> « L’ensemble des membres de ce groupe se montraient particulièrement méfiants, ne communiquaient entre eux que par des applications cryptées, en particulier Signal, et procédaient au cryptage de leurs supports informatiques […]. »

Translated via DeepL: > "All the members of this group were particularly suspicious, communicating with each other only via encrypted applications, in particular Signal, and encrypting their computer media [...]".

Clandestine behavior, he says. Is the judge seriously thinking along the lines of “if you've got nothing to hide…” and associating ‘clandestine behavior’ to being a criminal? That's scary.

EDIT:

English language version of the first article (much thanks to @vanecx@mastodon.pirateparty.be):‌ https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-of-encryption-the-8-december-case/

[–] CynAq@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Holy moly, that's insane!

I do all of those things too because why wouldn't I?
Is there anything as to the outcome of the arrests? Also what was the reason in the first place for the police to be interested in these people?

[–] curiousmind@qoto.org 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@CynAq @bbbhltz @megane_kun Apparently, being a leftist in France + using encryption to protect privacy = Terrorist

[–] moreeni@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Truly the most democratic country in the world

[–] megane_kun@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The charges of terrorism are strongly rejected by the defendants. They denounce a political trial, a prosecution and a lack of evidence. In particular, they point to decontextualized remarks and the use of trivial facts (sports and digital practices, reading and listening to music...)[3]. For their part, the police acknowledged that by the end of the investigation - and ten months of intensive surveillance - no "precise project" had been identified[4].

The state has just been condemned for keeping the main defendant in solitary confinement for 16 months, from which he was only released after a 37-day hunger strike. A second complaint, awaiting trial, has been lodged against the repeated illegal strip-searches to which a defendant was subjected in pre-trial detention[5].

If those translations from DeepL are sufficiently accurate, at the very least, the main defendant was arrested has been held for 16 months.

As for the rationale, I suppose it's their relationship with the ‘far-left’ that have caught the police attention. There was a link to the French Wikipedia article on the arrests and the entire incident. From there, I gleaned that the ‘far-left’ relationship is with the YPG.

According to the Wikipedia article, there's still ongoing cases against the defendants.

I hope someone else who've got a better grasp of both the French langauge and the Rovaja/YPG situation give their two cents since I've got no idea.

[–] vanecx@mastodon.pirateparty.be 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@megane_kun the article by La Quadrature du Net actually has an english version: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-of-encryption-the-8-december-case/

@CynAq

[–] megane_kun@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you very much for that link! I didn't even realize there's an English version of the article. Again, thank you!

[–] jherazob 12 points 1 year ago

Yes, very bad precedent