FRANCE: Police raids on peaceful yoga practitioners and abuses in police custody
A survey based on about 20 interviews
Version in French
Version in Romanian
By Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
THE EUROPEAN TIMES (19.08.2024) – On 28 November 2023, just after 6 a.m., a SWAT team of around 175 policemen wearing black masks, helmets, and bullet proof vests, simultaneously descended on eight separate houses and apartments in and around Paris but also in Nice, brandishing semi-automatic rifles.
These searched places which were located in various pleasant and attractive environments for vacation were used by practitioners of yoga connected with MISA yoga schools in Romania for informal spiritual and meditation retreats. They included IT experts, engineers, designers, artists, medical doctors, psychologists, teachers, university and high school students, and so on.
On that fateful morning, most of them were still in bed and were awakened by the crash of doors being violently broken down, very loud noises and shouting.
The first objective of the operation was to arrest, interrogate, detain and indict people supposed to be involved in “trafficking in human beings”, “forcible confinement”, money laundering and “abuse of vulnerability” in organized gang.
The second goal was to rescue “their victims” and to obtain their declarations as elements of evidence but no woman interrogated in the framework of the SWAT operation on 28 November 2023 has ever filed any complaint against anybody.
The report of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) that follows is based on testimonies of over 20 Romanian yoga practitioners who happened to travel on their own accord and by their own means to various places used for yoga and meditation retreats in France where they were suddenly targeted by simultaneous police raids. They were put in police custody (garde à vue) for hearings and interrogations and released after two days and two nights or more without further ado.
The search warrant at the origin of the abuse of the police
Such a nationwide operation was launched on the basis of a search warrant reporting extremely serious suspicions: human trafficking from Romania, kidnapping, sexual and financial exploitation of these victims, abuse of vulnerability and money laundering. All this in an organized gang.
This was the backdrop to this police operation experienced by dozens of Romanian nationals.
Most of them did not speak the language of the country but had chosen to combine the pleasant with the useful in France: to practice yoga and meditation in villas or apartments kindly and freely put at their disposal by their owners or tenants who were mainly yoga practitioners of Romanian origin and to enjoy picturesque natural or other environments.
The allegations of the search warrant were perceived by all the actors involved in its execution as an authentic criminal case founded on a preliminary investigation. In their eyes, all that remained to be done was to document and close this case, after gathering evidence to be discovered on site, while at this stage the file was still empty. This prejudice, well established in people’s minds, would bias all procedures at all levels and disregard the presumption of innocence.
Intrusion by police forces with break-in
The massive special police intervention forces expected to find criminals and victims, poor young Romanian women exploited as prostitutes and their so-called protectors.
It was in this state of mind that the heavily armed intervention brigades acted like lightning, by surprise and with destructive violence in the places to be searched as if they were to expect strong resistance, even armed, of gangsters. There was no resistance from the people staying there. The owners or co-owners or official tenants of the premises were not present at the time of the raid, except Sorin Turc, a violinist who played with the Monaco orchestra.
The police forces violently broke down the entrance doors and the various bedroom doors while the people present were proposing them to use their keys. They searched everything, made a mess everywhere, confiscated their personal computers, their cell phones and even their cash.
The Romanian yoga practitioners, mostly women, were wondering what was happening, who these aggressors were and what they wanted. The explanations from the police were very brief and were not necessarily understood.
One person had 1200 EUR confiscated. A couple driving from Romania were left without cash after police took all of their holiday money – EUR 4,500. No receipts were given to the dispossessed people that HRWF interviewed.
A Romanian woman who knew some French testified to HRWF that she had heard agents say after taking around EUR 10,000 in cash from several people that they had “enough”. A connection may perhaps be made with statements made in the press by some investigating authorities saying they “discovered” large sums of cash in several homes that were searched. No doubt it was then to give the impression that the accusation of money laundering was credible in this affair of national proportions.
During the searches in the targeted villas and apartments, the guests had to remain in night clothes or were often not given the privacy required to change. Others were gathered outside in the cold morning wearing only scanty clothing.
In face of the disorder and the damage caused by the search and the psychological violence of the police, the reaction of the retreating residents was stupor, psychological shock, fear and even terror, lasting and indelible trauma for some.
The first task of the police force was to identify and “release victims”. Their second task was to collect their testimonies in order to arrest their exploiters.
Amazement of the law enforcement: the sites targeted by the raids were not clandestine and financially exploited places of prostitution. No one among the yoga practitioners, neither woman nor man, declared themselves to be victims of anything or by anyone. However, it mattered little to the police at this stage of the operation. The next phase would take place in the police stations after handcuffing the people to be transferred by bus.
The fabrication of victims against their will at all costs
Indeed, a controversial theory in human trafficking cases is that such “victims” refuse to be considered as such because of their psychological vulnerability and their habituation to their state of subjection. Some even talk about brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome. Hence this need to “convince” them, including through psychological pressure, that they were victims even if they do not always realize it. This psychological-judicial drift which leads to the fabrication of false victims is spreading more and more in democratic states of Europe and America.
In Argentina, a very similar case, even in its details, to that in France ultimately resulted in the innocence of a yoga group, its octogenarian founder and its leaders. They had been accused, arrested and imprisoned for months for alleged human trafficking, abuse of weakness, sexual exploitation and money laundering.
The manufacturing of victims against their will which was inspired by a certain controversial branch of feminism, the abolitionists, was at the origin of that drift. These activists who campaign for a total ban on the commodification of sexual services consider that all prostitutes are de facto victims, even if they are free-lance and declare it is their choice. In Argentina, lawyers, psychologists and magistrates have begun to successfully fight against this very worrying phenomenon of victim fabrication which is spreading in other contexts than prostitution.
Biased interrogations in police stations in inhumane detention conditions
Considering that the allegations mentioned in the search warrant would lead to a trial, the presumption of innocence was never present in the minds of the police officers in the police stations Their only goal was to extract incriminating testimonies concerning other people. To this end, they did not hesitate to take advantage of the situation of distress and vulnerability of the alleged victims from whom they wanted to extract incriminating declarations against other people and they threatened them to extend their police custody beyond the legal 48 hours, which actually happened in several cases.
The interviewees clearly told HRWF that they were put under pressure to say things that were not true so that their statements could match the contents of the warrant and make it possible to prosecute other people.
Furthermore, their conditions of detention were truly inhumane and humiliating. They practically had to beg the officers to be able to go to the toilet, even in urgent cases, and it was at their discretion. They also had to beg for a small glass of water and only got some food on the second day of their detention. Not enough mattresses and blankets in collective cells. Lack of hygiene. No heating in November. This was the treatment reserved for people transferred with handcuffs to police stations although there was no allegation of illegal activities against them and they only had to testify.
Failing assistance from lawyers and interpreters
In many cases, the Romanian yoga practitioners were unable to count on the assistance of a lawyer during their interrogation. The reason given was that there had been too many arrests and not enough lawyers available. When they received the requested legal assistance, they wrongly believed, due to not having been correctly informed, that it was to defend them but in fact their mission was only to monitor the legality of their interrogation. Often, they had the clear impression that their counsels were more on the side of the police when they told them they were involved in a very serious criminal case, that their recourse to the right to silence would be interpreted negatively and could lead to prolonged custody or more.
The issue concerning the interpreters constitutes another weak point of the procedure. Many interviewees highlighted their incompetence and inability in accurately translating their responses to questions. The interpreters were also perceived as believing they were dealing with victims or criminals and as aligning themselves with the attitude of the police.
In addition, a number of yoga practitioners were not asked to check and sign the minutes of their interrogation; others were required to sign them although they were not translated to them or were just roughly and poorly translated verbally in Romanian. None of HRWF’s interviewees received a copy of the document.
However, this phase of the procedure is of crucial importance If the minutes and their translation contain errors that cannot be rectified, this can have dramatic implications in trials and lead to serious injustices.
In some cases, a few people with sufficient knowledge of the French language have had biased reports corrected but what about all the others?
Upon their release from police custody, the interrogated persons were thrown onto the street, often in the evening, without telephone and without money even though they naively expected an apology…
Conclusions
In short, this is the situation experienced by dozens of ordinary Romanian nationals who were neither actors nor victims of human trafficking or kidnapping, who had not been involved in money laundering or criminal organization.
On the other hand, they were the real “collateral” victims of excessive and disproportionate police action organized by the French judicial authorities. They had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
These Romanian victims remain traumatized by this experience and prefer to delete it from their memory. HRWF thanks those who despite everything had the courage to bring up these painful memories for the purposes of its investigation.
Back home, these people who were arrested in France and summoned in handcuffs to be questioned in police stations were no longer contacted by the French authorities. They believe that French justice will never spontaneously return the money and equipment that was stolen from them. They should be entitled to file a complaint as victims of French justice in order to recover their property but they prefer to forget this traumatic experience and turn the page.
This HRWF investigation highlights serious procedural flaws, illegal fabrication of victims for the purposes of prosecuting others, biased interrogation methods, inhumane treatment and serious dysfunctions of the judiciary and police in France in the context of police custody of citizens from other EU member states and beyond.
