PublishedJune 29, 2024, 9:42 p.m.
France: “No trial, the policeman is free and Nahel will not return”
On June 27, 2023, young Nahel was shot dead by a police officer in Nanterre. A year later, his mother is still demanding justice.
Nahel was shot dead by a police officer on June 27, 2023.
AFP
The faces are closed, the eyes sometimes wet with tears: a year after Nahel’s deathkilled on June 27, 2023 by a police officer, nearly a thousand people paid tribute to him on Saturday in Nanterre during a silent march where the legislative elections were on everyone’s minds.
The procession of several hundred people set off around 2:30 p.m. to reach Nelson Mandela Square, where the teenager died a year ago: around ten of his friends surrounded his mother, Mounia Merzouk, behind a banner demanding “Justice for Nahel and for all the others.”
Nahel “happy, helpful, smiling”
Very moved, Merzouk thanked the participants and invoked the memory of her son, “joyful, helpful” and “smiling all the time”. “When I go home, I no longer have anyone, I no longer have my baby,” she said, demanding that “justice be done.” “Every day, she cries,” said her lawyer, Mr. Nabil Boudi.
In the march, where no police officers were visible, Fatma, an activist within the Urgence Palestine collective of the 18th arrondissement of Paris who preferred to keep her name secret, came to Nanterre “against oblivion.” “There is nothing: no trial, the police officer is free and Nahel will not come back,” she laments. “It is important that we are here to say that we will not accept” that young people are killed by the police, fumes Sana, 32, another activist.
“This death was not deserved”
The young man was killed on June 27, 2023, by a bullet fired at point-blank range by a motorcycle police officer who was checking the vehicle he was driving. An initial police version, according to which the young man had run into the motorcyclist, was refuted by an amateur video posted on social media. Nahel’s death caused several nights of riots throughout France.
A look back at Nahel’s death in pictures.
The shooter, Florian M., was charged with murder and imprisoned for five months, before being released under judicial supervision. “What happened is not normal, this death was not deserved,” Kevani, 14, lamented in a serious tone on Saturday.
“We have the impression that it’s an eternal start again so we are here to say that we have not forgotten, to demand justice for Nahel,” added Bouna Mbaye, 33, who lived “right next door” from where the teenager was killed. “Police violence and crimes are victims of people who have a certain color, it’s not a coincidence,” said the young man, keffiyeh on his shoulders.
The march, which brought together 650 people according to the police headquarters, ended peacefully around 4:30 p.m. with shouts of “Justice for Nahel!” and “No justice, no peace!”
(afp)
