Widely-condemned French torture device auction called off

A French auction house has called off the planned sale of a collection of torture devices dating back three centuries, which had sparked off a big outrage among numerous human rights groups as well as in Algeria.

• Some 350 objects, from a hand-crusher to hanging ropes and written death sentences, collected by France’s last executioner Fernand Meyssonnier until his death in 2008, had been slated to go on sale on Tuesday in Paris.

• A former chief executioner during the colonial occupation of Algeria, Meyssonnier carried out 198 judicial executions between 1957 and the country’s independence in 1962, devoting the rest of his life to retirement and his torture collection.

• French auction house Cornette de Saint Cyr was organising the sale in Paris for the benefit of the Meyssonnier family. However, following the huge wave of protests and indignation , it said Friday it had cancelled the auction.

• Culture minister Frederic Mitterrand had in a statement voiced his “strong disapproval” and urged a cancellation of the sale of objects that were morbid, reflected barbarism raised “painful historical questions”.

• The Algerian press had also voiced strong  condemnation of the auction.

• Rights groups on Wednesday attacked the planned auction as “shocking and immoral”, according to a joint statement by the ACAT-France Christian anti-torture group, Amnesty International France, the Human Rights League, the Movement Against Racism (MRAP) and the Primo Levi association.

• Denouncing what they called the “commercialisation of torture”, they called on the French state – which abolished the death penalty in 1981 – to remove the lots from sale, and if necessary by buying them for museums.

• Mr Pouillot said he was particularly alarmed by Meyssonnier’s connection to Algeria, where French occupation forces are acknowledged to have practiced widespread torture against Algerians during the war of independence from 1954 to 1962.