Thousands March in Paris to Support Family of Migrant Who Died in Police Custody

Chanting "We are not against the police, we are against the police that kill us," several thousand people marched on Sunday in Paris to support the family of El Hacen Diarra, a Mauritanian man who died in police custody during the night of January 14 to 15.

A week after a first gathering, a crowd of grieving faces assembled at the foot of the migrant workers' hostel in the northeast of the French capital, where the man in his thirties lived and in front of which he was violently arrested.

Behind a banner demanding "Justice" for El Hacen Diarra and wishing "peace to his soul," several family members wore black t-shirts demanding "Justice and Truth" in white letters. Several organizers spoke, including Assa Traoré, a prominent figure in the fight against police violence.

"It hurts very, very much," confided his cousin, Diankou Sissoko. "We are here because it is our duty; we are his family. But I don't believe at all that there will be justice. Because before El Hacen died, there were already other deaths, and there was never any justice," she said in a calm voice.

"My cousin was someone kind, smiling, reserved," she described. "Someone quiet," essentially, she added, saying she was "really surprised" by the police account depicting him as "aggressive."

The police version is under investigation. In a video captured by a neighbor, two police officers can be made out, one of whom, on his knees, punches El Hacen Diarra twice while he is pinned to the ground. He can be heard screaming: "You are strangling me!", according to audio analysis conducted by the deceased's family. Taken to the station, El Hacen Diarra, 35, died there.

An investigation has been opened and additional post-mortem examinations have been ordered. The two officers who arrested El Hacen Diarra "are still on active duty," explained local elected official Anne Baudonne. "We do not understand why the Minister of the Interior did not find it legitimate to suspend them."

"Nothing indicates, at this stage, what the causes of death are," responded French Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez in an interview on Sunday with the newspaper Le Parisien, adding that "the officer who, in the footage, throws two punches, will have to explain himself."