PARIS (AP) — Police in France have arrested three Algerian men described by authorities as social media influencers accused of posting videos inciting violence, against a backdrop of soured relations between Paris and its former colony in North Africa.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced the latest arrest Sunday evening — the third in as many days. A French media report that the minister attached to his post on X said the influencer posted a video to his 138,000 followers on TikTok that French authorities deemed anti-Semitic.
The arrest in Montpellier, southern France, and two others in the Alpine city of Grenoble and the western port city of Brest come amid renewed turbulence in the often complicated relationship between France and Algeria, which shook off French rule in 1962 after a brutal war.
A shift last July in France's decades-old position on the disputed Western Sahara region of northern Africa angered Algeria and prompted the withdrawal of its ambassador in Paris.
The French government, meanwhile, has denounced Algeria's detention since November of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who is an outspoken critic of the Algerian government.
The French government hasn't linked the tensions with Algiers to the three arrests.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday that France wants “the best relations” with Algeria. But he said Paris has doubts about the Algerian government's commitment to deals agreed in 2022 that were seen as important steps toward mending their relationship.
The first Algerian influencer arrested, a 25-year-old who reportedly had more than 400,000 followers on TikTok before his account was closed down, was detained Friday morning in Brest. He faces trial Feb. 24 in a Brest court on a charge of expressing support online for an act of terror, which is punishable by up to 7 years in prison, the Brittany port city's prosecutor said in a statement.
The statement said that during police questioning, the man acknowledged that he was the author of Arabic-language videos on TikTok that called for acts of terror in France and overseas. He told police that the videos targeted opponents of Algeria's government, the statement said.
The arrest of another Algerian, in Grenoble, was announced by the interior minister in a post on X on Friday night. The minister described the man as an influencer and said that “he too will have to answer to the courts for vile comments made on TikTok.”
At a court hearing on Monday, the man asked for more time to prepare his defense, Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant said. He faces a charge of inciting an act of terror online, also punishable by 7 years imprisonment, and will be kept in detention until he's tried on March 5, the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor's office in Montpellier didn't immediately respond to emailed questions about the arrest in that city.
FILE - French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau leaves the first cabinet meeting of the new government, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 at the Elysee Palace in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)
FILE - Soldiers patrol on the Champs-Elysees avenue Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year as a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenya struggles to contain rampant gang violence, officials said Tuesday.
The number of killings increased by more than 20% compared with all of 2023, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped, it said.
“These figures alone cannot capture the absolute horrors being perpetrated in Haiti, but they show the unremitting violence to which people are being subjected,” Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
Among the victims are two journalists and a police officer killed when gunmen opened fire on a crowd that gathered on Christmas Eve for the much-anticipated reopening of Haiti’s biggest public hospital, which gangs forced closed earlier this year.
Overall, gang violence has left more than 700,000 Haitians homeless in recent years, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
“I saw family members being murdered, and there was nothing I could do to save them,” recalled Garry Joseph, 55, who now lives in an abandoned government office with hundreds of others who fled their neighborhoods. “Everybody was running for their lives the night we had to leave.”
Last year's victims include more than 200 people killed in early December in a gang-controlled slum, many of them older Haitians, after a gang leader sought to avenge his son’s death following Vodou rituals, according to the U.N. It was one of the biggest massacres reported in Port-au-Prince in recent history.
“It’s time for them to die,” said Anita Jean-Marie of gang members. “They've made people’s lives unbearable.”
The 49-year-old mother of two boys lives in an overcrowded shelter after gangs chased them out of their home: “We don't know what they're fighting over.”
Among those killed last year are 315 suspected gang members or people associated with them who were lynched and more than 280 people killed by police in alleged summary executions, the U.N. said.
“It has long been clear that impunity for human rights violations and abuses, as well as corruption, remain prevalent in Haiti,” Türk said.
He called for more logistical and financial support for the U.N.-backed mission that began in early June as the U.S. and other countries called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
About 400 police officers from Kenya are leading the mission and were joined days ago by some 150 military police officers from Central America, the majority from Guatemala. Jamaica, Bahamas and Belize have sent a handful of personnel, while other nations including Barbados, Bangladesh and Chad have pledged to do the same, but it isn’t clear when they would be deployed.
The number remains far below the 2,500 officers expected for the mission.
In another blow to Haiti’s stability, Sunrise Airways announced Monday that it would temporarily suspend flights to and from the capital of Port-au-Prince, 85% of which is controlled by gangs. It did not provide a motive, saying only that the decision was based on circumstances out of its control, adding that the safety of passengers and crew members were a priority.
That leaves the country’s main international airport without any commercial flights for the third time this year.
“There is nowhere you can go,” Joseph said, noting that gangs also control all main roads entering and leaving Port-au-Prince and randomly open fire on public transport. “Nobody is safe in this country, especially in Port-au-Prince. ... Everybody is just counting their days.”
In November, the airport in Port-au-Prince closed after gangs opened fire and struck three planes, including a Spirit Airlines plane that was mid-flight, injuring a flight attendant.
While the airport has since reopened, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in December extended a ban on U.S. flights to Haiti’s capital until March 12 out of safety.
Rony Jean-Bernard, a 30-year-old former moto taxi driver now living in a crowded shelter, said gang violence has forced him to rely on handouts.
“I'm living on bread and sugar most of the time,” he said, noting that government officials stopped handing out free meals at his shelter about four months ago.
“Every day is like darkness,” Bernard said. “I can’t see where life is taking me with this government in place that is making promises that things will get better. I hear that every day.”
As violence keeps surging, Türk called on all nations to halt deportations to Haiti.
“The acute insecurity and resulting human rights crisis in the country simply do not allow for the safe, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians. And yet, deportations are continuing," he said.
Under the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, some 27,800 Haitians were deported, according to Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
Meanwhile, the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, deported more than a quarter million of people to Haiti last year as part of an ongoing crackdown on migrants.
Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
The wife of a journalist, who was shot during an armed gang attack on the General Hospital, cries as an ambulance arrives with his body, at a different hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
A wounded journalist talks on the phone while lying on the floor of the General Hospital, after being shot by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean Feguens Regala)
Journalists sit wounded after being shot by armed gangs at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean Feguens Regala)
