By Layli Foroudi and Juliette Jabkhiro
PARIS (Reuters) – When French police first informed the Chechen refugee that he was prohibited from leaving the northeastern city of Strasbourg and had to communicate with them daily, he did not think it was worth challenging the order.
France was in the middle of a massive security operation for the Summer Olympics, he explained, and he did not believe authorities would listen to someone identified as a potential threat because of their interactions with people identified as “pro-jihadists.”
But when the Interior Ministry extended the order in late August to help protect a famous Christmas market that was the target of a deadly attack in 2018, the refugee, known to his friends as Khaled, appealed to the city’s administrative court.
A panel of judges concluded the measures were “disproportionate,” saying in an Oct. 3 decision seen by Reuters that he has no criminal record and was not under investigation for any crime.
Although they maintained the ban on attending the Strasbourg Christmas market, they lifted the rest of the measures. But the ruling came too late for the 20-year-old to enroll at a university where he was due to begin a cybersecurity course in September, according to evidence presented by his lawyer.
“I lost my place. This year has been a waste,” Khaled told Reuters, speaking on condition of being identified by his nickname because he fears his academic and professional aspirations would be derailed if it became known that he was being monitored by police. . .
Friday’s deadly car crash at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has sparked new scrutiny in several European countries over safety measures for seasonal markets, which attract large crowds.
But the French Interior Ministry’s broad use of powers introduced under a 2017 anti-terrorism law to strictly limit the movements of people considered a serious security threat was already drawing criticism from some lawyers and human rights activists before the stroke.
According to a parliamentary report published on December 11, at least 547 such orders were issued against people participating in the Paris Olympics, although some, like Khaled, had never faced criminal charges.
Now, some lawyers and activists fear that the broader use of these orders, known as the “individual measure of administrative control and surveillance” or by the French acronym MICAS, could become the norm for other major public events.
The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, and the local authority of the Lower Rhine region, which includes Strasbourg, did not answer questions about people attacked because of the Christmas market.
Reuters has identified at least 12 cases, based on court documents, interviews with lawyers and one of the people involved. At least 10 had no terrorism-related convictions, although one person had previously been banned from the market. Reuters could not immediately determine those details for the other two.
In the first five years after the anti-terrorism law came into force on November 1, 2017, the number of MICAS orders issued for any reason in the Lower Rhine did not exceed seven in a 12-month period, according to figures provided by the Ministry of the Interior to Parliament.
Courts nationwide have canceled or suspended at least 57 of the orders related to this year’s Olympics and Christmas market, according to the December parliamentary report and a Reuters review of appeals filed with the Strasbourg court.
“The Olympics were a MICAS battle, so I now have the impression that the Ministry of the Interior has no restrictions on any event that attracts hundreds of thousands of people,” said David Poinsignon, a lawyer representing four affected people. by MICAS orders. for the games, two of which they expanded for the Christmas market.
He is especially concerned about cases involving people without terrorism-related convictions, saying: “It has almost become an instrument of predictive justice.”
Ben Saul, the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said France should use MICAS orders sparingly, “to address a credible risk of terrorism where less intrusive means would not be sufficient.”
“Because they can be imposed without the strong safeguards of a criminal process, there is a greater risk of abuse, arbitrariness or discrimination,” he told Reuters.
The Interior Ministry had no comment. Former Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in July that the measures were only being used for people he described as “very dangerous” and potentially capable of carrying out attacks.
TORONT SECURITY LAWS
The introduction of MICAS orders was part of a steady tightening of French security laws over the past decade as President Emmanuel Macron’s government responded to deadly attacks and a growing political threat from the far right.
Until recently, the measures were mainly used to control people after a prison sentence.
Reuters was unable to obtain data for last year. But former inmates accounted for 79% of the 136 MICAS orders issued in the year ending October 2022, according to figures from an unpublished Home Office report, presented to Parliament in 2023 and verified by two sources.
An intelligence source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security issues, said in November that MICAS orders had proven effective during the Olympics, and that authorities would take the same risk-free approach toward those who might attack the markets. Christmas
A tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, many cities host holiday markets, featuring stalls offering gifts, decorations and delicacies such as pretzels and mulled wine.
The one in Strasbourg is the largest and oldest in France and attracted some 3 million visitors last year.
In 2018, a gunman opened fire there, killing five people and wounding 11 others. The gunman was on a security watch list and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group.
The suspect in the Magdeburg attack, which killed at least five people and injured dozens, is a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist who has lived in Germany for almost two decades.
The reason remains unclear. Investigators are looking into, among other things, the suspect’s criticism of the treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany. He also has a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and has expressed support on social media platform X for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
INCREASE IN APPEALS
As French authorities have expanded their use of MICAS orders, they have faced more successful court challenges.
As of November, judges across the country had canceled or suspended 50 MICAS orders related to the Olympics, about 9%, according to the parliamentary report. This was “often due to a lack of evidence of a threat” in the intelligence reports used to justify the measures, he said.
In addition, at least seven appeals against measures adopted for the Christmas market have been successful, according to lawyers and Strasbourg court records.
In the first five years after the introduction of MICAS orders, 13 out of 1,203 orders – 1% – were successfully appealed, according to the Home Office’s 2023 report.
Nicolas Klausser, a jurist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research who studies MICAS cases, said the increase could be partly a product of the growing number of appeals, but that the increasingly broad profile of recipients was probably a significant factor.
They include people who may know someone with a terrorism-related conviction, or who made statements about Israel’s war in Gaza described by authorities as an “apology for terrorism,” but who do not have a criminal record, Klausser said.
In Khaled’s case, intelligence reports reviewed by Reuters said he spent time with one person convicted of association with a group planning a terrorist act and another convicted of “advocacy of terrorism.”
Khaled said they were people he knew from the neighborhood where he grew up or from a gym he frequents, but he wasn’t close to any of them.
Reports also allege relationships with other people described as “pro-jihadists.” Khaled said these were also mostly neighborhood acquaintances. The three were friends for a time, but did not discuss violent extremism, he said.
In one case, Khaled is said to have told a friend that “a dirty trick was being prepared and that he was going to be downright delighted.” The conversation took place on the eve of the 2020 murder of a French high school teacher who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression, according to intelligence reports.
Khaled denies saying that. The conversation was about a wedding, he told Reuters, not about the murder of Samuel Paty.
His lawyer, Lucie Simon, dismissed the alleged comment as “nonsense”, saying no evidence was provided in the intelligence notes and no charges were brought against her client in relation to the murder.
The Interior Ministry had no comment. His representatives have said in hearings in other cases that the details in the intelligence memos are intentionally vague to protect sources.
Khaled said he was shocked and concerned when he learned from a media report that the attack was carried out by a teenager of Chechen origin.
“It’s the community that’s going to pay,” he recalled thinking.
On December 6, the Interior Ministry extended its MICAS order for the third time. He appealed and the court informed his lawyer on Tuesday that it had canceled the order.