January report from French-Italian border

Reported by Kesha Niya Kitchen

In January (01.01.2020-31.01.2020) we know of 979 people pushed back by
the french Police Aux Frontieres to italy, 945 of these we met in
person. Fifteen of those were unaccompanied minors, further 6 minors
were traveling in company or with there family. As well we met 11 women
traveling alone, one of them pregnant.

In 6 cases people reportet *******police violence******* to us:
Five people claimed to be hit with the flat or closed hand by french
police officers,
One person said, he got kicked by a police officer while walking,
Some of these cases were whitnessed by other people in detention.
Many cases of verbal violence from the french police got reported to us,
such as insults and threats through the french police.

A total of seven people reported to us, the police had stolen their
documents, such as french asylum documents.
One person with a valid passport and permit of stay got pushed back as
well as a person with valid swedish documents, who was traveling in the
train without a passport but a valid ID-card, which got not accepted by
the french police.

We know of one case, in which the italian military returned a person to
the french police, because it was a not justified pushback; as to our
knowledge the person could legally stay in france after this.

As well there was a 40hours monitoring organized by Anafe, regarding the
police aux frontieres and the trainstation Menton Garavan, where are the
most frequent police controls. In this period there were as well lawyers
present.

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