, non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian basis.
At a time when the state is passing new anti-terrorist laws as well as a mass surveillance act ; at a time when freedom of expression seems to be in the hands of only a few ; when justice focuses once again on the Tarnac’s case 9 ; at a time when the courts are prosecuting the Jura Libertaire, there’s only one clear position.
These security laws should concern us all ! Let’s show them our determination. We are all concerned by the security laws ! We will continue to support and spread information related to self-defense against the police and justice ! We will continue to support projects of independent and anti-authoritarian media against State repression !
An injury to one is an injury to all ! Solidarity with independant media and all victims of repression !
