The French publishing house La Fabrique denounced on Tuesday the arrest of one of its collaborators who had opposed a check on his arrival in London for a literary fair, claiming to have been questioned about his participation in demonstrations.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police in London confirmed the check Monday evening around 7:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. GMT) of a 28-year-old man at Saint-Pancras station where Eurostar trains arrive from Paris, under section of the Terrorism Act 2000 permitting the questioning of travelers crossing the border.
Tuesday, “the man was taken into custody, suspected of having voluntarily opposed a control (…) and remains in detention”, he added.
He was eventually released on bail, the spokesperson said late in the afternoon.
In a press release, La Fabrique assures that its collaborator, Ernest, responsible for foreign rights, went to the London Book Fair and was placed in police custody for having refused to provide the police with his access codes to his telephone. and his laptop.
“To justify this decision, the police argued that Ernest would have participated in demonstrations in France. Such a statement from a British police officer is completely nonsense and seems to clearly indicate complicity with the French authorities” , denounced the editor.
La Fabrique is an independent publisher committed to the left, which publishes in France essays by collectives, the American activist Angela Davis or the French philosophers Jacques Rancière or Frédéric Lordon.
Among his latest books, an essay on “Sciences-Po” as a school of domination and another on how to “decolonize” museums.
The British journalists’ union NUJ denounced an “extremely worrying” arrest.
“It seems extraordinary that the UK police would act in this way citing terrorism legislation to arrest a publisher who has come for legitimate business reasons.”
Protest rallies were planned for Tuesday evening outside the British Embassy in Paris and the French Institute in London.
04/18/2023 20:37:05 – London (AFP) – © 2023 AFP