France bans anti-Semitic black power group

PARIS, July 26, 2006 (AFP) – The French government announced Wednesday that it had banned a radical black power group held responsible for an anti-Semitic rally in Paris in May.

“Tribu Ka,” or Tribe K in English, was blamed for disturbances in a Jewish area of Paris in May when a band of black youths were witnessed shouting anti-Semitic slogans.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, announcing the ban, said: “Their anti-Semitism is no longer to be established and the Republic cannot tolerate such action and behaviour.”

He had no intention “of tolerating people that threaten, intimidate, injure or behave in the way that they behaved,” he said.

The leader of the group, Kemi Seba, told AFP that the group intended to ignore the ban.

“During the time of slavery, we asked slaves not to meet up after a certain time … If slaves had taken this into account there would not have been the abolition of slavery,” he said.

He said the membership of his organisation, estimated previously at 15-30 people, had “doubled, even tripled” since the incident in May in Paris’ Marais district.

Subject: French News