Original German at http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/10-13/032.php
Die Tageszeitung jungeWelt
10/13/2010 / Anti-fascism / Page 15
Police harrass protesters against racism in Belgium
Four activists still imprisoned a week after the end of the Brussels “No Border” camps
By Matthias Monroy
The justification for the police action was an assumption of guilt by association, concluded Marianne Maeckelbergh in her report about the 14 hours she spent in the custody of Belgian police. The anthropologist and author was arrested on October 1 along with five others in connection with an unannounced demonstration. The police had prohibited the protest and announced that every gathering of more than five people would be dissolved. Dozens were arrested. Shortly thereafter the windows of a nearby police station were shattered. Maeckelbergh had photographed several brutal assaults by police until she herself was arrested without warning by the chief of the police station that had been attacked. “I was hit, spit on, repeatedly called a ‘dirty whore,’ and chained to a radiator until 4 o’clock in the morning,” the American activist said. A man from Italy had to endure an “uncontrolled fit of rage like I have never seen before,” according to her statement. The abuse that went on for hours was observed by the chief of police through the open office door.
The torture-like conditions marked the high point of the repression surrounding the “No Border” camp, which took place from September 25 through October 3 and was directed at the gate-closing policies of the EU toward refugees of other continents. At the opening demonstration in front of a deportation prison on the outskirts of the city, police had arrived with water guns and horses and arrested a large number of people. Most of the activists wound up in the clutches of the authorities on September 29, when they had planned to participate in a demonstration of 100,000 trade unionists against the ECOFIN summit. “We have preemptively arrested 148 demonstrators,” the police spokesman stated that evening. Most of them were released after several hours. But all were photographed; whoever refused was forced to comply. Thus, it is apparent that a trend exists even in Belgium to “preemptively” neutralize left-wing movements at international protests using trivialized measures. To that end, the EU operates a research program designed to standardize the repression. In handbooks, officials are advised to aim for high arrest quotas, not to lose information superiority in the mass media, as well as to exchange data before and after protests.
According to the investigative committee, around 500 mostly “precautionary” arrests were made in total, accompanied by identification checks and searches. In addition, police systematically “retained” cameras, storage media, and money without providing the persons concerned with a written record of the confiscations. The only applicable criteria to police was suspected affiliation with the No Border camp. The investigative committee is now overseeing the complaints about the police reprisals. Data protection activists are encouraging that requests for information from the Belgian police be made so that it can be determined whether personal data obtained at the camp was transferred to police databases in other countries. In New York and London, solidarity actions have already taken place to demand that the UN Committee Against Torture investigate the incidents. On Sunday, countless people gathered in front of the Brussels courthouse to demand the release of the remaining four prisoners. While one of them is still waiting for his judicial review, the others should have already been released by court order. But after an objection was made by the district attorney’s office, they will have to remain in custody until at least the end of next week. That could make it difficult for them to document the injuries sustained in jail.
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