French police disciplined over abuse at migrant center: Media

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - French police officers found guilty of abuse at an immigration detention center were disciplined for using pornographic sounds to disturb foreign migrants, an investigation by digital news platform Mediapart revealed.

A female police officer was found responsible for broadcasting obscene sounds through loudspeakers at the center in Nice, southeastern France during Muslim prayer times, at meals, and even during visiting hours.

She has been transferred following an internal investigation by the National Police Directorate. Three other officers who witnessed the abuse and did not report it to higher authorities were also subjected to administrative sanctions.

The departmental directorate of the border police issued a warning to Centre de Retention Administrative (CRA) teams for acting in a degrading manner with detainees. The directorate told Mediapart that the senior authority was “firm in sanctioning this dysfunction.”

The disciplinary actions were based on a complaint filed on Jan. 5 by 15 migrants with Muslim backgrounds with the Nice prosecutor.

- Abuse as provocation

The complaint said while awaiting deportation at the center in Nice, detainees heard loud pornographic sounds at the hour of prayers and that the police treated them like animals.

The incidents occurred several times on two separate days and the sound was traced by the detainees to the police station on the first floor of the building, said the complaint. When confronted, the officers laughed at the detainees, it added.

The migrants, who were deported to their native countries, told Mediapart about the abuse and accused the officers of provoking Muslim detainees and disrespecting them because of their religion.

Lawyer Aziza Dridi, who represented four of the detainees, took action with details of the accusations to the center’s commanding officer.

She appealed to management to open an internal investigation using video surveillance to verify the facts.

At the end of the investigation, management decided "to sanction the other police officers who did not report" the incidents to the command, the center told Mediapart, claiming the officers’ actions are not liable to prosecution.

The Nice center had previously been accused of using extreme torture against a detainee in December 2020 who was forced to undergo an emergency removal of his testicles following police violence.