Report attacks France's human rights record
· Overcrowded jails and police brutality exposed
· Immigrant quota system described as 'shocking'
Kim Willsher in Paris and Nick Watt in Brussels
Monday February 13, 2006
The Guardian
France's record on human rights has been condemned in a leaked report exposing police brutality, chronically overcrowded prisons and the jailing of children with adults. It also had harsh words for the country's immigration policy.
The 200 pages of damning criticism produced by the influential Council of Europe, due to be released on Wednesday, were leaked to Le Parisien at the weekend.
According to the leaked extracts, the report warns there is a "very large gulf" between what the law requires and common practice in France. The situation is so bad, it adds, that the country that prides itself on being the cradle of the droits de l'homme is increasingly finding itself hauled before the European Court of Human Rights.
The report, by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the council's human rights commissioner, is based on inspections of French prisons and police stations in September 2005. According to Le Parisien, Mr Gil-Robles said the difficulties in France were "persistent, even recurrent".
French media, which ran extracts, said the report reserved some of its strongest criticism for the police, who were apparently described by the Council of Europe as operating with a "sense of impunity".
Le Parisien said the report denounced a culture among officers that hindered investigations into cases of police brutality and violence. Highlighted abuses included claims that arrested suspects were not being automatically allowed legal representation during police interrogations and cited the numerous restrictions that made the lawyer's role "very limited".
"A democratic society has nothing to fear from the presence of responsible lawyers ... during [a suspect's] detention," read one extract from the report.
Mr Gil-Robles said he was "shocked by the lamentable state" of certain police cells where "detainees even sleep on the floor and are not given any mattress or bed linen". He said it was a "sad fact" that chronic overcrowding and a lack of money in French prisons "deprived a large number of detainees from exercising their basic rights" and made their incarceration a "double punishment".
A spokesman for Mr Gil-Robles said the French media reports were accurate: "This is an accurate copy based on our draft - though not final - report. It reflects the tenor of the report accurately."
The report is due to be presented on Wednesday to the committee of ministers.
Le Parisien said the council's report also criticised the fact that prisoners who misbehaved could be placed in punishment cells for up to 45 days.
The Council of Europe is a 46-member international body founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, France. It focuses on democracy, the rule of law, human rights, discrimination and other problems facing European society.
Mr Gil-Robles told France-Info radio: "For me the most important thing is that the prison route is not a route of vengeance but a route to obtain justice - to give criminals a punishment and afterwards allow them to be reintegrated into society ... In France that is not possible."
Mr Gil-Robles had harsh words for France's immigration policy and the announcement last year by the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, of a 50% rise in expulsions of illegal immigrants.
"The very fact of announcing quotas is a shocking practice," Mr Gil-Robles said.
Only last week French government ministers considered new proposals from Mr Sarkozy to establish immigration quotas based on a points system. According to Le Monde, the report denounced the "penalisation" of foreigners in France because of the "hardening of immigration policies" that could "lead to the stigmatisation of asylum seekers suspected of being economic migrants".
The report also criticised the fact that those demanding asylum had to fill in forms in French. Detention centres for foreigners awaiting expulsion were said to be of varying quality, but the one in the Palais de Justice in Paris was described as "catastrophic and shameful to France".
dailymail.co.uk
· Overcrowded jails and police brutality exposed
· Immigrant quota system described as 'shocking'
Kim Willsher in Paris and Nick Watt in Brussels
Monday February 13, 2006
The Guardian
France's record on human rights has been condemned in a leaked report exposing police brutality, chronically overcrowded prisons and the jailing of children with adults. It also had harsh words for the country's immigration policy.
The 200 pages of damning criticism produced by the influential Council of Europe, due to be released on Wednesday, were leaked to Le Parisien at the weekend.
According to the leaked extracts, the report warns there is a "very large gulf" between what the law requires and common practice in France. The situation is so bad, it adds, that the country that prides itself on being the cradle of the droits de l'homme is increasingly finding itself hauled before the European Court of Human Rights.
The report, by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the council's human rights commissioner, is based on inspections of French prisons and police stations in September 2005. According to Le Parisien, Mr Gil-Robles said the difficulties in France were "persistent, even recurrent".
French media, which ran extracts, said the report reserved some of its strongest criticism for the police, who were apparently described by the Council of Europe as operating with a "sense of impunity".
Le Parisien said the report denounced a culture among officers that hindered investigations into cases of police brutality and violence. Highlighted abuses included claims that arrested suspects were not being automatically allowed legal representation during police interrogations and cited the numerous restrictions that made the lawyer's role "very limited".
"A democratic society has nothing to fear from the presence of responsible lawyers ... during [a suspect's] detention," read one extract from the report.
Mr Gil-Robles said he was "shocked by the lamentable state" of certain police cells where "detainees even sleep on the floor and are not given any mattress or bed linen". He said it was a "sad fact" that chronic overcrowding and a lack of money in French prisons "deprived a large number of detainees from exercising their basic rights" and made their incarceration a "double punishment".
A spokesman for Mr Gil-Robles said the French media reports were accurate: "This is an accurate copy based on our draft - though not final - report. It reflects the tenor of the report accurately."
The report is due to be presented on Wednesday to the committee of ministers.
Le Parisien said the council's report also criticised the fact that prisoners who misbehaved could be placed in punishment cells for up to 45 days.
The Council of Europe is a 46-member international body founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, France. It focuses on democracy, the rule of law, human rights, discrimination and other problems facing European society.
Mr Gil-Robles told France-Info radio: "For me the most important thing is that the prison route is not a route of vengeance but a route to obtain justice - to give criminals a punishment and afterwards allow them to be reintegrated into society ... In France that is not possible."
Mr Gil-Robles had harsh words for France's immigration policy and the announcement last year by the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, of a 50% rise in expulsions of illegal immigrants.
"The very fact of announcing quotas is a shocking practice," Mr Gil-Robles said.
Only last week French government ministers considered new proposals from Mr Sarkozy to establish immigration quotas based on a points system. According to Le Monde, the report denounced the "penalisation" of foreigners in France because of the "hardening of immigration policies" that could "lead to the stigmatisation of asylum seekers suspected of being economic migrants".
The report also criticised the fact that those demanding asylum had to fill in forms in French. Detention centres for foreigners awaiting expulsion were said to be of varying quality, but the one in the Palais de Justice in Paris was described as "catastrophic and shameful to France".
dailymail.co.uk