[Sandwich]

https://heatst.com/uk/exclusive-france-suppressed-news-of-gruesome-torture-at-bataclan-massacre/

I have no clue about the reliability or reputation of the above website, however they do link to the minutes of the inquiry commision meeting thing (or just here: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/rap-enq/r3922-t2.asp). Anyone speak French around here?

[X3N0-Life-Form]

That thing's a bloody doorstopper, but I'll try to have a look.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

OK, I've had a look.

They found mutilated bodies on the second floor, and it seems likely that the acts were filmed. It's ambiguous whether or not the victims were alive during the mutilations - someone was finishing people off with his AK, but given Daech's track record, it does seem likely in my opinion.

If you want find the section quoted in Sandwich's article:

Code: [Select]

udition, à huis clos, de fonctionnaires de la BAC de nuit du Val-de-Marne intervenus le 13 novembre 2015 : M. T.P., brigadier-chef, M. L. S., brigadier-chef, M. O. B., brigadier, M. N. B., gardien de la paix, M. A. D., gardien de la paix, et M. P. T., gardien de la paix

Audition, à huis clos, du lundi 21 mars 2016

Aside from that, the whole report is rather interesting so far, it contains all sorts of info and testimonies, giving a clear picture of what happened that night and in the aftermath.

[Black Wolf]

First link googling "Bataclan":

Rumours Bataclan terrorist attack included ‘gruesome torture’ debunked

[karajorma]

You do have to wonder who would be sick enough to make up a hoax about that incident.

[Blue Lion]

"The internet" springs to mind

[Bobboau]

if vids were made I would expect them to surface sooner or later, when I see them I might beleive this story. Things posted in heat street typically have no discernible relationship with reality.

[Sandwich]

They based their report on the inquiry testimony, so if someone's to blame for inaccuracies, I'd point fingers at the person who testified.

Granted, if there were mutilations being covered up, it'd make sense for officials to continue denying they ever happened.

This is why there's no replacement for seeing things for yourself.

[headdie]

You do have to wonder who would be sick enough to make up a hoax about that incident.

It's perfect propaganda material so I can see less morally restrained hate groups making this kind of stuff up to get fires going, especially with recent events it make a certain sense

[Bobboau]

It's a good thing european governments and media haven't been found to cover up things that make islam look bad or anything. Thereby giving a notion such as that asserted in the OP article some degree of plausibility.

[qwadtep]

I don't speak French, but I'll repost a choice excerpt someone else pointed out to me, courtesy of Google Translate. Make of it what you will.

M. Christian Sainte. Je ne peux guère m’avancer sur ce point, compte tenu de l’état de l’enquête, mais rien, en l’état actuel de mes connaissances, ne me permet de penser que ce qui vient d’être lu est juste. Je précise, pour que les choses soient claires, que certains des corps retrouvés au Bataclan étaient extrêmement mutilés par les explosions et par les armes, à tel point qu’il fut parfois difficile de reconstituer les corps démembrés. Autrement dit, les blessures que décrit ce père peuvent aussi avoir été causées par des armes automatiques, par les explosions ou par les projections de clous et de boulons qui en ont résulté.

M. le président Georges Fenech. On lui aurait mis ses testicules dans la bouche…

M. Christian Sainte. Je ne dispose pas de cette information et, si ces faits avaient été établis, je pense qu’une telle information ne m’aurait pas échappé.

"I can hardly move forward on this point, given the state of the investigation, but nothing in the present state of my knowledge allows me to think that what has just been read is right. I specify, for the sake of clarity, some of the bodies found at the Bataclan were extremely mutilated by the explosions and weapons, to the point that it was sometimes difficult to reconstruct the dismembered bodies. In other words, injuries described this father may also have been caused by automatic weapons by explosions or projections of nails and bolts that have resulted."

"It would have put his balls in his mouth..."

"I do not have that information and if these facts had been established, I think such information would not have escaped."

[Bobboau]

Because I'm sensing this thread might have legs, I think it should be important to establish a few things, this is not about ISIS or islam or even this terrorist attack directly. If people were tortured before they died here, it happened a year ago and we've had at least as many people killed in similar attacks since and I honestly have hit the bottom of my hatred for ISIS, I literally can't find them any more detestable than I already do. The only reason why I would care about this is I have yet to reach the bottom of my hatred for the governments of western democracies that are supposed to be representing and protecting us. If this story were to be true ISIS would not look any worse, because as I mentioned they are literally as perfectly, optimally bad as they could possibly be already. but what would it say about our governments? and what does it say that it's so easy to believe something like this could happen? So this is an allegation that should be treated with some degree of seriousness, even if it is being echoed by a source that has been known to be wrong many, many times in the past.

so I guess the question for now is, did a guy get found with his balls in his mouth at the scene of the Bataclan massacre? so far I have not seen any evidence to support such a conclusion. without that (or something similar) I don't think there is any way one could even say this was possible, let alone likely.

[Grizzly]

Granted, if there were mutilations being covered up, it'd make sense for officials to continue denying they ever happened.

It would make very little sense for witnesses to do that though, or for the supposed footage not to be released. If this truly did happen, ISIS would want us to know about it, as is their MO, and we would know.

Why would France want to cover that up though? This information, were it true, is not a threat to national security. Surpressing this for political reasons also makes very little sense: Such a horrific thing would only serve as a reason to pursue even more agressive action against ISIS, but France is already doing just that. The only real reason that springs to mind is to make the coping process easier for the victims. This goal, in my eyes understandable if not what I would do, is of very little strategic or political importance. It would not weigh up to the fallout of a cover up being discovered, and a cover up would be discovered eventually as France is not nearly as good as supressing information to it's citizens as more authoritarian countries are. The risk/reward balance is skewed very heavily towards the former.

And above analysis assumes that France is one country lead by an unified will, which it is not, making the entire process of covering up harder.

[Bobboau]

It would make very little sense for witnesses to do that though, or for the supposed footage not to be released. If this truly did happen, ISIS would want us to know about it, as is their MO, and we would know.

exactly. the only reason I can think of that they would sit on it would be to release it as part of some sort of push later, but I doubt that.

Why would France want to cover that up though?

as for a motive why they might hypothetically want to do this?
Lessen backlash against French Muslims.
Lessen the impact of the failure of government security/immigration/whathaveyou policies.

[Grizzly]

as for a motive why they might hypothetically want to do this?
Lessen backlash against French Muslims.
Lessen the impact of the failure of government security/immigration/whathaveyou policies.

I did consider those when I made that post but I found them to make as much sense as the "Increased agression against ISIS" one: Those two effects are already in play. From a risk/reward standpoint it makes no sense to surpress it.

[Sandwich]

It would make very little sense for witnesses to do that though, or for the supposed footage not to be released. If this truly did happen, ISIS would want us to know about it, as is their MO, and we would know.

Couple of things here.

First, regarding witnesses. From what I understand, the mutilations are alleged to have taken place on the second floor of the Bataclan theater. With terrorists roaming around, I highly doubt there were any live Parisians left on that floor to witness anything. Logically, they would have either fled or been murdered, and if there were witnesses alive at the time of the mutilations, I doubt they remained alive to testify afterwards.

Second, regarding ISIS "letting us know". The claim is that the mutilations were done and filmed for propaganda use. The thing is, there's an utterly incredible amount of propaganda being produced by the Arab world that the non-Arabic speaking world simply prefers to ignore. Case in point, the need for Palestinian Media Watch - an organization dedicated to monitoring, translating, and reporting on Palestinian propaganda: https://www.palwatch.org/

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not tying this to the Palestinians. I'm making a connection between Arabic-language media/propaganda, and the Western world's tendencies to ignore it altogether. So I'd not be surprised if ISIS uses that propaganda material in some Arabic-language production and it gets utterly ignored by the western media.

Then again, ISIS have proven to be quite brazen with their beheading videos, so perhaps they would show us the mutilations after all. Assuming, of course, that the report was accurate.

[Bobboau]

I dwell in many dark places on the internet, if that footage had been released I would have seen it.

Further, there was an attack on a German train last night, the footage has already been released by ISIS:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36832909

ISIS has every motivation to spread this, if they had it we wouldn't be having this conversation, we would be having a conversation where one group talks about the idea of islam and the other group acts like the first group was talking about every person with that idea.
i.e. "Islam did this!"/"not all muslims!".

[karajorma]

Well it is possible that video was shot and they didn't manage to upload it before the siege ended.


But yeah, it does seem unlikely that ISIS wouldn't release the footage in a way that means that people would have heard of this before.