The
French National Assembly is debating a new law drafted to address the issue of
violence during public demonstrations. It’s known as the “anti-casseurs law”. “Casseur”
is the name given to anyone who breaks or wrecks things. The new piece of legislation
aims at preventing the destruction of public and private property by hooligans
and other ruffians, people that take advantage of legitimate manifestations to create
hell.
In
France, a number of politicians and intellectuals see this new law as
restricting the freedom to demonstrate. But the fact of the matter is that
fringe groups are systematically taking advantage of genuine street protesters
to behave destructively. That cannot be accepted. Law and order in public
places must be kept. If not, we are creating the conditions for extreme-right
movements to ride on chaos and gain political space. The democratic values, in
France and elsewhere in our part of the world, require a firm hand when dealing
with violence and looting. Anarchy, if untamed, leads to dictatorship.
1 comment:
Yes, within police / criminological asessments the term "black bloc" also applies for this phenomenon. Originally the term seems to stem from demonstrators in Germany in the late 70ies. The element of surprise, people literally easily cloak or "blend into" greater civilian masses, making it harder for law enforcers to single them out, isolate, or arrest them as they often go with (darkened) masks, hoodies, sunglasses and often not shunning throwing objects, damaging property or lighting fires are common features.
I doubt that even advanced 'behaviorial' interpretation software hooked up to public CCTV surveillance will ever make the difference to 'tag' perpetrators (at any rate their covered faces curtail any mistake-free identification) while keeping track of them in the public sphere. Yet with the experiments that China is rolling out already with monitoring and evaluation person-specific behavior and speak (?) in public spaces, linking it up with social credits, who knows if the PSB 公安局 is already looking into technology-assisted techniques for early detection and mobile tracking of elements of black bloc 'disruptive' swarms whose skill to evade apprehension mirrors that of a highly mobile and urban guerrilla troupe.
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