Xiah-ception - Hey There.

He's more myself than I am ,whatever our souls are made up of , his and mine are the same

-Wuthering heights, Emily bronte

Jeanette Winterson, All I Know About Gertrude Stein

POLICE BRUTALITY IN FRANCE

Video translation: My name is Aïssa Maïga. I am proud to be here, standing alongside Assa [Traoré] and all the families who have suffered police brutality in France. I am here in remembrance of all the people, too many of them to list, who endured this violence and paid the price of it with their lives.

I am a actress and a director. The fight we are leading in French cinema, television and theater is the same fight. It’s a fight for fair, positive and decent representation of French people of African descent, of Asian descent and of Arab descent.

We will not leave this alone. We will not leave French cinema alone. We will not leave the French justice system alone. We will not leave France alone. Not as long as there is injustice and not as long as our brothers, our sisters, our children risk dying at the hands of a police force that is supposed to protect them.

02/06/20 - 20,000 protesters gathered in Paris to demand justice for Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in police custody in 2016 after being pinned face down on the floor by the weight of three cops. The demonstration went ahead despite the chief of police waiving their right to march a few hours before the agreed upon start time. Protesters were later gassed and violently dispersed by the police.

The spotlight is on the US right now and obviously it’s vital for us to show our support, but it’s equally important to engage in the work that needs to be done at home. There is plenty.

Last night’s protest comes on the heels of mounting and widespread police brutality being used in repressing demonstrations against pension reform earlier this year, as well as heightened and disproportionate policing in black and brown neighbourhoods during the Covid-19 lockdown (link contains footage of violence).

The French Ombudsman has published several reports pointing to systematic racially discriminatory practices in the French police as well as its disproportionate use of force. He has also called for a ban on the use of rubber bullets and GLI-F4 grenades. France is the only country in the EU to allow for the use of these grenades and they are directly responsible for multiple people being permanently maimed in recent protests.

An internal affairs investigation was launched in January after a black officer reported his colleagues for insulting him in a whatsapp group, which later turned out to be full of cops bandying around racial, homophobic and antisemitic slurs, hate speech and conspiracy theories. I have listened to excerpts and cannot overstate how violent and disgusting the language and the content were.

In response to French cops regularly smashing phones being used to record them, Amal Bentounsi launched the Urgence Violences Policières app, which allows for footage of police misconduct to be directly uploaded to the cloud and sent to a collective monitoring police brutality in France. Now a draft bill is being put to Parliament aiming to limit our right to document police misconduct. People could face a €15,000 fine and 6 months in prison for sharing any footage of a police officer during the performance of their duties.

Last week, Camelia Jordana, a French singer, said on television that she, like thousands of French citizens, was afraid of a police force that routinely killed people because of the colour of their skin. Our Minister for Home Affairs immediately slammed her on twitter, calling her statement shameful and defamatory and then went on to say that he would “not let the Republic’s honour be sullied”.

All of this to say that our government is complicit, and our government as well as the media establishment and French police unions are finding it very easy to point fingers across the Atlantic while denying that the same violence is being perpetrated here.

If you’re French please sign the petition against the draft bill on police footage, sign the petition to legally ban unsafe forms of restraint used by the police, educate yourself further (x, x, x, x), contact your representatives, download the UVP app, and join the protests if you are able. Black lives matter the world over and now is the moment to push for change that’s been a long time coming.

Video courtesy of Taha Bouhafs on twitter

Let’s give credit where credit is due: Women’s March organizers Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour 

🔪❤️🔨

news.yahoo.com

Agent Orange trial opens as woman seeks 'historic' ruling as first Vietnamese civilian victim

Fourteen multinationals went on trial on Monday accused of causing grievous harm to a French-Vietnamese woman by selling Agent Orange to the

"A recognition of Vietnamese civilian victims would constitute a legal precedent", international law specialist Valerie Cabanes told AFP. NGOs also hope it will bolster a drive to pressure states to recognise “ecocide” as a crime. Almost 20 per cent of Vietnam’s forests were affected by the chemical.

The case centres on 78-year old Tran To Nga who worked as a journalist and activist in Vietnam in her 20s.

She filed the lawsuit in 2014 against 14 firms that made or sold Agent Orange, including Monsanto, now owned by German giant Bayer, and Dow Chemical.

Speaking before the trial, Ms Nga said: ”I’m not fighting for myself, but for my children and the millions of victims.”

Today she suffers from typical Agent Orange effects, including type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy. She said she also contracted tuberculosis twice, developed a cancer and one of her daughters died of a malformation of the heart.

“I was the first generation to bear the scars, my daughters were also victims and now my granddaughters have diseases. In my family alone, three generations have already suffered,” she said beforehand.

“I’m almost 80. I’m the only person who can do this. If I disappear, then everything disappears with me. What I truly want is for millions of victims to take hope after this trial.”

lee soo hyuk, kim rok soo, choi jung soo. The old team.

My sunshine boy, Haibara Yu.

serotonin is stored in the drawing ur favs lookin cute in streetwear