Corsican prisoner Yvan Colonna was assaulted by an Islamist prisoner last week in Arles prison. The protesters blame the French government’s prison policy.
Thousands of people10,000 according to the organizers and 7,000 according to the police, have participated this Sunday in the manifestation called by trade unions, Corsican nationalist parties and the student movement in Bastia to protest the brutal attack suffered a week ago by the Corsican prisoner Yvan Colonna at the hands of an Islamist prisoner in Arles prison. Colonna, 61, has been in a coma ever since.
The aggression has had great repercussions in Corsica and for a week demonstrations and protests have multiplied in denouncement of the aggression, in defense of the “rights of political prisoners”, the approach of prisoners to prisons in Corsica and demanding a political penitentiary different from the French Government.
The French National Antiterrorist Prosecutor’s Office, for its part, has decided investigate as an attack Colonna’s attack, when Franck Elong Abe, a 36-year-old jihadist detained in Afghanistan by US forces in 2012, tried to strangle him.
The assailant explained to investigators that Colonna had uttered “blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.” He surprised her in the weight room of the prison gym, where he beat and strangled her.
The 61-year-old victim is in a coma in hospital and fears for his life. Colonna was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for the murder of Corsican prefect Claude Erignac in 1998.
¿¿Important demonstrations in Corsica in support of Yvan Colonna and the “political prisoners”.pic.twitter.com/AGN3fCfsnj
— Deciphering the War (@descifraguerra) March 13, 2022
Incidents in Bastia
After the afternoon demonstration, groups of protesters have clashed with the security forces in Bastia, throwing objects, homemade bombs and Molotov cocktails, with no reports of injuries so far. Security forces have responded with tear gas.
After the police intervention in front of the headquarters of the Prefecture in Bastia, the demonstrators have dispersed through the surrounding streets.
Source: Eitb
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