You can say no to DNA testing but that would make you an automatic suspect and the police will remand you to custody where you have no choice but to submit to DNA testing!!!!
So here is the question. Even if we believe the authorities that the DNA of the innocent kids will be eventually destroyed, what happens if in real-time there is some match for some other crime. I am sure the chance to check and verify will prove to be irresistible.
……
More
than 500 male students and staff were to give DNA samples in an
unprecedented operation launched on Monday to uncover who raped a
16-year-old girl in the toilets of a French school.
The
operation, a first for a French school, has raised concerns over rights
violations after prosecutors said anyone refusing to submit a sample
would be considered a potential suspect.
The collection of
samples began as students arrived for morning classes at the
Fenelon-Notre Dame high school, a private Catholic school in the
southwestern Atlantic port city of La Rochelle. It was expected
to take until Wednesday for the samples to be collected from 475
students, 31 teachers and 21 other staff on site at the time of the
rape.
The girl was raped in a toilet at the school on September
30. The lights in the toilet had been turned off and the girl has not
been able to identify her attacker.
Authorities said samples that do not match the DNA found on the victim will be destroyed.
“We must have the consent of both the parents and the minor,” said
Isabelle Pagenelle, the prosecutor of La Rochelle, “but those who say no
will become potential suspects who could be taken into custody.”
Prosecutors said they had decided to go ahead with the mass DNA tests after several months of investigation proved fruitless.
But some have condemned the move as a clear violation of civil rights.
“Refusing to give a DNA sample when not in custody is a right,”
prominent defence lawyer Joseph Cohen-Sabban told newspaper Le Figaro. “It’s ludicrous! They want to decide on taking someone into custody
based on that person exercising their rights,” he said. “Then, once in
custody, it’s against the law to refuse to give a DNA sample… This is a
truly unacceptable abuse of process.”
…..
regards