1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:09,690 Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone. And thanks for inviting me to this to this wonderful room to take part in this lecture series. 2 00:00:10,260 --> 00:00:17,550 I first will apologise because I will read a few excerpts from from writing that pertains to this research. 3 00:00:17,820 --> 00:00:23,250 Some of it's already published, but partly because the recording would otherwise be me jumping back and forth 4 00:00:23,670 --> 00:00:29,250 across issues and trying to fill in the explanations and and descriptions as I go. 5 00:00:29,430 --> 00:00:31,740 And that might not be so nice for the listeners, 6 00:00:32,550 --> 00:00:40,890 but also it will help to distil some of the examples of what I think feed into a larger question for me, 7 00:00:40,890 --> 00:00:46,920 which is how to talk about structural racism and institutional forms of racism in 8 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:52,499 the context of dealing with death in custody cases in Europe at the national level, 9 00:00:52,500 --> 00:01:00,870 but also at a regional level. So in terms of national cases, whether they're criminal cases for civil cases, 10 00:01:01,230 --> 00:01:06,120 but then the human rights cases at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. 11 00:01:07,020 --> 00:01:12,149 And I won't talk so specifically about all of the legal ins and outs of these jurisdictions, 12 00:01:12,150 --> 00:01:17,940 but I'd just rather frame the larger question of how to bring a discussion of structural 13 00:01:17,940 --> 00:01:27,510 racism to the to the legal fora of these different courts and of these different cases. 14 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:34,260 And I'll be talking mainly about these issues through the lens of one particular case that I've been working on, 15 00:01:34,710 --> 00:01:42,660 which is the case of the death of a man named or each other. So I'll describe this case as we go along to. 16 00:01:45,630 --> 00:01:51,380 So first in the talk, I'll discuss race and racism in a general way in Europe. 17 00:01:51,390 --> 00:01:52,140 And of course, 18 00:01:52,470 --> 00:02:03,110 this is going to be a very broad generalisation of what race means in Europe and how it's reflected in in certain laws and European jurisdictions. 19 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:10,589 So really, really brief. Then I'll turn to a discussion of the Bridgeview case itself and in particular 20 00:02:10,590 --> 00:02:14,370 highlight the ways in which the activists and families that have been working on the 21 00:02:14,370 --> 00:02:20,759 case have tried to bring the discussion of race and racism to the case where there 22 00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:28,659 isn't necessarily an overt use of racialisation on the part of the defendants. 23 00:02:28,660 --> 00:02:32,250 So in this case, the defendant police in his death. 24 00:02:32,700 --> 00:02:40,349 But there is a broader question of race and racism in not only the facts of the case, 25 00:02:40,350 --> 00:02:46,290 but also the way that the case has been dealt with by by the law, including the courts. 26 00:02:47,670 --> 00:02:55,250 And then I'll end by discussing a little bit of what I think would be potential next steps for this case, including going to Strasbourg. 27 00:02:55,260 --> 00:03:04,320 So the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and also what we what we would then think might be some outcomes of that kind of, 28 00:03:05,310 --> 00:03:08,160 you know, that kind of approach. So what does it mean to go to Strasbourg? 29 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:15,950 What are we asking for when we ask the court to recognise that there's been a violation of human rights and in this case, the right to life? 30 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:19,440 So Article two of the European Convention on Human Rights. 31 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:29,560 So first structural racism in Europe. The the European level. 32 00:03:29,580 --> 00:03:36,690 So when I say that, I mean the. The European Union as well as the Council of Europe, 33 00:03:36,690 --> 00:03:41,430 which is the body that's responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights and which 34 00:03:41,490 --> 00:03:47,480 corresponds with the European Court of Human Rights are two different jurisdictions. 35 00:03:47,490 --> 00:03:52,049 So many of you would know that the European Union has the Court of Justice of the European Union, 36 00:03:52,050 --> 00:04:00,750 and they balance concerns that have to do with the four freedoms of the European Union, along with fundamental rights and human rights. 37 00:04:00,930 --> 00:04:07,709 So there's there's one type of analysis that goes on in the European Union level, the other jurisdiction. 38 00:04:07,710 --> 00:04:10,810 So the Court of Justice said, sorry, then. 39 00:04:10,860 --> 00:04:19,200 So the European Court of Human Rights looks at human rights as they pertain just to the European Convention on Human Rights. 40 00:04:19,350 --> 00:04:24,360 So the additional analysis about the free movement of goods, services, 41 00:04:24,630 --> 00:04:35,100 capital and people is not a part of the analysis at the European Court of Human Rights, which generally means that there's a lot more you know, 42 00:04:35,100 --> 00:04:44,610 there's a lot more impetus to go to the European Court of Human Rights with the types of right to life violations that these cases bring up, 43 00:04:45,060 --> 00:04:52,980 because it's really isolating the right to life, as, you know, the main thing that's going to be addressed. 44 00:04:54,300 --> 00:05:02,520 But just to kind of give an overview of what the laws are at the European Union and the Council of Europe levels, 45 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:08,160 the European Union has jurisdiction over the Member States of the European Union, 28 member states. 46 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:16,350 Now, primary treaties include the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which has a general non-discrimination provision. 47 00:05:16,590 --> 00:05:22,409 So I'm just trying to emphasise the provisions that have a relationship with the regulation 48 00:05:22,410 --> 00:05:27,540 of race and or the definition of race and the regulation of racial discrimination. 49 00:05:27,900 --> 00:05:33,420 So the main treaty, treaty on the functioning of the European Union has a provision that's a 50 00:05:33,420 --> 00:05:37,410 discrimination provision and includes race in its non-discrimination principle. 51 00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:43,350 The Charter, the European Charter on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms has an article, Article 21, 52 00:05:43,350 --> 00:05:48,030 which is also includes a non-discrimination provision and frames it as a fundamental right. 53 00:05:49,740 --> 00:05:54,910 And then there's secondary legislation. So they are the directives of the European Union. 54 00:05:54,930 --> 00:05:59,250 So the relevant directive is the race directive from 2000, 55 00:05:59,610 --> 00:06:07,770 which is a piece of legislation that articulates what it means to discriminate against another person on the basis of race. 56 00:06:08,070 --> 00:06:12,270 The scope is quite broad, so it applies to employment in goods and services, 57 00:06:12,270 --> 00:06:20,219 it applies to education and those types of public goods, and it provides positive obligations. 58 00:06:20,220 --> 00:06:21,060 For example, 59 00:06:22,740 --> 00:06:33,630 Member States of the European Union have to establish a body that is responsible for for following up with the enforcement of of the rights directive. 60 00:06:33,990 --> 00:06:38,010 And there are similar directives for other protected grounds in terms of equality. 61 00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:47,250 And there are other guidelines and ordinances. So there's a provision in the Common Borders Act that says that immigration and 62 00:06:47,250 --> 00:06:53,220 border control agents in member states shouldn't actually be using race as a way to. 63 00:06:55,350 --> 00:07:03,980 To go about enforcing border control. But, of course, that's been there's a margin of interpretation for states to. 64 00:07:04,280 --> 00:07:13,440 To act and. And many argue including one of the European Union's agencies ECRI the for that agency basically broadly. 65 00:07:14,430 --> 00:07:22,860 On racial discrimination in Europe argues that some countries for example Spain have tended to use quota systems and 66 00:07:22,860 --> 00:07:30,870 targets for certain minority groups and that's been criticised as using ethnicity in the service of border control. 67 00:07:31,140 --> 00:07:36,510 But there are tons of examples where I think these issues at least are relevant ones to raise. 68 00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:43,560 But those are just some of the aspects of the legal framework at the European Union level that exist. 69 00:07:44,670 --> 00:07:51,330 The European Convention on Human Rights, which articulates a list of human rights that exists. 70 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:57,360 European Union level, which, if you are more familiar with the British law, 71 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:01,649 is very similar to what's in the Human Rights Act because the Human Rights Act 72 00:08:01,650 --> 00:08:06,120 in the UK was taken more or less from the European Convention on Human Rights. 73 00:08:07,980 --> 00:08:18,690 That has a non-discrimination provision in it as well that names race and proxies for race as grounds upon which people shouldn't be discriminated. 74 00:08:19,230 --> 00:08:30,390 But that convention sorry, that provision, Article 14 of the convention applies only in relationship to human rights of the convention, 75 00:08:30,570 --> 00:08:37,380 which means that you have to first argue that a human right is being violated within the convention other than Article 14, 76 00:08:37,740 --> 00:08:48,149 and then argue that Article 14, the non-discrimination provision is is being engaged there so that your right is being violated. 77 00:08:48,150 --> 00:08:52,680 And furthermore, there's a discriminatory reason for the violation of those rights. 78 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,570 So in the cases that I'm concerned with, it's the right to life is being violated. 79 00:08:57,780 --> 00:09:02,280 And furthermore, there's a discriminatory reason why that right is being violated. 80 00:09:02,340 --> 00:09:06,510 So this discrimination in the violation of Article two rights. 81 00:09:07,740 --> 00:09:10,320 So I'll talk a bit more about that toward the end. 82 00:09:10,350 --> 00:09:17,730 But that's the general legal framework that exists at the European level, then at the national level. 83 00:09:17,820 --> 00:09:23,100 There are different sets of laws and as I mentioned, for both the EU and the Council of Europe, 84 00:09:23,100 --> 00:09:30,360 there are margins of appreciation in terms of how Member States interpret their obligations under the relevant conventions. 85 00:09:31,020 --> 00:09:34,589 So this is an overgeneralisation, I think, 86 00:09:34,590 --> 00:09:41,220 and it's just trying to give a sense of the differences in legal and legal structures at the national level. 87 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:51,719 The United Kingdom has the Equality Act of 2010, which articulates what racial discrimination means, other forms of discrimination as well. 88 00:09:51,720 --> 00:09:55,140 But racial discrimination is the relevant one here. 89 00:09:56,130 --> 00:10:02,670 It has the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is supposed to follow up on on issues of discrimination. 90 00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:09,490 How they get there. Germany has the basic the German basic law. 91 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,910 The Court Because that's where the provision that covers racial discrimination. 92 00:10:13,300 --> 00:10:19,120 It also has the general law of equal treatment. So the basic German law is like the constitution. 93 00:10:19,510 --> 00:10:27,450 Whereas the German law of equal treatment is a piece of legislation that resembles in its in, you know, what it, what it means in society. 94 00:10:27,450 --> 00:10:29,260 It resembles something like an equality act. 95 00:10:31,810 --> 00:10:40,270 However, there have only been a handful of cases that have been brought under the German law of equal treatment for racial discrimination. 96 00:10:40,630 --> 00:10:50,470 And part of the reason is that people find it quite difficult to access to access this provision and have it applied in court. 97 00:10:51,130 --> 00:10:58,030 There's also a cap on what people can recover if they sue for racial discrimination. 98 00:10:58,540 --> 00:11:02,020 And there's a two month statute of limitations, which many argue is very short. 99 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:07,750 But but that might not even be the primary reason that people don't bring claims. 100 00:11:10,750 --> 00:11:12,219 Having done a lot of research, 101 00:11:12,220 --> 00:11:17,830 I personally think it's also because of this understanding that it's going to be difficult to prove the claim in the first place. 102 00:11:18,190 --> 00:11:24,910 And there's not a lot of public discussion on the use of of the of the law. 103 00:11:27,330 --> 00:11:31,470 And there's a national antidiscrimination office and there are also state and 104 00:11:31,500 --> 00:11:35,579 discrimination offices that basically serve to inform people when they think 105 00:11:35,580 --> 00:11:39,690 their rights are being violated and engage with them on a 1 to 1 basis by 106 00:11:39,690 --> 00:11:47,010 appointment and to keep statistics on how many claims are being raised in France. 107 00:11:47,460 --> 00:11:51,720 There is a bit of a different approach to race more generally and in law. 108 00:11:51,750 --> 00:12:00,120 First of all, the French constitutional protections, which did include race as constitutionally named grounds, 109 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:08,940 has been revised, I think early this year to take race out of the constitutional protections as a category that's covered. 110 00:12:09,420 --> 00:12:21,900 And part of the reason is it relates to the overall approach of France to race, which is to say that if race is basically a false category, 111 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:28,530 it's a social construct that people are using to harm others, then we are going to criminalise it. 112 00:12:28,560 --> 00:12:31,590 So in in France, race is a criminalised category, 113 00:12:31,590 --> 00:12:39,660 which means that by and large it's a criminal sanction that applies if you sue for racial discrimination. 114 00:12:40,980 --> 00:12:47,040 So an extension of that is removing it as a category from the Constitution symbolically means that it doesn't exist, really. 115 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,700 So we shouldn't be talking about race as a protected category. 116 00:12:52,470 --> 00:12:58,500 So as an outlawed category, a criminally outlawed category, it means that to bring a discrimination claim in France, 117 00:12:58,500 --> 00:13:02,670 you have to apply through the Ministry of Labour if it's against an employer, 118 00:13:03,330 --> 00:13:10,739 to have them file a kind of a criminal suit against the employer, which is a bit more cumbersome, 119 00:13:10,740 --> 00:13:15,070 and it removes the person who's experienced discrimination from the equation. 120 00:13:15,090 --> 00:13:18,210 It also, many argue, 121 00:13:18,540 --> 00:13:26,999 creates a situation where people aren't really going to raise the issue because it's raising it to the Ministry of Labour is like filing a complaint 122 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:36,080 with an external agency and that the complaints are generally not followed up on in a way that kind of puts the person's story to the forefront. 123 00:13:36,090 --> 00:13:42,630 They might be followed up on with more of an investigation into the policies of the employer. 124 00:13:43,530 --> 00:13:50,610 But since it's a criminal sanction, it's a big deal for the Ministry of Labour to to really aggressively push an issue with an employer. 125 00:13:50,970 --> 00:13:59,220 So for these reasons, it's difficult to to see what the relationship is between having the law structured in 126 00:13:59,220 --> 00:14:04,590 that way and people actually getting discrimination claims through against employers. 127 00:14:06,510 --> 00:14:12,740 And quickly, because these areas are areas that I'm super familiar with in terms of my own research. 128 00:14:12,750 --> 00:14:21,300 The Netherlands has an equal treatment provision in Article one of the Dutch constitution that covers race explicitly, 129 00:14:21,750 --> 00:14:31,739 and there's a Dutch Equal Treatment Act that covers race. And in Spain, the Spanish constitution also covers race in Article 14 of its constitution. 130 00:14:31,740 --> 00:14:36,800 And there's a lot of equal treatment and non-discrimination that exists in in Spain. 131 00:14:36,810 --> 00:14:43,440 So the law is actually, you know, different from France and closer to Germany. 132 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:49,890 Have races in enumerated ground for bringing lawsuits. 133 00:14:53,340 --> 00:14:56,340 And not to repeat anything. 134 00:14:56,340 --> 00:15:02,399 But there are different ways in which race is thought about socially and politically in these different places, 135 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:05,550 which has an impact on how they play out in law. 136 00:15:06,330 --> 00:15:11,069 So the United Kingdom race is I don't want to have overstated this, 137 00:15:11,070 --> 00:15:18,150 but used and understood and conceptualised as a social construct, not unproblematic. 138 00:15:18,660 --> 00:15:23,700 But it's it's used in a variety of, of settings from, you know, 139 00:15:23,850 --> 00:15:35,999 keeping statistics on the use of public services in order to decide on funding in kind of census type follow up forms. 140 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:44,940 So on recruitment and monitoring and the recruitment and monitoring process is kind of an accepted one in the U.K., 141 00:15:44,940 --> 00:15:48,120 where there are monitoring forms about all different types of difference. 142 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:58,920 And and that corresponds with some of the expectations under the Equality Act to have at least a sense of what the employers are, 143 00:15:59,700 --> 00:16:08,190 what kinds of what kinds of applicants to certain jobs are getting, maybe treated differently or denied places. 144 00:16:08,670 --> 00:16:13,840 So monitoring serves to foster the ends of greater equality. 145 00:16:13,860 --> 00:16:17,070 So that's the that's the idea of what monitoring is used for. 146 00:16:18,420 --> 00:16:23,190 And the statistics in this case are disaggregated by race in one way or another. 147 00:16:24,450 --> 00:16:27,650 In Germany, the word for. Aces thruster. 148 00:16:27,860 --> 00:16:39,980 And that has a very strong social connotation dealing with the history of of that term, particularly with regard to the Nazi era. 149 00:16:40,340 --> 00:16:45,350 So biological racism and really, you know, 150 00:16:45,350 --> 00:16:53,030 strongly tied linguistically with the idea that this is not a term that has a really strong salience in today's, 151 00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:57,410 you know, in today's politics or today's society. 152 00:16:58,790 --> 00:17:02,060 But that also means that it's controversial within the legal framework. 153 00:17:02,420 --> 00:17:06,920 So there's been a movement to take Bokassa out of the German constitution and to 154 00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:11,930 provide a more descriptive terms of racial discrimination in the constitution instead. 155 00:17:12,410 --> 00:17:15,410 And that has led to, you know, 156 00:17:15,410 --> 00:17:22,670 the counterargument that it's symbolically important to deal with the concept as it exists in society, given all of its problems, 157 00:17:24,380 --> 00:17:35,030 which is led to another counter argument, is that we don't want to trust lawmakers with a very divisive and difficult to manage concept. 158 00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:39,030 But out of all of this come two things, I think. 159 00:17:39,050 --> 00:17:51,890 One is the idea in Germany that race and maybe not all forms of racism, but largely a conceptualisation of racism that insists on a term like race, 160 00:17:52,400 --> 00:18:00,680 is an imported concept that comes from the US type of understanding of race and racial difference and where the law's role is in that. 161 00:18:01,700 --> 00:18:08,510 And the second thing that comes out of it is the reluctance to use statistical data to analyse patterns of racial discrimination. 162 00:18:08,810 --> 00:18:16,639 So statistics are generally kept or disaggregated by race in Germany for a whole variety of things, 163 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:23,740 like educational performance or educational tracking. 164 00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:29,000 There's a tracking system where people are put into 12, they're put into different educational tracks, 165 00:18:29,150 --> 00:18:35,540 or it's suggested that they follow certain educational tracks or of goods and services or anything like like this. 166 00:18:35,900 --> 00:18:41,600 There are statistics that are kept that that relate to the language spoken at home 167 00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:46,220 and different things that some would argue are proxies for a racial difference. 168 00:18:46,490 --> 00:18:54,980 But not all of those are proxies for racial difference in terms of appearance and in terms of the perception of cultural background, etc. 169 00:18:55,610 --> 00:18:57,709 So there's an issue with data that comes out of that. 170 00:18:57,710 --> 00:19:04,540 I think in France the issue is more acute because as I mentioned in France, race isn't criminalised category. 171 00:19:04,550 --> 00:19:10,010 So data is also strictly forbidden in most settings. 172 00:19:10,220 --> 00:19:15,560 So the collection of racial data is an extension of the use of race as a category, and it's criminalised. 173 00:19:16,730 --> 00:19:21,350 It can be used with very small exceptions, 174 00:19:21,860 --> 00:19:28,760 and independent organisations or non-governmental organisations have been collecting 175 00:19:28,970 --> 00:19:33,260 data given that they deal with communities that are making complaints about, 176 00:19:33,980 --> 00:19:43,100 let's say, profiling, police profiling. But those things are contentious because if there if the data is then promoted publicly, 177 00:19:43,100 --> 00:19:46,400 then it looks like there's an overstep in the use of the concept of race. 178 00:19:47,060 --> 00:19:49,820 But it's the only way, according to lots of groups, 179 00:19:49,820 --> 00:19:57,080 to actually keep track of racial discrimination that's otherwise left to, you know, the Ministry of Labour, for example. 180 00:19:59,900 --> 00:20:07,940 And then in the Netherlands, there have been writers who have written about the place of race and understanding of race in the Netherlands. 181 00:20:07,940 --> 00:20:16,819 So two writers in particular, Philomena, said, who writes about everyday racism and the and the and the relationship between 182 00:20:16,820 --> 00:20:21,500 everyday forms of racism and institutional and structural forms of racism. 183 00:20:22,010 --> 00:20:26,389 And then there's growing. Rebecca, who has written a book recently called White Innocence, 184 00:20:26,390 --> 00:20:34,310 and she uses the I would argue it's a flashpoint issue, which is I don't know if you'd heard of this. 185 00:20:34,730 --> 00:20:42,770 This character called the shots of Pete Black Pete in the Netherlands, which is a character that supposedly fell down a chimney. 186 00:20:42,770 --> 00:20:45,889 That's the that's the later version of of this character. 187 00:20:45,890 --> 00:20:51,650 But earlier versions of the character is that the character is actually from Northern 188 00:20:51,650 --> 00:20:58,100 Africa and has come to the Netherlands with goblins to take children who are poor or bad. 189 00:20:58,490 --> 00:21:02,180 But this is this character is celebrated during Christmas time. 190 00:21:02,180 --> 00:21:10,820 And lots of Dutch people get into blackface where they paint their faces black and red lips, and they're like, they're the shots of Pete. 191 00:21:11,270 --> 00:21:15,320 But this, you know, that in and of itself warrants lots of discussion. 192 00:21:15,330 --> 00:21:26,570 But the the issue there is that the defence of this character plays itself out in stories about, you know, Dutch intentions around being not. 193 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:35,220 Racist and all of this. But it's defended to such an extent that it creates this other sphere of thinking about the concept of being innocent, 194 00:21:35,940 --> 00:21:39,630 but not wanting to address the potential harm, 195 00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:47,820 the potential harm of this of this character and making this character kind of a centrepiece within the Dutch cultural tradition. 196 00:21:49,230 --> 00:21:52,889 So anyway, these things are all going on at the same time while we're trying to figure 197 00:21:52,890 --> 00:21:57,420 out how to talk about institutional and structural forms of racism in Europe. 198 00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:03,510 And of course, a lot of my work really has been around particular deaths in custody. 199 00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:09,540 So while there is a big gap between the social discussion and the legal discussion on deaths in custody, 200 00:22:09,540 --> 00:22:15,209 that gap for those who are at the front lines trying to argue that racism exists in courts. 201 00:22:15,210 --> 00:22:23,040 So families and activists, I think they experience that not as a gap, but a continuum, continuity of the same discussions. 202 00:22:23,220 --> 00:22:29,129 So what they see happening in their activism outside the courtroom is very relevant to what 203 00:22:29,130 --> 00:22:34,410 they understand to be the thought process among legal actors and judges in the courtroom. 204 00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:43,650 So a couple of other comments to the context that I really breezed through. 205 00:22:43,650 --> 00:22:51,810 This is the relationship between all of this, meaning racism and structural forms of racism and colonialism. 206 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:59,969 So there's been a lot of writing and and activist work around making those connections really visible from the 207 00:22:59,970 --> 00:23:09,840 decolonise movement within academia all the way through to broader political discussions about coloniality and race. 208 00:23:09,870 --> 00:23:14,730 Not least of all with writing about the Windrush scandal. 209 00:23:16,110 --> 00:23:23,120 Whereupon people remembered the whole. The comment by Joseph Anandan that we are here because you were there. 210 00:23:23,130 --> 00:23:33,990 The idea that Empire really made migration kind of a form to think through issues of race and racism, not only globally, but domestically. 211 00:23:35,220 --> 00:23:45,750 And with the Windrush scandal, also the hostile environment policy that was then turned into the compliant environment policy, 212 00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:56,370 counterterrorism laws relating to the presupposition that we know what suspicion looks like and we know what radicalisation looks like. 213 00:23:56,370 --> 00:23:58,559 So we should just go find it and report on it. 214 00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:08,330 So the Prevent Policy and, and Brexit and writers who have looked at the, the notion that Brexit is a bit of a, 215 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:17,340 a search for a search for the powerful nostalgic empire that that once was. 216 00:24:17,730 --> 00:24:23,280 All of these discussions, I think, are wrapped up into broader discussions of race. 217 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:28,259 So that being a big part of the UK context, not least of all, 218 00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:36,480 because there's a shift to the right across a lot of Europe politically in Germany, I think. 219 00:24:38,070 --> 00:24:43,380 I mean, I could have very well showed the show, the poster of Nigel Farage with the, you know, 220 00:24:43,830 --> 00:24:50,639 with a long queue of people in the background saying, you know, we need to close the borders and take our country back. 221 00:24:50,640 --> 00:25:00,240 And the European Union is helping people get across to us. That was a similar political take to these posters from from the alternative for Germany, 222 00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:06,180 the Tea Party, which is currently one of the stronger parties in Germany. 223 00:25:06,180 --> 00:25:17,130 I think it's third it's representative third in the federal parliament in Germany, has 244 seats out of 1866 in state parliaments. 224 00:25:18,090 --> 00:25:32,760 And they have a very direct message about taking Germany back from from foreigners and in particular, in particular from from Muslim people. 225 00:25:33,540 --> 00:25:41,010 So there have been lots of campaign posters that particularly addressed Islam as a focus of contention. 226 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,990 But these two posters, I think, are telling because they reflect not only on the global but the domestic. 227 00:25:45,990 --> 00:25:50,610 So take back the domestic sphere. The first one says Neuer Deutscher, mocking as Elba. 228 00:25:50,610 --> 00:25:57,080 So new Germans will make them ourselves. And the second says, Colourful diversity. 229 00:25:57,390 --> 00:26:00,240 We have it already so blunt of submission. 230 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:08,370 And it shows, you know, three visibly white Germans in three different outfits, maybe from three regions of Germany. 231 00:26:08,940 --> 00:26:18,180 And part of this is the ongoing messaging about the limits to tolerance and the failure of multiculturalism in all of this, 232 00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:27,540 which legitimises a certain form of othering in terms of the social debates around around race quite broadly. 233 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:35,700 German activists have been really keen to counter these things and have been quite successful in some ways, 234 00:26:35,700 --> 00:26:42,360 and that should not go unnoticed, particularly when a lot of those activists are also concerned with issues like deaths in custody. 235 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:46,139 So this is a street sign that was changed formally. 236 00:26:46,140 --> 00:26:58,469 It was the street sign dedicated to someone who had started colonial campaigns and violent campaigns in in German occupied sections of Africa. 237 00:26:58,470 --> 00:27:05,520 And it was renamed a few years ago to my aim. And my aim was a celebrated Afro German poet. 238 00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:11,339 And she wrote in the eighties and nineties about being black and a woman in 239 00:27:11,340 --> 00:27:17,940 Germany and renaming that street didn't erase the history for those activists, 240 00:27:17,940 --> 00:27:21,360 but rather layered a different history on top of it. 241 00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:28,229 And so part of the social discussion that was ongoing around the domestic space and 242 00:27:28,230 --> 00:27:34,080 recognising racism and colonialism as a part of what constitutes the domestic space. 243 00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:36,720 A short aside, I study. 244 00:27:38,170 --> 00:27:47,890 I studied European ethnography in Germany, in Berlin, in Berlin, on a street that is called Morgenstern, which is Street of the Moors. 245 00:27:48,130 --> 00:27:52,230 And there has been a long debate because it's an anthropology institute as well. 246 00:27:52,240 --> 00:28:00,430 So there was there was also, I think, internal anxiety about what does it mean to be an anthropology department and be on the street of the moors? 247 00:28:00,820 --> 00:28:07,810 And shouldn't we try to, like, have a discussion and maybe get the street renamed or have something else come out of that? 248 00:28:08,980 --> 00:28:16,059 And a lot of black Germans and a lot of Germans who are allied with that position have protested over the years, 249 00:28:16,060 --> 00:28:25,180 and many put two dots over the o which so it oome out on the AU to turn it into carrots, creates a monstrosity instead. 250 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:31,870 So that's a that's one way of, I guess, resisting. So now I'll talk about the case of Ori Jallow, 251 00:28:31,870 --> 00:28:42,339 because this is where I think a lot of these issues then compound into a legal case where the issues are articulated, 252 00:28:42,340 --> 00:28:57,729 but they're in the background and they're there. So Ori Jallow, I'll just say, was a man who was applying for asylum and he was from Sierra Leone. 253 00:28:57,730 --> 00:29:06,700 And in 2005 he was detained by police when a few people who were cleaning up the street really early in the morning, 254 00:29:06,700 --> 00:29:11,859 about 4 a.m., called the police and they said, there's this guy and he's bothering us. 255 00:29:11,860 --> 00:29:15,520 He's asking us lots of questions and he's just bothering us. You should come and get him. 256 00:29:15,970 --> 00:29:21,340 And so it turns out he was asking them to use their phone to make a phone call, and he was slightly drunk. 257 00:29:21,850 --> 00:29:27,760 And so the police came and by that time he was sitting on the side of the road and just sitting there by himself. 258 00:29:28,990 --> 00:29:33,160 So they came and the account of the police is that they detained him. 259 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:38,140 And this is in Dessau, in a small, small city in former former East Germany. 260 00:29:38,620 --> 00:29:43,779 And they detained him. And by 12:00 noon, he was dead. 261 00:29:43,780 --> 00:29:52,690 He was burned in his police cell. And what happens between then is a mixture of the, you know, the police testimony, 262 00:29:52,990 --> 00:30:00,340 the evidence that that exists and and basically our reconstruction of that. 263 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:10,180 But I'll just read a bit a couple of snippets about about the case, and I'll jump back and forth a little bit. 264 00:30:11,050 --> 00:30:20,320 The Jallow trials in 2007, so two years after the trial started and 2011 revealed a myriad of mistakes, 265 00:30:20,530 --> 00:30:26,680 police were reported not to have informed the fire department that there was a person in the cell that was ablaze. 266 00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:31,780 So firefighters were surprised when they arrived and found a burnt corpse chained to the mattress on the floor. 267 00:30:32,290 --> 00:30:39,220 Police testified that they had turned off the smoke alarms that registered the fire, claiming to have assumed that the lines were faulty. 268 00:30:39,670 --> 00:30:42,940 They also claim to have turned down the two way radio and Ms. 269 00:30:42,940 --> 00:30:48,550 Jallow screams for help. There were inconsistencies in the police testimony, including parts of their timeline, 270 00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:55,059 and the judge presiding over the initial trial admonished police for their failure to cooperate in the appellate trial. 271 00:30:55,060 --> 00:31:01,510 An officer who witnessed the events on the day invoked her constitutional right not to testify for fear of self-incrimination. 272 00:31:02,500 --> 00:31:09,880 Despite the admissions by police officers, the prosecutor did not see it fit to entertain murder or voluntary manslaughter charges. 273 00:31:10,420 --> 00:31:18,040 Further mistakes were made in the collection of evidence. The autopsy commissioned by police forensics teams missed injuries on Dallas body that 274 00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:24,249 an independent autopsy found a broken nose and a burst eardrum and most recently, 275 00:31:24,250 --> 00:31:26,080 a cracked rib. But I'll get to that. 276 00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:34,180 Forensics footage was erased or not properly recorded, so only a few moments recording of the cells examination exists, 277 00:31:34,390 --> 00:31:40,240 which means a proper determination of the chain of custody of the evidence left behind could not be established. 278 00:31:40,660 --> 00:31:44,530 The debris in the cell was not tested for accelerants during the initial trial, 279 00:31:44,740 --> 00:31:48,970 which, because of the half life of such substances, is a time sensitive matter. 280 00:31:49,420 --> 00:31:57,460 This is ostensibly because the authorities believe Jallow, who committed suicide a lighter, was discovered among the debris collected in the cell. 281 00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:05,350 Three days into the investigation and its president's cuts, its presence constitutes the only hard evidence that Jallow may have committed suicide. 282 00:32:06,070 --> 00:32:10,180 Later. Tests would reveal, however, that the lighter, which was partially melted, 283 00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:15,070 had no fibres from J-Lo's clothing or the mattress and none of Joe's DNA on it. 284 00:32:15,430 --> 00:32:18,909 It was simply assumed through the initial trial and the subsequent appeal, 285 00:32:18,910 --> 00:32:23,590 that this was an unfortunate case of suicide, which the police at worst failed to prevent. 286 00:32:24,250 --> 00:32:28,810 In the first trial, police were acquitted and the retrial found the police guilty of negligence, 287 00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,860 which resulted in a relatively modest fine of about €10,000. 288 00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:39,840 The prosecutorial services are reportedly running as. Special investigation its ended also tell you about that. 289 00:32:40,470 --> 00:32:46,860 But the probe is rife with conflicts of interest since the prosecutors are essentially embedded between the police and the courts. 290 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,200 What seems clear is that if there were no public pressure to scrutinise the details surrounding his death, 291 00:32:52,620 --> 00:32:58,020 there would have been little political will to probe beyond the initial 2007 prosecution for negligence. 292 00:33:00,420 --> 00:33:05,790 I'll also mention the prosecutor has a lot of power in these particular cases, because in Germany, 293 00:33:05,790 --> 00:33:12,030 if you die in police custody on a policing situation, there actually isn't a right to a civil trial. 294 00:33:12,330 --> 00:33:18,570 The right exists for the family to append itself to the main prosecutor's trial as a secondary claimant. 295 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:24,329 And the secondary claimant doesn't actually get the chance to draft the charges. 296 00:33:24,330 --> 00:33:29,040 The prosecutor drops the charges, and the secondary claim just depends themselves to those charges. 297 00:33:29,940 --> 00:33:37,440 That means that although in the Jalloh case, there was, especially in the appellate trial, quite strong legal representation, 298 00:33:37,740 --> 00:33:45,330 the legal representation was was basically confined to the negligence charges and couldn't 299 00:33:45,330 --> 00:33:50,760 raise any evidence that pointed in the direction of someone other than Jallow killing Jallow, 300 00:33:51,810 --> 00:33:57,540 which meant really looking at the timeline to how the police responded to a suicide. 301 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:06,480 So another part of the issue is, okay, we have the circumstances that we have. 302 00:34:06,750 --> 00:34:11,760 We have forensic evidence that seems to have gaps in it. 303 00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:15,150 So the recording has gaps. The autopsy seemed to have gaps. 304 00:34:16,740 --> 00:34:23,520 The lighter, many argued, because it didn't have any remnants of anything inside the cell on it. 305 00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,750 And given the chain of custody, issues should be called into question. 306 00:34:29,310 --> 00:34:38,550 The additional issue is how to raise the issue of racism or race, because there wasn't there wasn't an overt, 307 00:34:39,510 --> 00:34:49,050 you know, attribution to the police testimony that the police said something racist on its face. 308 00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:52,860 Although there are some things that are mentioned and there isn't. 309 00:34:54,560 --> 00:35:03,290 There isn't a very there isn't an overt line of argument that there was overt racism, let's say that. 310 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,920 So the issue is how to bring structural racism into the equation, 311 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:16,130 whether that means a statistical analysis of similar cases happening or an analysis that is about how the case was handled. 312 00:35:16,610 --> 00:35:25,400 So those things I'll talk about in turn. First, I'll mention some of the things that have been raised during the trial that. 313 00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:33,319 At least raise the question for those who are involved in the case and for those in the German 314 00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:38,480 public who have kind of borne witness to the media around the case since it happened in 2005. 315 00:35:41,210 --> 00:35:48,110 In a trial, the admission of evidence or silence in testimony on an issue can be as damming or exonerating as hard legal evidence. 316 00:35:48,530 --> 00:35:53,720 Legally, this is because one is innocent until proven guilty of a crime, at least in Germany and the rest of Europe. 317 00:35:53,900 --> 00:35:58,220 And without the appropriate evidence, one cannot be held liable under the standard of negligence. 318 00:35:58,670 --> 00:36:06,680 Considering this, it's easy to understand how the activists pushing the original trial forward could come to experience certain evidentiary 319 00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:17,270 omissions and testimonial silences as with as great a weight as suppressing closer engagement with the events of or his death. 320 00:36:17,870 --> 00:36:21,080 I describe these omissions and silences as a type of violence. 321 00:36:22,070 --> 00:36:28,560 This violence is a legal character, enabling and constituting societal violence, among other various episodes. 322 00:36:28,580 --> 00:36:34,850 I discuss three silences and omissions during the course of the trial because they illustrate the repetition of scenes of violence that re, 323 00:36:34,850 --> 00:36:39,470 injure, remind and reinvigorate those involved in pushing the trial forward. 324 00:36:40,730 --> 00:36:46,850 The first is a lack of discussion around the medical examiner's racial remarks about Ori Jallow at the police station. 325 00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:54,670 The second is the differences in physical condition noted between the police autopsy and the independent autopsy, which I will rehash. 326 00:36:54,680 --> 00:37:02,600 I've already mentioned they found additional injuries in the autopsy, and the third is the blank section of the crime scene investigation footage. 327 00:37:03,770 --> 00:37:10,910 So the first issue discussed during the first trial in 2007 in Dessau and carried forward into the second trial in Magdeburg, 328 00:37:11,420 --> 00:37:16,490 concerns a remark made by the medical examiner who took a blood sample from Jallow the night he was detained. 329 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:24,860 When Officer Schubert called the Examiner to examine for Ajello, the examiner replied that he's never able to find veins in dark skinned people. 330 00:37:25,430 --> 00:37:30,110 So this remark, Schubert laughed and suggested that he should just bring a special instrument to draw blood. 331 00:37:30,590 --> 00:37:35,450 This exchange evidence the general fact that the skin colour and heritage became a topic of 332 00:37:35,450 --> 00:37:39,860 conversation among the medical examiner and the arresting officer during the examination. 333 00:37:40,100 --> 00:37:43,730 And it prompted the black community and others to look for meaning in this exchange. 334 00:37:44,210 --> 00:37:50,840 The racial undertones were familiar, recognisable. Was this what was this special instrument and why was the matter funny? 335 00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:56,900 The impression among black people and activists involved in the trial was that this comment sounded sinister at its worst, 336 00:37:56,930 --> 00:38:05,260 latently racist, at its most benign. And this did not sound like a statement of overt racial disdain or xenophobia, 337 00:38:05,270 --> 00:38:09,110 but it was, for many, informed by fears and fantasies by the white majority. 338 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:15,530 A psychoanalytic reading of the statement might suggest that the doctor's description reveals his preoccupation with racial difference. 339 00:38:15,770 --> 00:38:20,540 This guiding sense that black people are so different evade his capacity to medically treat them, 340 00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:25,490 that their humanity, like veins, was difficult to identify obscured under dark skin. 341 00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:32,810 Racism operates through these types of images and metaphors, though the doctor may not have meant this consciously. 342 00:38:33,050 --> 00:38:39,230 His statement publicly revealed by way of testimony to add to a community already in a defensive posture, 343 00:38:39,590 --> 00:38:46,640 expose the horrors of what he could potentially have meant. This reinforces mistrust and the assumption of racial foul play. 344 00:38:47,060 --> 00:38:53,750 After all, Jalloh did die hours later, and what happened in between the exchange and his death is contested and obscured. 345 00:38:54,440 --> 00:39:03,740 I also mention that when the police were called, it was it was reported that he was he was black and an African. 346 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,470 And so the police referred to him as the black African. 347 00:39:07,010 --> 00:39:14,240 And then when the forensics team arrives on the scene with the video camera to go to the cell downstairs to take video of the footage, 348 00:39:14,690 --> 00:39:16,070 the forensics investigator, 349 00:39:16,370 --> 00:39:24,410 while he's walking down the stairs before he arrives at the scene, is already saying, I'm going to the cell where a black African has killed himself. 350 00:39:24,950 --> 00:39:34,849 So he's on video. The investigator is kind of coming to the investigation with this presupposition and with the acknowledgement that 351 00:39:34,850 --> 00:39:43,930 we're talking about a particular type of death and at least knowledge of the racial background and the other missing. 352 00:39:43,940 --> 00:39:54,920 I mentioned the autopsy, but the other omission that I talk about is the is the the courtroom footage that was that was not available. 353 00:39:55,400 --> 00:40:03,650 And part of the relevance of that is during the trial, the person who was filming was testifying at the appellate trial. 354 00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:09,860 And he argued that the the camera must have gone out because there was a power outage in the station that day, 355 00:40:09,860 --> 00:40:12,950 which hadn't been argued on record previously. 356 00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:19,700 But not only that, the camera was being held, being held as a mobile camera wasn't plugged in at any point. 357 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:25,100 And he would have had to argue that he stopped and plug it in outside of the cell because there's not a socket in the cell anyway. 358 00:40:25,430 --> 00:40:29,389 So that testimony kind of. Just lingered in the air. 359 00:40:29,390 --> 00:40:32,959 And the question was, what really happened to this footage? So, I mean, 360 00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:39,410 my point there is that race and racism are part of the larger discussion of questioning the integrity 361 00:40:39,930 --> 00:40:46,400 of the process and also a question of why the integrity of the process may have been broken. 362 00:40:47,210 --> 00:40:56,940 Of course, that sounds conspiratorial, but at the end of the day, conspiracy is also a category of of a claim. 363 00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:02,990 I mean, one could make a claim about conspiracy. That's not what the activists have been claiming, though. 364 00:41:03,230 --> 00:41:09,800 The activists and the family members have been merely trying to understand and articulate what's happened, 365 00:41:10,490 --> 00:41:20,570 keeping racism in the frame as a potential lens for analysis rather than to eliminate it because it doesn't exist as a legal form of analysis. 366 00:41:25,660 --> 00:41:32,350 So the activists have really been pushing this trial forward and not only in the courtroom, but outside of the courtroom. 367 00:41:32,620 --> 00:41:45,309 So part of the issue with not collecting statistics on racial violence or policing violence or even stop and search in Germany, 368 00:41:45,310 --> 00:41:54,340 is that there isn't a statistical way or a statistically agreed upon way to present the idea that 369 00:41:54,340 --> 00:42:01,690 race plays a role structurally in society so that institutional forms of racism in policing exist. 370 00:42:02,860 --> 00:42:08,350 And so the acts that the activists have been trying to accumulate the stories, 371 00:42:08,380 --> 00:42:19,180 not necessarily only for the statistical measure of having a lot of them, but for the qualitative aspects of how these cases are similar. 372 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,400 So I'll just read a couple of more phrases and then I'll get to the for the ending part, 373 00:42:24,410 --> 00:42:31,930 the the human rights aspects highlighting the structural nature of police violence has been a process of excavation. 374 00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:38,380 In the case of those working on the Jalloh case, this is required committing painful stories of the last decade the institutional memory, 375 00:42:38,830 --> 00:42:47,680 the voice, the caravan and the into the initiative of green yellow, alongside regular press releases and articles on their respective websites, 376 00:42:47,860 --> 00:42:53,139 have co-published a small yellow booklet called Break the Silence, the fifth edition of which, 377 00:42:53,140 --> 00:42:56,380 under the subheading Institutional Racism and Due Process in Germany, 378 00:42:56,710 --> 00:43:07,810 highlighted cases of other black and Asian asylum seekers killed by the German police or police in custody or in police custody between 1999 and 2007. 379 00:43:08,050 --> 00:43:12,400 So after that, the list has continued. 380 00:43:13,330 --> 00:43:21,460 It recounts the deaths of Sudanese born Mariama Sarr, for example, who was shot by police in her own home in Hoffenberg in 2001. 381 00:43:22,270 --> 00:43:27,069 It also recalls the death of Laila Condé, who drowned in in Bremen in 2004, 382 00:43:27,070 --> 00:43:33,880 when water was forced into his lungs during an administration of a procedure meant to make suspects of drug possession vomit. 383 00:43:34,930 --> 00:43:41,490 Recounting these and other deaths in the pamphlet, in addition to archiving the systematic use of fatal excessive force by the police, 384 00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:49,390 reopens the wounds of the past decade to expose the body politic to a reckoning that is both deeply painful and potentially profoundly healing. 385 00:43:50,110 --> 00:43:55,060 It once again brings the past into the present and describes the present as a place characterised by violence. 386 00:43:55,750 --> 00:43:59,680 The stories of individuals in the yellow booklet alongside other stories of 387 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,890 black people and people of colour killed in Germany in the last two decades, 388 00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:11,249 most notably the Turkish and Greek men and women killed by the NSU, the National Socialist Underground between 2000 and 2007. 389 00:44:11,250 --> 00:44:14,320 And I can explain the question and answer more about that case, if you'd like. 390 00:44:15,430 --> 00:44:22,660 Form the discursive landscape for making sense of the ongoing pattern of deaths, including their circumstances, legal issues and media reports. 391 00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:29,770 They are relevant not only as an explanation as to what's happening institutional and structural forms of racism, 392 00:44:30,130 --> 00:44:34,300 but also as an explanation for the relentless activism in bringing these deaths to light. 393 00:44:34,930 --> 00:44:40,390 Criticism of these violent episodes has been pitted against institutions and structures rather than individual, 394 00:44:40,690 --> 00:44:43,720 independent acts of abuse perpetrated by bad apples. 395 00:44:44,620 --> 00:44:49,419 The stories have similarities that make subsequent stories sound hauntingly familiar and these familiar. 396 00:44:49,420 --> 00:44:53,080 This familiarity perpetually renews the feeling of a need for action. 397 00:44:53,560 --> 00:45:00,670 For example, the death of Christy Fund back in 2011 echoed back to the death of Mariam Assar ten years earlier, 398 00:45:00,670 --> 00:45:06,940 on the basis that police officers fatally shot a black woman in possession of a knife and no prosecution was launched. 399 00:45:08,530 --> 00:45:14,410 It also echoed the deaths of Dominique Amadio and Mira Cora, each fatally shot in possession of a knife. 400 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:21,520 These deaths indicate a pattern of disproportionate violence if one considers that there are ways to disarm people without killing them. 401 00:45:22,150 --> 00:45:27,610 Knowing these patterns shapes the expectation of people of colour vis a vis the police in Germany and indeed across Europe. 402 00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:34,720 The stories give names and details to the pattern of violence, offering a technical awareness of the ideas of disproportionate response. 403 00:45:41,060 --> 00:45:44,150 And I'll just read one one last part. 404 00:45:47,150 --> 00:45:54,260 The original case is very particular in facts. However, in the process of discussing both the episode of violence that led to his death, 405 00:45:54,260 --> 00:45:59,840 as well as the legal responses that ensued, activists regularly mention cases that are similar on distinct points. 406 00:46:00,350 --> 00:46:04,610 Some of this has to do with the temporal proximity of other cases to the jail issue. 407 00:46:05,150 --> 00:46:11,120 For example, the same year in which Diallo died in police custody in South L.A., Alma was killed in police custody, 408 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:16,460 which means that Condé is mentioned in some of the rallies and demonstrations held to honour the life of Jello. 409 00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:23,570 And in 2011, the trial of the death of George Floyd was punctuated by two other custodial deaths. 410 00:46:23,990 --> 00:46:28,340 Christy Fund, who I mentioned in 2011 and Usman say in 2012, 411 00:46:28,730 --> 00:46:34,129 who was handcuffed and taken into custody rather than being taken to a hospital where he should 412 00:46:34,130 --> 00:46:38,510 have been taken because he was having a mental health episode and then died of cardiac arrest. 413 00:46:39,170 --> 00:46:48,799 And so the activists have created a campaign that used similar colours and and kind 414 00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,270 of visual techniques to indicate that there's a pattern of deaths in custody. 415 00:46:53,270 --> 00:46:59,300 So that's very yellow on the left. Christy Schoen back in the middle and Usman say they're on the right. 416 00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:09,460 So. Yeah. 417 00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:20,799 It's just a picture of the trial. The last thing I'll mention about the original trial in itself is that activists haven't only 418 00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:26,230 been trying to raise awareness about the pattern of death in custody outside of the courtroom. 419 00:47:26,230 --> 00:47:33,340 They've also been actively pushing forward the limits of evidentiary concerns within the courtroom. 420 00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:39,760 So it was really interesting because the two learn about this as as for me, 421 00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:44,559 a researcher and then later as a trial observer for the original trial and now as 422 00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,550 a member of an independent civilian commission looking into the death of Jallow, 423 00:47:49,390 --> 00:47:58,900 it's been interesting to see how the medical examiners and the state prosecutors and the courts are linked in a certain way so 424 00:47:58,900 --> 00:48:06,370 that it's difficult sometimes to get medical examiners to give an independent opinion outside of the context of the court trial, 425 00:48:06,670 --> 00:48:17,200 because it's seen as quite a hot case. And medical examiners, in our experience, have tended to have a bit of preoccupation getting involved. 426 00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:18,790 So they don't really want to get involved, 427 00:48:19,180 --> 00:48:26,920 which meant that the the family and activists needed to look outside of Germany for some of their their expert testimony. 428 00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:36,370 So read just two paragraphs. A dead pig wearing a yellow t shirt and dark trousers was burning in a custom 429 00:48:36,370 --> 00:48:41,920 built set outside as the light gradually dimmed over the Irish city of Waterford. 430 00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:48,040 Five of us peeled clementines and watched thin ribbons of smoke waft out from the top of the doorframe. 431 00:48:49,570 --> 00:48:54,010 The pig, fully clothed and chained to a mattress, was Delos proxy. 432 00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,540 The process of having to recreate the scene was as humiliating as it was traumatic, 433 00:48:58,720 --> 00:49:03,220 particularly because those who knew Giallo, but for those who knew Jello. 434 00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,670 This investigation, however, was necessary. 435 00:49:07,330 --> 00:49:08,440 Maxime Marino. 436 00:49:08,860 --> 00:49:16,360 His goal was to ascertain whether or not Jell-O could have been so thoroughly scorch without the use of fuel or some chemical accelerant. 437 00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:27,340 So Maxime Smirnov was a former Belarussian police officer who specialises in fire investigations, and he's based in in Ireland. 438 00:49:28,510 --> 00:49:33,550 It felt as though these tests, along with the very question of police involvement at all in his death, 439 00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,370 had been banished to a place beyond the German border. 440 00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:43,570 These inquiries were only allowed to exist in exile, away from the fears and preoccupations of Germany's postracial imaginary. 441 00:49:44,140 --> 00:49:48,610 As the smoke thin and the fire died, we open the shed doors to inspect the scene. 442 00:49:48,970 --> 00:49:55,810 We were shaken, but convinced neither the pigs flesh nor the mattress it had been laid upon resembled J-Lo's charred remains. 443 00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:03,459 Of course it wouldn't. I thought a body. This body does not just combust for legal reasons, having to do with the production of evidence. 444 00:50:03,460 --> 00:50:07,470 The results of the fire analysis could not be entered directly into evidence in the new trial, 445 00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:14,200 but that does not mean that Smirnoff's work was shoddy science in terms of the dimensions and materials of the cell air circulation, 446 00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,290 mattress materials, clothing on the body and alleged heat source. 447 00:50:17,590 --> 00:50:19,600 It was fairly accurate as a recreation. 448 00:50:20,890 --> 00:50:27,550 The outcome, presented at a press conference, raised doubts as to whether the assumed circumstances of his death were physically possible. 449 00:50:27,850 --> 00:50:38,049 And this is picture of the mattress in Northern Ireland with the cadaver on it. 450 00:50:38,050 --> 00:50:40,780 But you can't see anything. You just see flames at the press conference. 451 00:50:41,470 --> 00:50:48,640 And the press conference with this fire test was held in Germany and it attracted lots of attention, media attention. 452 00:50:48,940 --> 00:50:54,520 And it also is credited with getting the prosecutors to open a special investigation. 453 00:50:54,730 --> 00:50:59,260 This was after the police were charged with negligence and the special investigation 454 00:50:59,260 --> 00:51:04,510 was to look and see if there's any credit to the idea that it wasn't a suicide. 455 00:51:09,290 --> 00:51:16,640 That has ended. And just in two words, the special investigation was was closed down. 456 00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:17,930 During the process of that, 457 00:51:17,930 --> 00:51:25,730 one of the prosecutors in an internal letter wrote that he thought maybe there was third party involvement or not a suicide. 458 00:51:26,150 --> 00:51:33,290 But then then the investigation was taken from his office and transferred to a different prosecutor's office and closed down. 459 00:51:34,220 --> 00:51:42,830 New evidence commissioned by the Family, which was a reading of old CT scans, 460 00:51:42,830 --> 00:51:49,160 so computed tomography X-ray scans from 2005, but scans that had never been analysed. 461 00:51:49,430 --> 00:51:54,770 They were read and analysed by a clinic in Frankfurt, 462 00:51:55,340 --> 00:52:03,020 and the result of those scans was that the injuries that Gela sustained, what happened before he died. 463 00:52:03,380 --> 00:52:05,870 So a lot of the argument in court was that, well, 464 00:52:05,870 --> 00:52:12,840 these injuries could have happened to a person's dead body in the transport from one place to another. 465 00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:18,050 So a broken rib, a broken nose and an burst eardrum. 466 00:52:18,770 --> 00:52:23,780 And now also a broken internal sinus area, not medically trained, 467 00:52:23,780 --> 00:52:36,079 but those injuries and it has been argued that because he didn't have much adrenaline or that adrenaline, 468 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:40,219 the type of adrenaline, Neal, adrenaline in his system or sitting in his lungs. 469 00:52:40,220 --> 00:52:45,790 He's probably wasn't breathing or awake or alive when the fire happened. 470 00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:51,410 So those crucial pieces of evidence have been offered, but the investigation was not reopened. 471 00:52:51,410 --> 00:52:55,670 So there's been a new decision to keep the investigation closed despite those pieces of evidence. 472 00:52:57,350 --> 00:53:03,590 So that's part of the reason why we have a commission to look into the handling of the trial from beginning to end, 473 00:53:03,740 --> 00:53:10,850 which is a civilian led commission, mostly by lawyers and experts outside of Germany, but with some German experts involved. 474 00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:17,989 So the last part and just the last few minutes, because I think it's the more technical one, is the one where there's the question, 475 00:53:17,990 --> 00:53:26,900 it's what do we actually ask for when we demand human rights, particularly around the right to life, potentially at the European level? 476 00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:31,010 So we might have now exhausted the local remedies in Germany. 477 00:53:31,010 --> 00:53:34,880 So it might be time to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. What does that mean? 478 00:53:35,450 --> 00:53:39,230 So the right to life, as I explained, is the right not to be killed. 479 00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:43,760 And the language is everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. 480 00:53:43,790 --> 00:53:51,740 No one should be deprived of the right to life. Intentionally save the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime. 481 00:53:52,070 --> 00:53:54,440 Although the death penalty doesn't exist in Europe, 482 00:53:55,340 --> 00:54:00,800 deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when results from the use of force, 483 00:54:01,130 --> 00:54:06,590 which is no more than absolutely necessary in defence of a person from unlawful violence in order to 484 00:54:06,590 --> 00:54:11,750 effect a lawful arrest or in an action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection. 485 00:54:12,260 --> 00:54:20,660 So those provisions allow for policing related deaths or legally authorised killings, 486 00:54:20,780 --> 00:54:28,459 as I think the UK language is to take place in the context where there's defence of one person against another, 487 00:54:28,460 --> 00:54:33,710 or in a policing type situation like those the. 488 00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:41,870 Some of the caselaw that's relevant is that safeguards need to be practical and effective. 489 00:54:41,900 --> 00:54:44,190 That's McCann case versus the U.K. 490 00:54:44,660 --> 00:54:54,770 There's a prohibition on intentional deprivation of life, subject to strict exceptions, and the right to life also applies to near-death situations. 491 00:54:55,580 --> 00:55:00,630 I'll mention there's Article three, which is the right not to be treated inhumanely or tortured, and that's a separate article. 492 00:55:00,650 --> 00:55:10,190 So you can raise both of those depending on the case. Then there's the. 493 00:55:13,340 --> 00:55:16,270 The policing death, the specific types of cases. 494 00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:21,470 So the burden is on the government to provide a plausible explanation, explanation as to how the person died. 495 00:55:21,870 --> 00:55:25,750 And in the German case, a very telling would be the explanation was he killed himself. 496 00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,770 We've done an evidential analysis and that's the answer. 497 00:55:28,790 --> 00:55:35,420 So that would be the government's response potentially. And specific techniques that hasten death are understood to violate Article two. 498 00:55:35,450 --> 00:55:43,430 So positional asphyxiation, which is very common as a term in this context, in the UK context. 499 00:55:46,580 --> 00:55:53,930 But we also have a different prong of Article two, which isn't just how the person died, but how the death was investigated. 500 00:55:54,350 --> 00:55:59,479 So the obligation to investigate is a separate procedural grounds. 501 00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:07,460 Procedural grounds for a violation of the right to life investigation has to be independent, adequate, 502 00:56:07,790 --> 00:56:15,170 which means it has to be capable of gathering evidence and determining whether the police behaviour was unlawful has to be prompt. 503 00:56:15,890 --> 00:56:19,910 There should be a for next to promptness should be prompt. 504 00:56:20,390 --> 00:56:22,219 There has to be able to be public scrutiny, 505 00:56:22,220 --> 00:56:27,260 which means procedures and decision making should be open and transparent in order to ensure accountability. 506 00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:31,880 And there has to be victim involvement in at least the complaint. 507 00:56:33,260 --> 00:56:39,140 I'll also mention that in Germany there is no inquest process. There is only the prosecution. 508 00:56:39,470 --> 00:56:44,380 And there's a potential special investigation by by prosecutors, which is very rare. 509 00:56:44,810 --> 00:56:52,790 And there's a parliamentary inquiry process which isn't a cardinal coronial coroner's inquest. 510 00:56:53,210 --> 00:57:00,980 It is a parliamentary parliamentary investigation into the evidence that exists in the case, which is also not very common. 511 00:57:03,140 --> 00:57:10,010 I already mentioned Article 14 can work in conjunction with Article two in order to argue that there's 512 00:57:10,010 --> 00:57:15,830 been a violation of the person's rights or discriminatory reason or in a discriminatory manner. 513 00:57:17,750 --> 00:57:21,590 And that is also an additional line of reasoning. 514 00:57:21,620 --> 00:57:24,740 So one has to actually have a mode of reasoning, 515 00:57:25,430 --> 00:57:32,690 three examples that show that this is possible to achieve but but might indicate 516 00:57:32,690 --> 00:57:37,550 that it's difficult to achieve for the Jalloh case or not versus Bulgaria, 517 00:57:38,210 --> 00:57:42,980 which is seen as one of the leading cases in policing and race. 518 00:57:43,670 --> 00:57:55,820 But in that case, Roma military workers were shot by military police who were screaming, You gypsies, you damn gypsies screaming, but translated. 519 00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:06,910 And that also shows that the the background of the the men was known to police. 520 00:58:09,010 --> 00:58:12,760 And so there was seem to be a violation of articles two and 14. 521 00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:18,220 But the violation of Article 14, the discrimination was not for the actual killing. 522 00:58:18,490 --> 00:58:22,810 It was for the failure to follow up on whether there are racist motives. 523 00:58:23,260 --> 00:58:33,309 So it just shows that there is there are different ways that the court will interpret whether those comments by police was 524 00:58:33,310 --> 00:58:43,000 itself a form of showing that the murders were happening or the killings were happening with a racial intent or racial gaze. 525 00:58:44,010 --> 00:58:52,330 So whether it's simply that the investigation didn't do enough to follow up the backhoes versus Chris and the Angelo versus Bulgaria's case, 526 00:58:52,570 --> 00:58:57,520 cases are similar in as much as Article three and Article two. 527 00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:03,920 Were violated along with Article 14, but only for the investigation. 528 00:59:04,570 --> 00:59:05,670 For the Becca's case, 529 00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:15,610 there was a lack of follow up after there was a policing survey and the police were seen to have acted in a similarly racist way by by 30 testimonies. 530 00:59:16,450 --> 00:59:22,330 And the Angelo the case was a case where it was dragged out so long that, you know, 531 00:59:22,540 --> 00:59:31,230 a killing of a Roma man by a group of teenagers should have been investigated really early on, especially if there was racist intent. 532 00:59:31,270 --> 00:59:35,980 It should have been at least interrogated early on and that it took over ten years. 533 00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:42,730 So it's difficult to bring these types of cases to the FCC. 534 00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:53,610 H.R. takes a long time. Prosecutorial power in in Germany and possibly elsewhere in Europe means that you can exhaust local remedies, 535 00:59:53,610 --> 00:59:58,350 and it can look very much like there's been an adequate attention given to the details of the case. 536 00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:02,040 But there hasn't perhaps been as much family involvement. 537 01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:10,320 There hasn't been perhaps a way to introduce evidence that would actually speak to the broader claims being made. 538 01:00:11,490 --> 01:00:21,810 And there's a high bar in showing an actual racial in the actual killing, having a racial undertone. 539 01:00:22,380 --> 01:00:29,310 And perhaps it's easier to show that there's been a lack of of attention to race or racism in the investigation. 540 01:00:30,730 --> 01:00:34,959 But what do we want from that? What do we want then to show? 541 01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:44,680 If we can show that the investigation into the racism that potentially is kind of pervading these cases exists. 542 01:00:45,370 --> 01:00:48,880 What is the outcome of that? And for some, 543 01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:56,319 it means that the investigation or a consistent lack of attention to racism in 544 01:00:56,320 --> 01:01:00,700 investigations can be a sign that something needs to change in the domestic sphere. 545 01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:10,540 The HHR would probably not be in a position to give a direct course of action to what countries need to do to remedy that. 546 01:01:11,290 --> 01:01:21,790 And there's a big margin of appreciation. But then the question is how activists and families can use a judgement like this to spur, 547 01:01:22,180 --> 01:01:25,780 you know, a different approach within their national jurisdictions. 548 01:01:26,110 --> 01:01:29,499 So just in the final note on what exists in the U.K., 549 01:01:29,500 --> 01:01:40,800 there's a mandatory Article two inquest investigation by the IPCC into misconduct by police prosecution brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, 550 01:01:41,260 --> 01:01:48,969 a civil suit brought by families or those left behind, and a potential inquiry, 551 01:01:48,970 --> 01:01:54,100 a public inquiry around certain types of death, like with the Stephen Lawrence death. 552 01:01:56,430 --> 01:02:02,360 In France, there's a service inspection held by the Ministry of the Interior, but it's independent. 553 01:02:02,370 --> 01:02:07,740 It's independent of the police, and it can be called by any victim of police violence. 554 01:02:08,940 --> 01:02:14,210 I'm not sure how effective this is. There's also an independent commission that can be called through and peace. 555 01:02:14,220 --> 01:02:17,010 But again, that's at a parliamentary level. 556 01:02:18,930 --> 01:02:30,149 And in Spain, there's and again, I don't know the Spanish context, and my colleagues might know there's alliances with the, you know, 557 01:02:30,150 --> 01:02:39,940 the La Policia Nationale, which has the usual norms restricting the lethal violence like we saw with the language from Article two. 558 01:02:40,830 --> 01:02:49,920 And then there's Article 62 of paragraph two, paragraph two, which notes that that in cases where policing activity constitutes a crime, 559 01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:53,090 the district attorney is not able to determine the nature of the crime. 560 01:02:53,100 --> 01:02:57,030 Instead, the relevant judicial authority has to conduct an independent investigation. 561 01:02:58,290 --> 01:03:01,350 And I'm not sure what independence in this context could mean. 562 01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:03,960 So that's a question that I, I have to to research. 563 01:03:05,220 --> 01:03:15,780 While in Germany, as I mentioned, the the public prosecutor really has the only power to draft the charges that go forward. 564 01:03:15,780 --> 01:03:21,780 And the family is given a role as the secondary claimant that they can clear. 565 01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:25,979 But this role, I mean, maybe to put it controversially, 566 01:03:25,980 --> 01:03:36,719 maybe that's a way of allowing them to have just enough input not to make a big not to make a big impact on the direction of the case. 567 01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:42,870 So it's not a full civil and it's not the ability to bring a full civil case where they could at least ask broader questions. 568 01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:44,909 And given that there's no inquest, 569 01:03:44,910 --> 01:03:55,920 the only real avenue for the activists and family members outside of a special prosecutorial investigation is to take matters into their own hands, 570 01:03:55,920 --> 01:04:05,760 create the evidence, the persuasive arguments, bring the media into it, and get a forum set up that resembles kind of the evidentiary fora of the law, 571 01:04:06,210 --> 01:04:11,220 but brings the law into the discussion in a in a public forum. 572 01:04:11,700 --> 01:04:14,340 So that's what's been essentially happening. 573 01:04:15,210 --> 01:04:26,280 And lastly, they've set up this commission of which I'm a part to try to to get experts from different other areas to give comparative input, 574 01:04:26,940 --> 01:04:34,079 but not only in law, in activism. So there are activists who are a part of the commission and an academic input. 575 01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:41,550 So sociologists and those of us who are looking at the law, but from a bit of more academic standpoint, 576 01:04:41,610 --> 01:04:45,959 to look at broader issues, not simply the facts of the case forward, 577 01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:55,350 but looking at the broader context of how it is that the institutions aren't able to deal with the claims about structural 578 01:04:55,350 --> 01:05:04,260 racism within legal institutions and how to potentially make it a broader discussion and take it outside as a legal forum. 579 01:05:06,020 --> 01:05:10,640 So I guess I'll stop there. I think I'm over time. Thank you very much.