France

Voice Over:

Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan many people including interpreters, human rights activists and journalists were evacuated.

Many had suffered past trauma and what they experienced at Kabul Airport was terrifying.

“Rafi” , Voiced of Actor:

It was absolutely horrible. There you saw the soldiers, the Afghan [government] soldiers, how they were treating people and guns firing. I saw a lot of things there which was truly sad. The small children, the babies, the women, they were under the feet of everybody and nobody cared.

Voice Over:

The relief some evacuees felt after arriving in France was short-lived as traumatic memories resurfaced. While some received psychosocial support, others continue to struggle on their own.

“Roya” , Voiced of Actor:

I have a hole in my heart about my people and my country but I can’t do anything from here. 

We feel we are safe, but we worry about our family. I talked about my emotions when we went to art therapy. They showed me some way so that I don’t stay in shock mode. I’m gonna be better.

Voice Over:

There is no health without mental health. France should expand the provision of psychosocial services to evacuees. Evacuees and those assisting them, should be informed about accessible mental health services.

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Myanmar: In Paris, artists from Myanmar denounce the junta’s abuses

Richie Htet

Artist

Everybody was feeling the same pain, everybody was still feeling the same disappointment, the same anger that you felt more courageous to do something.

Graphic Text

Since February 1 2021, millions of Myanmar people have protested against the coup and abuses by the military junta.

Graphic Text

The exhibition Fighting Fear in the Photoclimat biennial shows artworks protesting the coup until October 17.

Bart was Not Here

Artist

I want to console the Burmese people that are still inside the country. It’s going to be okay. We just need to push a little further and I know it’s hard, but we’re all gonna do it together.

On screen Text

#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

Boubacar Dramé:

I’ve had to undergo identity checks (from the police), I can’t tell you how many times. The first [time], I was 12 years old, it was next to a school. They pushed us up against the wall, I remember how disrespectfully they spoke to us. It was a relationship that started badly.

Police:

Face the wall. The wall is behind you. Take your hands out of your pockets. Please empty your pockets, thank you. All of your personal items on the windowsill.

TEXT: French police use broad powers to stop and search Black and Arab youth for “identity checks”

TEXT: Police target children as young as 10 years old

Valoua Touré:

We see abusive police stops every day, especially growing up here [Bobigny] I saw a lot of them. The first time I experienced a police stop, I must have been 10 years old. I was leaving my house, which is just over there. We were children, and the first experience we had with the police, the first contact, is a police officer aiming his weapon at you. It's scary. We were terrified.

“Jamal”, 13 years old:
I’ve been stopped twice. The first time, I was 9 or 10 years old. I thought that it wasn't normal that the police body search 10-year-old children.

“Amir”, 17 years old:

It's really prejudiced. For [the police], we come from bad neighborhoods. Just based on your last name, sometimes they say you’re up to something.

Slim Ben Achour, Anti-discrimination lawyer:
In the poor neighborhoods, the police officers often know the kids that they stop, they even call them by their first or last name. So it’s an identity check that is misused because they check the identities of people they already know.

Hasnia Djerbi:
I could feel something, he didn't tell me straight away, but he was a bit... I mean, he was talking less, I learned some time later that he was stopped by the police and... Suspected of having drugs, he ended up in socks on the pavement in front of everyone in the center of Grenoble.

Slim Ben Achour, Anti-discrimination lawyer:
Identity checks in France, are in reality appearance based. No matter their behavior, a person can be stopped for a fear of a risk of breaching the public order. In today’s France, a skin tone can be considered a risk.

Hasnia Djerbi:

In the end, all it takes is a police stop like that, where your son is humiliated, and they make him feel that no, he is not a part of [society]. And that’s terrible for a mother.

Bakary Soukouna:
There are immediate consequences for the youth because it builds resentment, mistrust towards institutions. These kids are human, they have feelings. They respect who respects them and that includes the police.

Annick Bousba:
Now when my son sees a police car, he feels in danger. We can’t build a society where children are scared of police, where children are scared of the law, because for them, the police represent the law.

Police:

This is a state of law, it’s the Republic of France. During a police stop, you shut up and obey.

Slim Ben Achour, Anti-discrimination lawyer:

The French police operates in opacity, there are never any control receipts. If you make the allegation of having experienced a discriminatory identity check, the state can say that it never occurred. And as long as we haven’t decided to speak seriously about these problems, we will be exposed to the dramatic consequences. The death of kids, or rupture with the republic’s institutions.

Annick Bousba:

There should absolutely be laws protecting youth from abusive identity checks, and that regulate how they are checked. In my opinion, that’s the easiest thing, and yet it’s taking the longest to get done.