Virginie against the Leviathan: interview by Ariane Bilheran 1/2

A. Bilheran's Lucarne (Skylight), in Antipresse 398, July 16, 2023.

Website of Maître Virginie de Araújo-Recchia

What do you call a regime that makes lawyers complicit in the crimes their clients are accused of? A regime that criminalizes the expression of dissenting opinions, that sends its special services to arrest dissidents in the early hours, that "cooks" them incommunicado and arbitrarily confiscates their documents?

Some answers can be found in this astonishing interview conducted by Ariane Bilheran.

For Antipresse, I wanted to collect the testimony of Maître Virginie de Araújo-Recchia, whose situation illustrates the totalitarian drift we are facing, in that it jeopardizes not only the independence of lawyers, but also the very defense of any citizen who displeases the authorities for a simple crime of opinion. Maître Virginie de Araújo-Recchia, French lawyer, lecturer, author of the report "Dictatorship 2020, State terrorism, attack on the fundamental interests of the Nation and crime against humanity" (Nov. 2020) and The protection of minors in the face of totalitarian ideology. Sexual education and change of morals (book to be published), is a member of a collective of international lawyers who created the International Court of Public Opinion and participated in the sessions of the Grand Jury.

Virginie de Araújo-Recchia

She has undertaken more than twenty actions over the past three years, for individuals, associations and unions, at national, European and international levels, in order to defend public freedoms and fundamental rights. I remind readers that Ms Virginie de Araújo-Recchia gave a masterful speech at the Lisbon conference in September 2022 (see "The Portuguese conspiracy", AP355), and spoke to deliver her expertise at the conference "The totalitarian drift on children" that I organized alongside Amandine Lafargue on May 13, 2023 in Paris (see Ariane Bilheran: "The hidden face of transhumanism: sexual totalitarianism", AP382).

In this exclusive interview, the lawyer tells us about her arrest by the DGSI (Directorate General for Internal Security), which defines itself as "the only specialized French intelligence service under the Ministry of the Interior within the National Intelligence Community", and whose mission is to "fight against all activities likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation and national security. Its main missions are the fight against terrorism, the repression of all forms of foreign interference, the protection of the Nation's economic and scientific heritage, the fight against the cyber threat and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

We will see here to what extent the mobilization of such a service against a lawyer in the exercise of her functions still falls within the functioning of a State of Law.

PART ONE

What exactly happened to you during your arrest last year, which was widely reported in the official media?

I was in the process of drafting, on behalf of an association, a complaint concerning acts of sectarian excesses and crimes against humanity, which involved a political party. I had also just participated in the Grand Jury sessions with a team of international lawyers, in order to determine responsibilities in the context of the Covid crisis, thanks to the contributions of specialists in the various fields concerned (including yourself in psychology).

On March 22, 2022, at 6:40 a.m., twelve people in six cars burst into our garden. They banged on the door forcefully; the battering ram was ready to be used on the steps. There were two investigating judges, the Bar Association's representative, two hooded DGSI investigators, a hooded police officer from another department, two unhooded DGSI policewomen, two computer investigators, and two people who were not introduced (and whom I have not seen since). I would have liked to know who these two people were; I still wonder today: were they journalists?

The two investigating judges (I later discovered that they were two anti-terrorist investigating judges) searched all the personal and professional files themselves, without the Bar President's representative intervening, contrary to what is provided for in the context of searches of lawyers' offices. Everything was combed through: accounting files, personal documents, bank, family photographs, archives, notebooks, articles from the alternative press, which one of the investigating judges considered incriminating and which he kept.

Then they set up a system to check all the computer and telephone equipment that I used, as well as that of my husband. Most of it was sealed, without an expert being sent to take only what was relevant to the file in question, namely the file involving my client Mr. Rémy Daillet. It should be noted that to date, although some of my equipment has been returned by the services, two computers suffered during this operation, and an original hard drive from my office has never been returned to me (I only have a copy).

On the other hand, my husband, who is not affected by the search order and is a third party to the case, has not recovered his equipment, including his computer and mobile phone, even though he is an author and some of his author's works are only present on the computer in question. This has now been over a year. My husband sent a request to the investigating judge to recover his equipment. The judge refused to return it to him, even though he had assured me during my police custody, in the presence of the Bar's representative, that he would return the equipment within two weeks.

Today, in France, it is possible to forcefully enter private homes and take equipment without returning it for more than a year. What do you think this amounts to?

My husband is not affected by this action and I myself am not a party to the case (I am neither under investigation nor an assisting witness). I consider that this is a genuine attempt to harm and intimidate, given that my husband is a satirist, that one of the judges indicated that he was familiar with his series "Restez couchés!" and that he knew that he would be seriously prejudiced by the seizure of his professional equipment. As a result, he no longer has a family or professional telephone directory. This is truly scandalous, but that is how things work in France today.

After this search of our home and our vehicle, which took place in front of our young children (I did everything I could to keep them in their room and not see their mother surrounded by hooded men, but the search was too long to keep them safe from this traumatic intrusion, this violation of their home and their own rooms), I was taken to my office in Paris where nothing could be seized, then to Levallois Perret, to the DGSI premises 130 kilometers from my home. No one knew where I was for several hours.

What is new in the current way of doing things on the DGSI side?

In principle, and given the weakness of the case, I could simply be summoned to answer questions from the DGSI investigators. There was no point in sending a dozen people to my home, searching the lawyer that I am, and putting me in police custody for sixty hours in order to question me. Professional secrecy and the secrecy of correspondence and exchanges between lawyers and their clients must be respected in a "democracy".

Thus, once in the basement of the DGSI, I suffered various humiliation techniques intended to make me lose my bearings and my self-esteem; I will not go into all the details, but I notably had to have the bag over my head during the constant movements between the said premises and the Paris Judicial Court. I also spent part of my police custody in a cold cell equipped with fluorescent lights and cameras, without any hygiene, despite my requests. I alternated between the cell, the handcuffs and the absurd interrogations, which lasted about ten hours in total, while as a lawyer, professional secrecy, the secrecy of correspondence and exchanges prohibited me from revealing the elements of my client's file, with the exception of the elements strictly necessary for my own defense.

I would like to remind you that a human being has the right to respect for his dignity, especially when he is not guilty of anything: it would be good for civil servants to imbue themselves with this fundamental principle, but I felt that it was enjoyable - and even commanded - to humiliate myself.

How did your interrogation go and what are the consequences today?

From the beginning of the interrogation, I was told that I was being searched, detained and questioned, not as a lawyer, but as a private individual. This seemed surprising to me, knowing that I was the lawyer of the person under investigation as well as that of his political party, which was in the process of being formed.

I was also the lawyer for a collective of public forces concerned with safeguarding the freedom of the French, about which the investigator wanted to question me, even though the members of this collective have nothing to do with the other case, at least to my knowledge. This collective has never had any other function than to inform members of the public forces and the population, and to organize demonstrations for this purpose. There is no real reason to suspect them of terrorist acts, since they are representatives of public order.

I therefore maintained my position that, from the moment I am consulted as a lawyer and only as a lawyer, in the exclusively legal field, by what clever acrobatics could I be considered as an individual complicit in a terrorist act?

This was all the more surprising since my name as a lawyer had been cited that very morning in the mainstream press, with a great deal of defamatory, even insulting, terms, even though the other people taken into custody in the same case had not been named by the journalists.

The confidentiality of the investigation was blithely violated by the services involved, and my name, my position and my portrait were plastered all over the media, which are targeted in particular by one of the complaints that I am filing, on behalf of an association, against the media and social networks which manipulated the population through fear and terror, and spread propaganda during the Covid crisis.

My name, my portrait and my position were therefore plastered everywhere in order to bring me down socially. But, in the secrecy of the interrogations, it was only a question of my person as an individual. Given that I am not accused of anything other than having produced legal analyses and only legal analyses, by what miracle could I have committed or been an accomplice in an act of terrorism within the meaning of Article 421-1 of the Penal Code?

So where is the logic, is there not a fundamental contradiction here?

During the repeated interrogations, the questions I was asked showed that the point was clearly to accuse me of having committed a crime of opinion, since I was accused of everything. It was therefore not a question of any complicity in the act of terrorism targeted by the investigation, but rather of my opposition to the totalitarian regime that was being established.

I recall some questions that were asked of me, which were truly mind-blowing:

• Are you a patriot?

• What is the term conspiracy theorist?

• What do you think about the Muslim religion?

• What do you think about the Jewish religion?

• What do you think about 5G antennas?

• What do you think about pedophilia?

• What do you think of Freemasonry?

• Do you think ministers are connected to pedophile networks?

• What do you think of Emmanuel Macron?

• What measures lead you to say that these are crimes against humanity?

• What is the New World Order?

After about ten hours of interrogation, the moment came when the investigator presented me with evidence demonstrating that Mr. Rémy Daillet was indeed my client (an email with the usual formulas used between a lawyer and his client, a study of a draft law with a commentary in Law). My colleague in charge of my defense immediately requested the intervention of the president of the bar. We were astounded, both by the questions asked and by the subterfuge used to question me without me being able to oppose professional secrecy and the secrecy of correspondence.

I had nothing to reveal about my client anyway. I kept repeating that his political party was being formed, that I had taken on several cases on his behalf, including the submission of my report, drafted independently in November 2021, to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. We know what the situation is with these organizations today, but my client thought at the time that this could be the starting point for international criminal action.

The investigator, the prosecutor and the investigating judges therefore had proof from the start that this gentleman was indeed my client, and that I was indeed acting as a lawyer. They were able to discover other supporting documents during the examination of my computer data, which continued to confirm my statements from the start, without me ever being heard in this regard.

After presenting this evidence, I was sent back to my cell, still handcuffed. When I was due to be questioned again, I was abruptly released, without explanation and without seeing the investigating judge. I was escorted to a subway station. I was in a terrible state, completely dazed. Two of my colleagues helped me retrieve my computer equipment, which had been returned without any protection, and my husband had to come and get me.

Then, several hearings before the judge of liberties and detention took place in the presence of the prosecutor, the investigating judge and the representative of the president of the bar concerning the seizure of my data, which we contested from the outset.

An expert was appointed to conduct keyword searches, including the names of journalists, including Mr. Attali, which was surprising. At the end of the expert assessment, it was found that there was no evidence of an offense. During the hearing, the Bar's representative pointed out that even the search could be called into question in such circumstances.

When asked what the purpose of such a search and seizure was, the investigating judge replied that it was always interesting to have access to a lawyer's files and that he needed to draw up my "psychological portrait" (sic).

The investigating judge called me a conspiracy theorist, a QAnon member, especially during the hearings, without anyone objecting, even though, until proven otherwise, these are not legal qualifications. It would seem that newspeak has infiltrated the French justice system, where rigor, method, and rationality are expected.

I refute these qualifiers which, as you so rightly say, have been used since March 2020 to disqualify and dishonor others, without taking into account the analysis produced of the facts, especially when the person who is inveighing seems to have no knowledge of the subjects on which you have been working for months with experts from around the world.

After the expert report, the investigating judge also mentioned in one of his orders that I had been very virulent towards Jacques Attali and that I was involved in the fight against international pedophilia (a topic I had not yet addressed in my research; it should be noted that these accusations have led me to take an interest in it since!). I was stunned. None of my data, from the expert report or my public statements, allowed him to make such accusations. It is absolutely false and yet it is included in the file. This is a fraudulent alteration of the truth. Does this allow a message to be sent to the other magistrates so that my case is treated from a certain angle? I wonder. We therefore contested the seizure of the elements that the investigating judge wanted to include in the file (documents concerning other cases, exchanges between lawyers, photographs of my children contained in a written exchange with my husband, digital versions of books such as that of Claire Séverac, which had been sent to me, my public report among others).

This request was not motivated by the investigating judge at all. The documents were not checked one by one, even though I contested the seizure before the judge of liberties and detention. However, the judge of liberties and detention ruled in favor of the investigating judge's request.

We therefore continued the procedure before the president of the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal who, during the hearing, accused me of using several email addresses and of being suspicious of Google, and also refuted my capacity as a lawyer in this case.

I would like to point out here that, during the hearings, I discovered that the operation in which I was supposed to be involved concerned not only people (who are nowhere mentioned in my expert data), but also an attack on Freemason temples!

Surprised, I asked the prosecutor to repeat his words for fear of misunderstanding them. I turned to the investigating judge and asked him when he had been able to find documents concerning the Freemasons in my data or the expert report.

The investigating judge's response: Yes, we found an internet search. I then asked him if that was enough for him; he replied that he did not want to talk to me.

Of course, talking to a lawyer who is concerned about the commission of crimes against humanity and bioterrorist attacks (incidentally, one of the specific activities of the anti-terrorism prosecution service) is completely inconceivable!

He did, however, threaten to place me in custody again since there were still a few hours left on the clock. I would like to point out that I am neither under formal investigation nor an assisted witness, however my data has been seized for intelligence purposes and obvious intimidation.

The damage to both the profession and individuals is considerable.

Reminder: Intervention by Maître Virginie de Araújo-Recchia in Lisbon on 09/09/2022

Author

Ariane Bilheran, graduate of the École Normale Supérieure (Ulm), philosopher, clinical psychologist, doctor of psychopathology, specializes in the study of manipulation, paranoia, perversion, harassment and totalitarianism.

Rational and methodical, but also a musician and poet, Ariane plumbs the depths of the human soul with as much ardor and patience as she contemplates the stars, to pierce the mysteries of the universe. In the Antipresse, she hosts her own column, the Lucarne, but also the Abécédaire du totalitarisme and the Portraits.

La Lucarne by Ariane Bilheran in Antipresse

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in", sang Leonard Cohen. Ariane Bilheran has created skylights from these cracks to both receive the light of the world and to project the light of the spirit onto the world. Ariane's Skylight is a captivating and passionate exchange between spirit and matter, between harmony and dissonance, joy and pain—in short, a dive into the heart of the world.