Your brother has died in the hands of the police.

The interpellation was performed in two stages. First on the street, they hit violently. To take care of himself, he fled to the house of a friend who lived near him. The gendarmes entered the apartment and continued violently. The gendarme, with his stomach glued to the outsole, carried them on top, in total about 250 kilos. It is known that this technique of abdominal platelet leads to death in 90%. It is prohibited in several localities. That day they decided they would kill Adama. They put him in the car, he urinated on him, unable to breathe, smelly. The hospital was located 200 meters high, but was moved to the gendarmerie, which was five minutes away. We were told that Adama had been given the first care; we soon realized it was a lie, thanks to what the fire brigade and the emergency medical service said. My brother's death was officially declared at 19:05 hours yesterday.

The version of the gendarmes is therefore very false.

Adama's mother went to the gendarmerie about 21:00 hours. He told the gendarmes that his son had heard that he had had an attack, and they refused to check that the son was OK but that it was too late. A phrase from the mothers who know the police violence answered: “If something has happened to my son, I’m going to denounce you.” They said Adama's death was due to an infection and the influence of alcohol and drugs. That is what Versailles Attorney Yves Jannier says. We asked for the autopsy. Three days later, the autopsy confirms what the prosecutor told us.

You asked for the second autopsy.

We must be aware that on the day of the first autopsy we were called to the prefecture of Cergy Pontoise. The prefect and someone else received us. Since we belonged to the Muslim confession and the corpses have to be buried three days after the death, contacted Air France and the Roisy airport, we were told that the body could go to Mali the following day, adding that those without a passport would be given a passport. We reject Fermuki and demand a second autopsy. This shows that Adama has not died from a serious infection, nor under the effects of alcohol or the drug, but has died from a state of agitation. On July 22, several independent experts confirmed Adama's death by suffocation.

You have managed to bring the case to light.

Public opinion is with us, the Adama theme brings people together. Our cry goes beyond working-class neighborhoods, and that bothers them. We suffer anger, repression and humiliation. Since then, I have two brothers in prison, and they wanted to sue me, too. In the book Lettre à Adama we have told everything. The thread of barbarism is proportional to our mobilization. They wanted to criminalize my brother, we have made him a symbol. As far as police violence is concerned, France is a machine for filing cases. They did not want the truth of 22 July to be made public and for that we had to silence ourselves.

It goes beyond Adama.

I'm not a militant, I mean Adama's sister. I hope that the voice of Adama's family will make things change. But we can't change everything alone, this struggle is collective. The fight for Adama is a reflection of France’s concern.

How do you explain this police violence?

We must return to the era of slavery in order to understand it. French colonialism is still there, entrenched. If you don't have the right skin color, you don't consider yourself a person. Through the struggle for my brother, we want to overcome that logic.

What do you say about French justice?

We don't just want justice for my brother. We want French justice to shoulder its responsibilities. For example, it must ban these stopping techniques. How are these techniques used, knowing that they lead to death? Adama died from the construction of these realities and ghosts that French society and the State attribute to our neighborhoods. My brother died because he was black, because he was called Adama Traoré, because he lived in the working-class neighborhood. We fight for the right to live in dignity, without being controlled five times a day. The police steal courtesy from us when he enters the neighborhood.

Although you can't generalize, how do you see the youth in those neighborhoods?

Angry and desperate. The other time I was in Bordeaux, and I heard a young man’s cry for anger. I wanted to tell him that I heard it, but we couldn't give in. We have to keep fighting, because if some have fought and died in order to achieve today’s rights, we too have to do the same, so that we can live without fear tomorrow. We have to accept the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity that France exalts.