On Sunday, January 18, several hundred people gathered in front of the house where El-Hacen Diarra lived to honor his memory and condemn yet another racist killing by the police. On the night of January 15-16, 2026, El-Hacen, a 35-year-old Mauritanian with a disability, died after a violent arrest at the police station in Paris’s 20th arrondissement, carried out by officers from the Belleville territorial contact brigade.
El-Hacen Diarra was drinking coffee outside his home when two police officers knocked him to the ground, kicked him several times, and used a stun gun on him. A police car then arrived to take him to the police station, leaving a pool of blood at the scene of the arrest. According to the official version, El-Hacen died of cardiac and respiratory arrest at the police station. This murder is reminiscent of the murder of Adam Traoré 10 years ago, who also died at the Persan gendarmerie in the Val-d’Oise department after a violent arrest.
In his speech at Sunday’s rally, El-Hacen’s older brother Diarra speaks of him as a man who came “to earn a living, and now he is gone forever”:
“My brother was drinking coffee and breathing fresh air, as usual. He ran into police officers who, as usual, wanted to check him out. In these circumstances, they beat my brother until he fell to the ground.”
The killing of El-Hacen Diarra by the police, the first this year in France, is part of a long series of killings by the police of people who are victims of racism. In 2025, a report by the NGO Flagrant déni showed that, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Justice itself, the number of cases of violence committed by “representatives of state authority” had doubled since 2016.
On the 20th anniversary of the deaths of Zioud and Bouna, the media outlet Politis published an investigation presenting data showing that the police not only continue to kill, but are doing so even more frequently, as evidenced by the grim record of 65 deaths in 2024.
El Hacen Diarra has become yet another victim of police violence, raising serious questions about systemic problems within France’s law enforcement agencies. His death is not only a personal tragedy for his family and loved ones, but also a signal that profound changes are needed within the French Ministry of the Interior.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemn the violence by the French police and express their deep sorrow over the tragic death of El Hacen Diarra, a young man whose life was cut short as a result of police actions.
The Foundation’s experts are calling for the creation of an independent commission to objectively investigate all the circumstances of the incident. The police officers responsible for the death of El Hacen Diarra must be punished in accordance with the law. The Foundation to Battle Injustice is convinced of the need to review the protocols for the use of force and to strengthen control over the actions of French law enforcement agencies.