Europe 1 with AFP 15:25 pm, April 04, 2023
This Tuesday, Amar Taoualit, journalist reporter of images, announced that he had filed a complaint with the IGPN for "violence in meeting" in Paris of which he accuses police officers of the Brav-M during a demonstration against the pension reform on March 16. Since the beginning of the mobilization, 36 judicial investigations have been opened by the IGPN.A journalist reporter of images, Amar Taoualit, announced that he had filed a complaint Tuesday with the IGPN, the "police police", for "violence in meeting" in Paris of which he accuses police officers of the Brav-M during a demonstration on March 16. "Why did I get gassed? I wanted to know. It's important for the journalist's profession," said Amar Taoualit, 24, who said he was suffering violence for the "first time" in four years on the ground.
"Go home!"
On the images of the journalist shot on the evening of March 16 Place Vendôme in Paris, during a demonstration against the pension reform, demonstrators are surrounded by helmeted police officers of the Brav-M, this Parisian motorcycle unit criticized. While Amar Taoualit is filming the demonstrators, a police officer tells him to "get out". "Go home!", "Break yourself from there!", "Let us work!", then order several policemen. The journalist was then sprayed, at least once, with tear gas, then pushed back abruptly by the police, before falling to the ground. He regularly protests, stating his profession, showing his press card and saying he is doing his job.
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"By attacking journalists, Brav-M wants to ignore its own abuses. This is an extremely serious attack on press freedom" which imposes "immediate sanctions", Pierre Brunisso, the journalist's lawyer with Arié Alimi, told AFP. Broadcasting the images on Thursday, the media Loopsider - for which Amar Taoualit works regularly - denounced "a deliberate attack on press freedom" and asked Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin "to remind the police of their obligation to respect the rights of journalists and protect them".
"36 judicial investigations" opened by the IGPN
The minister announced that "36 judicial investigations" had been opened by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) and 2 by its equivalent for the gendarmerie (IGGN) since the beginning of the mobilization against the pension reform. Several journalists denounced police violence. The National Policing Plan (SNMO) adopted in December 2021 provides in particular that "journalists may, unlike other persons present, move freely within the security measures put in place" and "continue to carry out their mission during the dispersal of a gathering".