Body Search – Dark Nights

Some news about Ivan, an inmate in Villepinte prison (France, April 8, 2023)

Some news about Ivan

Hello,
I am writing to give some news about my detention and investigation.

The “attentions” that the prison administration (and/or the preliminary investigation judge?) show me continue. More reprisals for my hunger strikes? Who knows.

In any case, on February 14 there was the third search of my cell (after those of December 6 and January 9). Around 7:30 p.m. the ERIS (anti-terror cops) arrived, with helmets, balaclavas and shields. There were a dozen of them, one officer was holding papers, on the first one I could see my photograph. Ours was the only cell searched in this section (but they let a dog through the corridors), two other cells in another section, I don’t know in the other buildings. The prison warden, Michael Merci, and the assistant warden were also there, watching, from behind the glass doors.
As soon as we were out of the cell, they handcuffed us, me and my concellino (who had been here in the section for just a week) and took us to the shower room, on the ground floor, for the traditional body search. We were locked in the showers during the two-hour cell search.
They found a cell phone with a charger. On Tuesday, March 21, I then went to the disciplinary board. As punishment, I am deprived of the spesina for 30 days.

On March 30, same thing. The ELAC (the prison security “squad”) arrived and the story started again.

As for the investigation, in recent months new elements have been incorporated into the dossier.
The most significant is that the police were able to gain access to my computers, even though they were encrypted.
The one at work, on which Windows is installed, is encrypted with BitLocker. A report incorporated with the file earlier says that they had already tried to access it during my police detention, but had not succeeded. But in September, the Brigade d’appui en téléphonie, cyber-investigation et analyse criminelle (Brigade of support in telephony, cyber-investigation and criminal analysis) sent SDAT a copy of the hard drive. In the report, they explain only that they booted the computer with a USB stick and then used the AccesData FTK imager 3.3.05 program to copy the hard disk. But they do not mention the decryption operation itself.

My personal computer, running Ubuntu 18, is encrypted with Luks (the password is more than twenty characters: letters, digits, punctuation marks…). I did not find in the file any indication of the means they used to decrypt it, but again they made a copy of the hard drive. There are even files that had been deleted and e-mails that had been downloaded with Thunderbird (and then deleted).
They found nothing that could be related to the fires I am accused of. But I think the very fact that they were able to have access to encrypted hard drives with programs supposed to be inviolable should be known as widely as possible.

My mail continues to be severely slowed down (on average, I receive letters a month and a half to two months after they are mailed): the preliminary investigation judge reads all the letters I get and write. Four of my letters were photocopied and incorporated into the file: two that I had written to people from the anti-prison magazine l'”Envolée,” one addressed to Boris (the comrade from Besançon who is in the hospital following the fire in his cell, in the Nancy prison, in August 2021) and the one, addressed to the Gare, near Bure, in which I explained that in “my” dossier appears the complaint that the editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper l'”Est Républicain” filed against the administrators of the website burebure. info for reproducing the claim of a car fire at the newspaper (a fire for which I am accused)

Otherwise, my preventive detention has been extended until mid-June.

I am fine, my spirits are high and I am sorry I cannot be in the square these days.
A thought in solidarity for Alfredo (and all the compas in prison).
Solidarity is the attack!
Long live anarchy!

Ivan
April 8, 2023

* * *

Comrade’s address:

Ivan Alocco
N. d’ecrou 46355
Maison d’Arrêt de Villepinte
40, Avenue Vauban
93420 Villepinte
France

Source: La Nemesi

A few weeks ago at San Miguel prison, the visiting and entrustment schedule was modified due to the cessation of COVID19 preventive measures. This adjustment consists of: One day of parcels (toiletries and clothing) and two days of visitation, with the condition that only the visit that is during the week is allowed the delivery of food from the outside (food bowls with food, fruits, snacks, among others).

Today, Wednesday, October 19, the prison only had 5 officials to carry out the protocol review, both of people and food. The visiting hours provided is from 09.00 to 11.30 hrs, at about 11.20 hrs there were still colleagues in the visiting area waiting to let in their relatives, even when the bell rang at the end of the visit, not all family members had entered, the right to visit was denied and they were only allowed to receive the bags with food and the family member had to leave immediately, in some cases the visit did not last more than 10 minutes.

To make the situation worse, the gendarmerie officers who carried out the body search protocol demanded that the people undress, forced the women to lower their underwear to make a vaginal inspection with a paddle that rubbed all those who were subdued, threatening that they would not let them enter if they did not give in. I speak of subjugation at this particular point since stripping is a totally forbidden practice and the sensors must be worn over the clothes. Under no circumstances can women be required to show their breasts, vagina or anus, since that is what the digital sensors are for. Faced with this situation, the officials responded that it is part of the protocol, that it has always been like that, when they were summoned regarding an informative poster that exists outside the prison about the body search, they responded that it was “old”, that it no longer exists.

We cannot continue to allow humiliation and denigration to be customary, although these practices have been normalized in the prison daily life, we must not allow them to continue or to go unnoticed, because this is how the jailers exceed their functions, turning the visit into a humiliating experience, totally humiliating. We should not continue to compromise our dignity just so that the jailer will grant us a visit, visits are NOT a benefit and we do not owe them thanks, they are a right explicitly stated in the Prison Regulations.
All these experiences are common in prisons throughout the territory, even I myself lived it when I visited other prisons. It is up to us to do something about it and not let these abusive practices continue!

Mawvnhko.

Source: Publicacion Refractario

Tag: Body Search

France: Some news about Ivan, an inmate in Villepinte prison

Chile: Words of Mawvnhko. Public statement on the repeated violation of visiting rights and body search protocols