When Mrs Josiane Tostée was arrested by the Raddhoa team notorious for torturing detainees, the Muvman Liberasyon Fam stood by her. We must all remember that this team arrested her, the mother of Vanessa Lagesse in 2001 in connection with the murder of her daughter. MLF saw, in her, a mother suffering at the hands of the most violent team in that most patriarchal of all hierarchies, the police force. We did this because the MLF and its members stand up against torture. We oppose it. We also stood by Mrs Martine Desmarais, a witness in this case, and Mrs Isabelle Maigrot, also arrested during this case.

We oppose this police practice of arresting everyone who is close to a murder victim, and then torturing him to extort what in Mauritius is referred to as ?a confession? although it has nothing to do with actually confessing. This confusion as to what confessing is has gone on too long now, and runs the risk of becoming a national psycho-pathology, as well as being a direct on-going cause of people publicly condoning torture without even realising that they are doing so. This same pattern of arrests was evident in the enquiry into the Bassin-Blanc double murder, when the brother, cousin and aunt of the murdered girl were all arrested and subjected to torture.

We, in the MLF oppose patriarchy?s rule. That is the aim of the women?s movement. And we see torture as the epicentre of organized patriarchal violence ? whoever it is practiced on. This is why MLF has stood by the Widows Topize and Ramlogun: not just because they are women, but because their husbands are men who suffered at the hands of patriarchy when they were killed by police officers trying to produce one of these artefacts mis-named ?confessions?.

Now, when the DPP has dropped all charges against Bernard Maigrot, everyone feigns total shock.

We in the MLF wish to draw the attention of the public, the press and the family of the victim, to the fact that the reason for the DPP dropping charges in this case is clear. Crystal clear. Torture was used against the accused, Bernard Maigrot. Remember? The so-called ?confession? was not a confession at all. It was one of those scurrilous artefacts produced by sadistic inquisitionists. We fail to understand the amnesia that seems to have set in about his torture.

This is particularly strange because torture was used not only against the parents, Mr and Mrs Tostée, not only against Mrs Desmarais, a witness that the State has since compensated for the torture she suffered, not only against Advocates Boccus and Speville whose client was at the ?reconstitution?, not only against Mrs Isabelle Maigrot, the wife of Bernard Maigrot (she was held in cells for eleven days), not only against Dr. Ménagé who prepared the medical report on the death for the family, but also against Bernard Maigrot, the man who was the dead woman?s lover. He was tortured in infinitely hideous ways. He was brutalized beyond imagination. By a team that had got totally out of control. Has everyone lost their memories?

In addition, the Preliminary Enquiry was public, and though press reporting was threadbare, there was unequivocal proof that Bernard Maigrot was tortured. This was attested to in two sets of medical evidence.

<I>«Mr. Maigrot was subjected to the notorious practice of getting his head pushed under water and held under until he started to drown.»</I>

And to make the amnesia all the more horrifying, the torture Bernard Maigrot suffered was of the same terrifying pattern as that used in many other thoroughly documented cases. It was by the very same MCIT team. Mr. Maigrot was subjected to the notorious practice of getting his head pushed under water and held under until he started to drown. His genitalia were even injured. Yet articles, even those written by men, who should be able to empathize with the pain and humiliation involved better than women can, forget even this. What is the matter with everyone? Has everyone forgotten that the same team were involved in 2006 in the death of Mr Ramlogun?

MLF is aware of no evidence whatsoever to link Bernard Maigrot to the death of Vanessa Lagesse once this artefact produced by means of torture is correctly dismissed. We fail to understand on what facts people believe that the DPP should prosecute.

As for the Magistrate at the Preliminary Hearing, he knows that, whatever he rules, it is in fact the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who decides. That is how it is. He chose perhaps not to face his moral responsibility, and to leave it to the DPP. The practice permits this. We in the MLF know this well, because we ran a campaign to get the DPP to put murder charges on the police officers who had custody over the late Reginald Topize (Kaya), when the Magistrate at the Judicial Inquiry had returned findings of ?No foul play?. We know, though we have no lawyer members at the moment, that the Magistrate?s decision does not signify that there will or will not be prosecution.

On the question of the DPP?s responsibility to the public, in the MLF we have again and again called for the DPP to be bound to argue decisions publicly. On this we agree with Mrs Anne Rogers, the sister of the late Vanessa Lagesse. We agree with Raj Meetharbhan, L?express editor. Even in cases like this one where it is so eminently clear why there are no charges, it would be useful that the arguments were spelt out. It would, for a start, prevent the kind of embarrassing stupidity we have seen exposed in the words of both journalists and family of the victim. This kind of confused ignorance is, however, not just embarrassing. It becomes dangerous when it can be used to mask the torture behind a supposed ?confession?.

And, the MLF, as a movement for the liberation of women, would like to conclude by making conscious the hidden reality behind some of the persistent insinuations against Bernard Maigrot. In a society riddled with hypocrisy around sexual mores, full of secrecy and lies around people?s love-lives, we must remember that Bernard Maigrot, a married man, saw his relationship with Vanessa Lagesse exposed in public. Is this what people hold against him? If so, we call on people to criticize him for this, if they think it is their business. How many men and women, when they see his infidelity exposed feel themselves cringe in dread in case they end up suffering a similar exposure one day of their own hidden sex-lives? What if in future some horrendous crime takes place rather too near to them, and the light of cameras comes and exposes in public their own hypocritical lives, their infidelities, their treacheries, their ?komeraz? or maybe even their secret loves? Is this perhaps what lies unconsciously beneath peoples? amnesia of the torture he suffered?

<I>«This kind of confused ignorance is, however, not just embarrassing. It becomes dangerous when it can be used to mask the torture behind a supposed ?confession?»</I>

For example, take a look at the caption under the photo of Bernard Maigrot and his family including his wife, in l?express of 3 June, taken after the DPP announced that he would not be prosecuted. It betrays the projection of fantasies on to the people in the picture: ?Bernard Maigrot entouré de sa famille, dont sa femme, à laquelle il peut pleinement se consacrer.? What is this strange phrase? It is most notable for the words left unsaid at its end, merely implied, and giving away what lies beneath peoples? ardent desire to see Bernard Maigrot charged with murder, even without there being an iota of evidence against him: he is guilty of breaking a social rule and of being found out when he did it. For this, they imply, he should have been charged ? no matter that there is no evidence of a criminal offence. For this he is being punished. For this, people forget about the torture he suffered at the hands of men paid with their own, our own, VAT-payers? money.

In conclusion, it must be said that the attitude in the press towards Bernard Maigrot seems definitely to stem more from this kind of moralizing and hypocrisy than from any objective evidence against him in the tragic, violent death of Vanessa Lagesse. This attitude helps produce inefficient enquiries, too. You?ve already got someone guilty of an extra-marital affair, why enquire properly into the facts of the murder? And unfortunately, this attitude also makes society forget that there was torture.

Torturers until recently had State backing and often social backing in all sorts of surprising places, even in parts of the Press. This impunity, after being exposed by so many brave witnesses over the past 10 years, had seemed to be beginning to end. We hope this amnesia about Bernard Maigrot?s torture is not the starting up all over again of a network for condoning torture. We hope it is not the first sign of the re-organizing of a new stage for a new team of blatant torturers and systematic cover-uppers, like the stage that existed for so long for the late Prem Raddhoa.

<B>Rajni Lallah, Cindy Clelie, Lindsey Collen MLF</B>