Stop Police Brutality in France - Government to create an Independent Police Complaints Commission

Allegations of police brutality in France, including cases of unlawful killing, are rarely properly investigated and those responsible are seldom brought to justice, according the 46-page report called "Public Outrage: police officers above the law in France", report from Amnesty International released in March 2009.

The report lists numerous cases of alleged police brutality, including beatings, racial abuse and excessive force, mainly directed towards ethnic minorities and foreign nationals living in France.

The report concluded that procedures for investigating allegations against the police still fail to meet the standards required by international law.

Amnesty called on the French to create an independent police complaints commission to handle such investigations.

A high number of complaints against law enforcement officials are closed by the prosecutor without reaching trial, according to the rights group.

"The discrepancy between the number of complaints made and the number of disciplinary sanctions imposed raises questions about the thoroughness and impartiality of the investigations," it said.

The latest French police brutality is shown in the attached video shot on July 21st 2010 by an observer from association Droit au Logement (Right to Housing) and then put online by French news site Mediaparts.

The footage shows women of African descent, some of them carrying children on their backs, trying to hold on to each other as police drag them from camps they had set up in La Courneuve, one of the roughest neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Paris. The women, some of whom are illegal residents of France, had set up tents near a soon-to-be-destroyed building from which they had been evicted.

The persecution and discrimination faced by the women and children in this video cannot be ignored as understandable by any means whatsoever, whether they are immigrants or not.

Bola Abimbola and Victor Adefila