The pre-trial detention of Hervé Pinto, president of the Kollectif Jistiss Matinik, has provoked two nights of riots in Martinique. Sunday, several fires had already been started in the city center of Fort-de-France to the cries of “Free Pinto”, an activist who says he is the rightful inheritor of land which has been plundered from him in the commune of Trois-Ilets. The residents of the residence built on the land claimed by Hervé Pinto, say they were intimidated, and had taken legal action and the man was forbidden from approaching the neighborhood. The anti-colonial militant was arrested in an area where he was forbidden to go.
As early as 9 p.m. local time on Monday, masked demonstrators set up burning barricades at the entrance to the Sainte-Thérèse neighborhood in Fort-de-France. They threw Molotov cocktails at a mobile gendarmerie vehicle and fired live ammunition three times at the security forces. Rioters looted a gas station and set fire to a business and at least five cars. Four people were arrested.
Source: Secours Rouge