Rights groups have accused France of carrying out targeted arrests of foreign migrants to fill chartered deportation flights to China and Romania, in possible breach of European rights law.
Police squads have deployed across the Paris subway system in recent months, systematically checking the identity of foreign-looking individuals, as part of a government drive to step up expulsions of illegal migrants.
In one incident witnessed by reporters on Sept. 2, officers singled out all Asian passengers, searching those unable to produce ID papers and bundling them off to a police van where a Chinese interpreter was at the ready.
Why target Asians?
"Because we already had enough blacks," one officer replied.
Six days later, the first chartered deportation flight between France and China was set to leave Paris.
It was finally postponed after China asked for more time to draw up the necessary paperwork.
"They need to fill the planes to make them financially viable, so they don't look at each foreigner's case in detail," charged Jean-Pierre Alaux, a research director at the Gisti immigrant information and support group.
The European Convention on Human Rights bans the "collective expulsion of aliens" -- meaning any measure constraining foreigners, as a group, to leave a country, unless each individual case has been thoroughly examined.
Belgium was convicted of breaching the convention in 2002, over the rounding-up and expulsion of a group of 74 Roma gypsies from Slovakia.
According to Cimade, the only immigrant support group with access to French immigrant detention centers, "several massive and systematic arrests of Chinese were carried out in Paris earlier this month, to fill the centers."
"There are regular targeted arrests: the authorities announce in advance there will be charters, the government flights are booked, then they detain people of the nationality in question," said Annette Huraux, a legal adviser at Cimade.
Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights is examining a case brought in protest at the expulsion of five Afghan nationals on a charter flight on Dec. 20, according to Alaux.
"At the Gare de l'Est [in Paris], police, accompanied by a Dari translator, were arresting only those of Afghan appearance -- the blacks were amazed not to have their papers checked," he said.
Since May, 480 Romanians have been deported from France aboard eight charter flights, according to interior ministry figures.
The rights group La Voix des Roms said that there has been "a growing number of round-ups targeting Roms, in blatant disregard of the European Convention of Human Rights."
The Paris police department and the French interior ministry both refused to comment last week on the allegations regarding grouped deportations.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- a frontrunner for next year's presidential elections -- has championed a tough line toward the country's estimated 200,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants.
The government has vowed to step up the pace of deportations, and has scrapped the automatic right to residency papers for migrants who have been in the country for 10 years.
The rhythm of expulsions has been steadily rising, from 15,000 in 2004 to 20,000 last year, and Sarkozy has set a national target of 25,000 for this year.
The authorities are, however, examining roughly 30,000 residency applications from illegal immigrant families with school-age children, in the wake of a major grassroots campaign to block their deportation.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also