#Balancetonbar: an investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor – The HuffPost

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VIOLENCE – A movement born in Belgium and which finds an echo in France. While the hashtag #Balancetonbar was launched in Brussels a few weeks ago, the testimonies accumulate on social networks. On this side of the border, the word sharp has also taken off, to such an extent that the new Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, has decided to open an investigation.

“Balance your bar” is a movement inviting the opening of speech on establishments where several people have been drugged without their knowledge at GHB, also called “rapist’s drug”, before being victims of assault or rape.

Toxicological analyzes of the complainants

“A number of complaints were received at the prosecution, announced Laure Beccuau on RTL this Wednesday, November 17. We currently have nine complaints ”. The latter are all concentrated in the Pigalle district in Paris, according to the media.

“We started these surveys on November 8th, so it’s really quite recent. What we are in the process of accomplishing are all the toxicological analyzes of the complainants in order to find out whether they were indeed victims of what is called the administration of substances without consent. This means that the perpetrators can incur very significant penalties ”.

The investigation is, for the moment, “entrusted to the competent police stations. But it is not excluded that the judicial police services, if the phenomenon develops, be seized quickly ”, underlines Laure Beccuau.

The latter also wishes to “also say to these young women who frequent these festive establishments, the bars: ‘beware of these substances that can be introduced without your knowledge into your glasses” ”.

At 61, Laure Beccuau, in place for a month, is the first woman to head the Paris prosecutor’s office, one of the most sensitive positions in the judiciary. Since 2016, she has been a prosecutor in Créteil.

“Live without the weight of being in perpetual danger”

Activists at the origin of the hashtag questioned in a letter in early November the 19 mayors of the Brussels region. They have thus requested the support of the judiciary and the nightlife to fight against what they present as “Systemic sexual violence” in the bars and clubs of the Belgian capital.

“We demand to live without the burden of being in perpetual danger and in all places. We want a radical and immediate change, because this scourge has raged for too many centuries and we can no longer tolerate it ”, writes in this letter the collective baptized“ Inclusive and self-managed feminist union ”(Ufia), mixing associations and activists defending women and gender minorities (LGBTQIA +).

See also on The HuffPost: Weeding out potential perpetrators of sexual violence? The base, for these demonstrators