This journalist, who works for the Loopsider site, was gassed at point-blank range by BRAV-M police officers.
An image reporter, Amar Taoualit, announced that he had filed a complaint on Tuesday, April 4, with the IGPN, the “police of the police”, for “violence in meetings” in Paris of which he accuses police officers from the Brav- M at a demonstration on March 16. “Why did I get gassed? I wanted to know. It’s important for the job of journalist”explained to AFP Amar Taoualit, 24, who claims to have suffered violence for the “first time” in four years in the field.
New piece to add to the Brav-M file. This time, against the freedom to inform, with the aggression of our journalist @TaoualitAmardeliberately sprayed with tear gas on March 16.
Here are his pictures: pic.twitter.com/PiueA1cViK—Loopsider (@Loopsidernews) March 30, 2023
In the images shot on the evening of March 16 at Place Vendôme in Paris, during a demonstration against the pension reform, demonstrators are surrounded by helmeted police officers from the Brav-M, this decried Parisian motorcycle unit. While Amar Taoualit is filming the demonstrators, a policeman tells him to “clear”. “Go home! Get out of here!”, “Let us work!”, then order him several policemen. The journalist was then sprayed, at least once, with tear gas, then suddenly pushed back by the police, before falling to the ground. He regularly protests, indicating his profession, showing his press card and saying he is doing his job.
“A deliberate attack on the freedom of the press”
“By attacking journalists, the Brav-M wants to silence its own abuses. This is an extremely serious attack on the freedom of the press” which imposes “immediate penalties”Pierre Brunisso, lawyer for the journalist with Arié Alimi, told AFP.
By broadcasting the images on Thursday, the Loopsider media – for which Amar Taoualit works regularly – denounced “a deliberate attack on the freedom of the press” and asked Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin “to remind the police of their obligation to respect the rights of journalists and to protect them”. The National Law Enforcement Plan (SNMO) adopted in December 2021 provides in particular that “Journalists can, unlike other people present, circulate freely within the security arrangements put in place” And “continue to exercise their mission during the dispersal of a crowd”.