From the Telegraph UK:
The European Council’s commissioner for human rights has described conditions in the prison in France’s most august court building as the worst he has seen.
Alvaro Gil-Robles said the cells in the historic Palais de Justice in Paris were squalid and inhumane.
Describing them as “dungeons”, he said: “It is incredible that people are imprisoned in such conditions, without ventilation and without natural light. I have never seen a worse prison.” Mr Gil-Robles, 60, an academic lawyer and Spain’s former national ombudsman, spent 16 days in France last month inspecting prisons, detention centres and mental hospitals.
[…]
The palais is situated on the beautiful L’île de la Cité, a few hundred yards from Notre Dame cathedral. But in its “dépôt”, human rights organisations have uncovered evidence of prisoners, mainly illegal immigrants, going without food, drink and lavatory paper as they huddle together for warmth. There have been numerous violent attacks and cases of detainees mutilating themselves and smearing their blood on the walls.
Well, sure. But Gil-Robles calls that ”squalid and inhumane”? Come now. Have him get back to me once the French begin taunting their prisoners with prayer mats and Korans—or worse, nearly all-day access to exercise yards.
Then we’ll talk oppression.
Quips Davids Medienkritik, “Compared to the Palais de Justice in Paris, Guantanamo looks like ClubMed. I guess the German media will be furious about this blatant French disregard of human rights, as they are in the case of Guantanamo… This will be a media firestorm!
“Or not.”
Not yet, no. But should the French ever force their prisoners to suffer undercover picnic tables and ping-pong tables, or a central soccer area and volleyball court—look out! Because the pit bulls of the European press will be on that like blood on a Rumsfeld.
(h/t Tom Pechinski; more from Ace)
You’re zionist brainwashing games of Connect Four is an outrage!
Sincerely,
ACLU
Oddly enough, Andrew Sullivan still hasn’t condemned this human rights outrage. Maybe he hasn’t heard about it yet.
And for that matter, has anyone seen Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch? I know they’ve got to be around here somewhere.
Isn’t this kind of a no-brainer though? I thought France was notorious for having some of the industrialized world’s worst prisons. Besides, when you take a bunch of cheese-eating, hairy, non-bathing folks and lock them in a cell for ten to twenty; you gotta expect the result is going to be pretty nasty anyways.
Surveiller et Punir
Mark Lawson, in a brief article on prisons here, cites the same example that popped into my head:
I was pretty shocked at that description myself, and still wonder from time to time if he was telling the unvarnished truth about it.
If so, holy crap! Say what you want about French soldiers, but whatever you do, don’t fuck with the French justice system!
P.S. Compared to Abagnale, Jean Valjean had it pretty easy, no?
As a response, I flushed a book by Jean-Paul Sartre down my shitter.
“We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people,” Gore said. “We would be a different country.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/12/politics/main938098.shtml
Meh. Get back to me when someone’s been wrapped in an Israeli flag.
I think I’ll reserve judgment until Senator Durbin releases a comment.
Don’t take this report too seriously. Some of the details cited are prisoner caused (smearing bodily fluids on walls) and the fact that this advocate would cite that as evidence of inhumane treatment makes me a little skepitcal of the other claims. I guess that’s beside the point of your post though which is the difference in the reception of this report from the reports of terrorists at G.
Somebody forgot to add this
This is rather older news. I recall it being briefly brought up in the news before 9/11. The news story was on the skyrocketing suicide rates in French prisons compared to every other industrial nation.
I guarantee if suicide rates at Abu Graib or Gitmo were anywhere close to those in French prisons Andrew would be blaming the President for that too.
Still, if I may add a moment of sobriety, let’s not forget the prison rape scandal in our own prisons still going on right now…
Really now, Jeff, your anti-French cultural chauvanism is really unafir here.
Seems to me the conditions of those prisons are a perfectly natural extension of France’s overall attention towards cleanliness and hygeine, which is to say, none.
And that’s their lifestyle choice, dammit. Stop suppressing their cultural self-expression!
Hey, it could be worse. At least they’re not playing Christina Aguilera and putting panties on the prisoner’s heads.
While this report is disturbing, let us not forget the conditions in our own country are far from perfect. For example, this morning I had to wait in line *five minutes* before I could order my With Whip Grande Caramel Mocha Frap, and after all that I had to walk around with an oversized Venti straw like a scarlet letter on my chest, because the fuckers ran out of the normal ones. FUCKERS.
Is this where they’ve put Jean-Bernard Merimee? Bet Turtle Bay is looking pretty good right now…
True, but that leads to the question of how quickly such messes are cleaned up. I imagine the same thing happens inside US prisons; I can’t imagine it’s something that will still be there the next week.
Yes, Master of None—although to claim that the cultural ills which promote and allow inmate prisoner violence exist there and not here is delusional to the point of being dangerous, we must also remember that the conditions are not in any way comparable.
Quite a while back, there was an Argentine newspaper publisher, Jacobo Timmerman, who was held for two years by the military junta during Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ of the seventies.
It’s title was “Prisioner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.”
He described how at night during torture sessions, ABBA would be played at deafening levels to try and drown out the screams.
Now THAT is inhumane!
What can we expect from a nation that won’t cut short its vacation to save its elderly from dying in a heat wave?
1. They are not going to treat their prisoners well.
2. We’d have to be fools to listen to criticism from them.
I’m reminded of Hugo’s description of 19th century French prisons. And I see that very little has changed.
i lost 30kilo in 3months in that fuckin’ perpignan.to all inmates stay hard!to all employes;die and go to hell!!!