A note from #RokiaTraore –  beginning this week 20 – 2020

One more failure in my quest for justice in Europe, but I am still standing.

The department for justice of the European Commission has responded to us: “(…) I regret to inform you that the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty on European Union do not give to the Commission the power to intervene with a Member State which would be exercised outside the application of Union law. The elements that you raise seem to me to have no direct link with the implementation of Union law in Belgium (…)”
This failure of a hope for justice came after the news of the forfeiture of my right to appeal by Belgian justice. The hope that in court of cassation, France, within the framework of a European arrest warrant, will dissociate from Belgium is very unlikely. Attempts to separate my children by taking them in Mali while I was legally trapped in Europe were under way. Ultimately the whole purpose of this judicial operation, unfounded from the start, was this hostage-taking and this European legal blackmail.

I am a mother who protects her children. So, I packed my bags, I headed for the airport, I took a private plane completely legally. Under the protection that my Malian diplomatic passport gives me, I left France. Six hours later, I was in Bamako at home with my children.

This same diplomatic passport, coupled with a mission order, gave me diplomatic immunity when I arrived in France on March 10, 2020 when I was arrested off the plane because of the European arrest warrant. I immediately gave my mission order and my Malian diplomatic passport to the police. This diplomatic immunity at several stages of the procedure was denied to me and the final argument of the prosecutor was that the mission order signed on March 6, 2020 in Bamako by the Ministry of Malian culture had not been reported to the French Foreign affairs ministry until after my arrest and because of this the court did not recognize my diplomatic immunity. He told me that it was not enough to write “diplomatic” on a passport for it to be one.
I am a single mother in charge of two children who have no daily financial and practical support other than their mother.

Belgium has estimated its jurisdiction was competent to rule over the custody of a Malian and Belgian child who has lived in Mali with his Malian mother for several years.
As a mother taking her responsibilities, I responded to justice by going back and forth from Mali to Belgium, and by constituting lawyers to respond to Belgian justice.
France, by virtue of the European arrest warrant, must cooperate with Belgium and cannot look into the substance of the case, therefore the documents attesting the Malian residence and citizenship of the child cannot be taken into account by French justice which imprisoned me then granted me a conditional release. I have been sequestrated in France while Belgium operates a blackmail asking me to deliver my daughter in exchange of my freedom.

Belgium is a sovereign state, France is a sovereign state. Therefore, the justice department of the European Commission cannot do anything for me and my children.
Mali, our country, is a sovereign state which has legally welcomed back a Malian artist with diplomatic status.

Today I am at home with my children, happy to finally be able to be with them in the context of an international pandemic which is extremely traumatic for all the children of the world.

I will continue to respond through my lawyers to the European justice systems.

Rokia Traoré

A note from me

Rokia, you’re so right
Protecting your child turns in to an ugly fight
International diplomatique injustice is put upon you with force
Where the right of the child is forgotten of course

You took time to truly understand 
The betrayel of yourself, your child and your land
This triple injustice must end

Rokia Traore is only free when she is cleared of all charges, kidnapping of her own daughter. The father only makes a claim after 5 years and wants the exclusive right over his child. His daughter was born in Begium, but grew up most of the time in Mali, West Africa. The girl must therefore be torn away from her mother, because the court of Belgium decides that the father has sole right. This is not in the best interest of the child.

Now the mother has to go to prison for 5 years and pay a high sum of money for someone who lives in one of the poorest countries in the world. A country that is also been torn apart by extremists since 2012.

Rokia is an example for Mali, an ambassador, who takes Mali’s music to a higher level, which gives women hope.
The fact that an international arrest warrant has been issued, which is only intended for serious criminals and terrorists, says enough about the unlawful use of these means by Belgium against a single mother who protects her child.

 

A song by this fantastic singer herself with the request to share her music as much as possible

I thought of a song from Labi Siffre that I want to share

Stay save and stay sane
Let lover rule