arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2002.nsf/eur/belgium!Open Covering events from January - December 2001 BELGIUM Kingdom of Belgium Head of state: King Albert II Head of government: Guy Verhhofstadt Capital: Brussels Population: 10.3 million Official languages: Dutch, French, German Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were new allegations that criminal suspects were ill-treated by law enforcement officers and that asylum-seekers were ill-treated during forcible deportation operations. By the end of 2001 no one had been brought to justice in connection with the death in 1998 of an asylum-seeker who was asphyxiated after gendarmes pressed a cushion over her face during forcible deportation. There was concern that the treatment of detained child asylum-seekers, who included unaccompanied minors, was not in line with international standards on the treatment of children. There was also concern that new administrative measures introduced to accelerate asylum procedures had eroded access to fair and impartial refugee determination procedures. The level of prison overcrowding, together with understaffing, prompted strikes by prison guards. Four Rwandese nationals were convicted in Belgium of war crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that members of the Belgian government and other Belgian participants were ''morally responsible'' for the circumstances leading to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, seven months after he became the first democratically elected prime minister of the newly independent African state of Congo, but found no evidence that they had ordered his ''physical elimination''. Police ill-treatment On the streets and in police stations There were further allegations of ill-treatment and racist abuse by police officers. In its annual report to parliament in March, the Standing Police Monitoring Committee recorded an exponential increase in the number of complaints made against law enforcement officers, including scores relating to physical assault, threats, and verbal, including racist, abuse. It said that such complaints rarely resulted in criminal sanctions. The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism recorded for the second year running a decrease in the number of complaints of racism and discrimination concerning law enforcement officers, but nevertheless indicated receipt of dozens of complaints against officers, around a third of which related to ill-treatment. During its third visit to Belgium carried out in November, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) reviewed the measures taken by the authorities in response to the recommendations made after its previous visits regarding the introduction of certain fundamental safeguards against ill-treatment in the custody of law enforcement officers, including the right of immediate access to a lawyer. Emily Apple, a British citizen detained in the context of demonstrations during a European Union summit in Brussels in December, complained to the Belgian authorities that, while leaving a demonstration, a group of men, whom she later learned were plainclothes police officers, hit her around the head and kicked her legs from under her, forcing her to lie face down on the pavement. After being handcuffed and photographed she was informed that she and others had been detained after failing to obey an order to disperse. She claimed that no such order had been given and that she was held in a police station until the early hours of the next morning, together with some 20 other women. She said all of them were detained during demonstrations and denied access to lawyers. She was released without charge, after being subjected to verbal abuse by police officers. An army colonel from the Republic of the Congo alleged that, while attending a training course with the Belgian armed forces, he saw police ill-treating and harassing black African men during identity checks on the Brussels metro. He claimed that when he intervened he was himself assaulted and detained, along with an army colleague, a co-national. He said that they were held overnight in police cells, handcuffed throughout, given no explanation for their detention and then released without charge. Belgian army authorities indicated that one of them had visible injuries following the incidents. The police stated that the two men had shown violence towards the Belgian police officers carrying out the identity checks. During deportation and in detention facilities There were reports that police officers subjected some foreign nationals who were resisting deportation to physical assault, death threats and racist abuse, and deprived them of food and drink for many hours. In some instances deportees were reported to have received inadequate medical attention for injuries incurred during deportation operations. There were also allegations that dangerous restraint methods, which restricted breathing, were sometimes used to subdue deportees. These allegations included using material to cover the mouth, thus blocking the airway. Some official investigations into such allegations appeared inadequate or subject to delays, with complainants often at risk of deportation while investigations were still under way. In October, after it emerged that police officers were being paid a special allowance for acting as escorts during deportation operations but received only half the allowance if the operation had to be abandoned before the deportee left the country, fears were expressed that the practice could encourage use of excessive force by police. The Minister of the Interior stated that he favoured the same allowance being paid to all escorting officers, whatever the outcome of the operation. The CPT stated that during its November visit it examined in detail ''the procedures and means applied during the repatriation by air of foreign nationals.'' Ibrahim Bah, an asylum-seeker from Sierra Leone, alleged that he was subjected to physical assault, excessive force, dangerous restraint methods, threats and verbal abuse during several unsuccessful attempts to deport him between January and May. He alleged that during such attempts in April and May, police officers kicked and beat him while he was bound hand and foot, exerted heavy pressure on his carotid artery, used their legs and a cushion to press down heavily on his ribcage and forced a handkerchief into his mouth. Individuals who visited him after these deportation attempts reported that he displayed visible injuries. Medical reports issued by a privately hired doctor who examined Ibrahim Bah concluded that the overall symptoms and injuries recorded were consistent with his allegations and, following an examination the day after the final attempt in May, prescribed further examinations and medication. A member of parliament who visited him in prison 10 days later reported that he had still not received any of the prescribed treatment. The Minister of the Interior responded that Ministry-appointed doctors had examined Ibrahim Bah five days after the final attempt in May but had recorded no particular injuries or evidence of deliberate medical neglect. He said that a report by the General Inspectorate of Police concluded that police had scrupulously respected prescribed procedures and that the allegations could not be proved. Following his release from prison, although still liable to deportation, Ibrahim Bah lodged a criminal complaint about his treatment. A letter addressed to the Prime Minister in October by over 50 members of parliament expressed concern about allegations made by Mohamed Konteh, another asylum-seeker from Sierra Leone, who claimed he suffered ill-treatment, threats and racist abuse during numerous attempts to deport him between June and October. He said that police officers used various methods to cover his mouth, and that during one attempted deportation he was beaten until he defecated involuntarily, then tied up inside a blanket, wearing his soiled garments, and left in this condition for several hours. Individuals, including members of parliament, who visited him while in detention following failed deportation attempts, reported that he displayed visible injuries, and a medical report issued by a privately hired doctor in October recorded injuries consistent with some of his allegations. There was no indication of official steps being taken to investigate the allegations. Semira Adamu Criminal proceedings had still not been concluded in connection with the death in 1998 of Semira Adamu, a Nigerian national, who died after gendarmes pressed a cushion over her face during a deportation operation. In December 2000, the Brussels Public Prosecutor's Office had requested that three of the escorting gendarmes be charged with manslaughter but not with violation of Belgian anti-racism legislation, as had been requested by civil parties to the proceedings. In April 2001, a Brussels court heard part of the submissions of the various parties to the proceedings and further hearings were scheduled for May. However, by then Semira Adamu's relatives had lodged a new criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office against another four gendarmerie officers, including the colonel in charge of the airport deportation unit and a gendarme who filmed the deportation operation without intervening. Further hearings before the court were postponed and the proceedings were still open at the end of the year. Universal jurisdiction Legislation enacted in 1993 and 1999 made specific provision for Belgian courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes in international and non-international armed conflict, genocide and crimes against humanity, including torture. In the context of this legislation, between 1998 and the end of the year, criminal complaints, some of which were still pending declarations of admissibility, had been lodged with Belgian courts against several leaders and prominent members of past and present administrations in over 15 foreign states. In June, following Belgium's first trial based on universal jurisdiction, the Brussels Court of Assizes convicted four Rwandese nationals resident in Belgium of war crimes committed in the context of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and sentenced them to between 12 and 20 years' imprisonment. One of the accused was found guilty of some charges and not guilty of others. The other three accused, including two Roman Catholic nuns, were convicted of all charges and subsequently entered appeals against their sentences. AI publicly welcomed the judgment as a significant step in the fight against impunity and called on Belgium not to weaken its universal jurisdiction legislation in any way. AI country reports/visits Report Concerns in Europe, January-June 2001: Belgium (AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001)