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, fueling 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 organizers 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 in an order seen by AFP that banning the protest was the only option.
Lucie Simon, a lawyer for the protest organizers — 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 Saturday for a young black man who died in police custody in 2016, while protests against police brutality took place around France.
Anger as Paris bans protest against police violence
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Anger as Paris bans protest against police violence
- An administrative court in Paris upheld the ban on Saturday
- Lucie Simon, a lawyer for the protest organisers accused authorities of "impeding all channels of democratic expression of perfectly legitimate demands"
TikTok finalizes deal to form new American entity
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX to form the new TikTok US joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for US users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The deal marks the end of years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.
In addition to an emphasis on data protection, with US user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on US user data, the company said in its announcement.
Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX are the three managing investors, who each hold a 15 percent share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the joint venture.
