PARIS: A Paris court on Saturday banned a protest against police violence in the capital as tensions persist following riots earlier this month over the police killing of a teenager.

Authorities have attempted to clamp down on demonstrations to avoid further chaos after the week of riots saw massive destruction to public and private property.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had announced the ban on Wednesday of any protest “directly linked to the riots” that followed the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel during a traffic stop.

A video of a police officer shooting the teen at point-blank range went viral, fuelling old tensions over police brutality and racism in the country. An administrative court in Paris upheld the ban on Saturday, after a last-ditch effort by protest organisers to appeal the decision.

“Given the very recent nature of the serious riots”, a lack of police availability, and the risk of disturbances, the judges ruled that banning the protest was the only option.

Lucie Simon, a lawyer for the protest organisers — made up of a grouping against police violence and other associations — accused authorities of “impeding all channels of democratic expression of perfectly legitimate demands.”

Last Saturday, some 2,000 people defied a similar ban to join a memorial rally in central Paris for a young black man who died in police custody in 2016, while protests against police brutality took place around France.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2023