Busted for gathering at the parish hall.

Friday night

I ‘ve got a million things to do at the same time. Making last arrangements with other imc-istas about the action tomorrow. Preparing my luggage, shopping for drinks and snacks, preparing the spare room, checking with the others who's going to take what, putting drinks in the fridge, making phone calls, sending messages, talking on the chat about how, when and where we're going to see each other and who is going to do what. Some sixteen IMC people from five different IMC's are supposed to be present to cover the Trainstopping. Two of them I‘ve never met before in real life, others I hadn't seen for quite some time. There is a positive buzz going through this whole last minute checking in with each other and I feel like a kid that's going on a vacation.

Saturday at lunchtime

I've just checked in with a few people to make a few last minute arrangements. I'm putting the luggage, the food and the drinks in the car, I grab my camera (little did I know I was never even going to be able to use it) and jump in the car. A half hour later I pick up a fellow imc-ista at his house, he tells me the others have let him know they have left for Melsele and we ‘re going to meet everybody there. We put his luggage in the car too and about an hour later we arrive in Melsele. When we drive into town we see about 8 police vans and a few other police vehicles, but, we were kind of expecting that. Soon we find the parish centre and we can start looking for a parking space. We decide to take just a few snacks and a bottle of water each and come back for the rest of our stuff later, just to be on the safe side in case we would have to run from the police.

We arrive at the gathering site, the local parish centre, we see most of the others are already there, there is a nice IMC-stand manned by the ppl from be, the one guy from IMC- nl that managed to get there was walking around with a cup of coffee, a video team is already walking around filming the arrivals, the people from IMC Lille and Nice are signing up to take part in the protest. We get introduced to the people we don't know yet and say hello to the people we know, there are about one hundred people there already, about half of them are familiar faces. The sun is shining and it still feels like the arrivals at camp. When we go to sign ourselves up, another member of the collectives arrives, which made us very happy, since she wasn't sure she was going to make it.

Saturday, 02:00 pm

By then it was almost two o'clock and time for the briefing, so we go inside to listen. Suddenly, smack in the middle of the briefing the yard outside gets flooded with cops who start to arrest everybody, they've blocked the main entrance and nobody is allowed out anymore. Some IMC people go outside to check out the situation, they start filming and taking pictures, most of us decide to stay inside. There is a little bit of a panic for a short while, some people who brought their dogs wonder what will happen to then when they get arrested. But soon a solution is found for the animals and everything settles down I'm getting ready to unpack my camera but then we hear that the people from the organising committee have locked themselves into the office next door and most people decide to stay inside in solidarity, the doors get locked an the curtains are drawn. I pack the camera again because it is of no use in the dark. So I start calling to the IMC office to get them informed about the situation. From time to time the windows are opened to let people have a smoke or to let people smuggle some food in. An improvised toilet is made by putting the bin behind the piano. We see an activist that manages to get upon the roof of a small bungalow that is standing in the middle of the yard, a half hour later we see two cops arrive with a ladder to get him down, he had forgotten about the helicopter that was flying around.

Saturday 03:00 pm

We have locked ourselves inside for about an hour now. Suddenly I receive a call from the IMC-nl volunteer that had left the briefing room right away. All the other IMC-people, including a 16-year old, have been arrested, it's a half miracle they haven't arrested him. I call it in, then I remember he doesn't have the number of the IMC office. I want to call the IMC office again to get them his number when suddenly there is someone knocking on the door and on the windows. Somebody opens a curtain, it's the police, saying they want to negotiate. The window gets opened a little and then suddenly, the window is wide open and there are five or six cops in the room. They start to arrest people one by one. They filmed the entire operation, which is illegal in this country. I still manage to call the IMC-office in a hurry but it's the answering machine, I forget to call in the Dutch guy's number but I manage to leave a message with the last update and tell them to warn the people that were going to be there later not to bother coming since it was all over.

Then I get arrested. I get pulled from the floor and I have to get upon a chair, through the window on another chair and then I'm outside. I get put in a line and they search my pockets. As I am one of the last people to get arrested, they are very careful. There are no female officers present so basically they cannot do a real search. The first women to get arrested did get fully searched by male officers. They fill out an arrest paper, put my stuff in a brown envelope, put plastic straps on my wrists and take me to the bus. When I walk out to the bus I notice the sun has gone. As I get on the bus I get welcomed by loud cheering, there are 9 IMC-People on the bus already.

Saturday 16:30 pm

After what seems an eternity we arrive at the Beveren police station where we are put in the garage, which is strange because it's just a ten minute walk from the parish hall. As soon as I'm in the garage a fellow prisoner comes running up to me to undo the plastic straps. We will be staying there till about 08:00 pm. Every 20 minutes small vans keep arriving, bringing small groups of people to the police station, two girls that had been riding their bikes in the village, one guy that was all alone in the village square, just average looking people, getting arrested for being in a village they didn't live in. Even some residents were arrested by mistake. Suddenly a group of activists showed up at the garage entrance, dogs run into the garage to come and greet the people they know, policemen follow to chase the dogs away. The people outside start making a racket, someone rolls a can of beer down the driveway . The can is punctured and the beer is spraying out of it, one of us manages to get the can and starts drinking from it. In no time there is a cop inside the garage, taking away the can, spraying the prisoners with the beer. As the noise demo outside continues, the cops want to shut the garage door. Activists try and block it but it gets shut anyway. Inside we start making a racket for ourselves, joining in with the people outside. We were getting hungry, two arrestees managed to get out and buy fries, the people outside managed to get us some salted peanuts, some biscuits, sandwiches, tomatoes and two more bags of fries that were brought inside by some policemen.

At about 08:00 PM I have to sign the arrest register, my belongings are checked so I can verify there is nothing missing and then I get searched again, by a woman this time. Then a very strange ritual is carried out, one by one we are lead into an office where we have to give our name, town and arrest number and they asked to have our picture taken. Again I'm one of the last people to get processed, so the cop doesn't insist when I refuse. He even admit it's illegal and says there is no point in pressuring me, which they had done with people earlier in the afternoon. They put on plastic straps again, this time one of them is really too tight, my wrist is all bruised, even though it was loosened up by someone as soon as I got on the bus. As I am lead out of the garage and on to the bus the people outside start yelling and whistling and making noise again, as they do for every detainee that comes out of the garage, the bus responds with the same amount of noise. The bus leaves for Ghent, 50km away.

Saturday, 09:00 pm

The bus arrives at an old, remote police post were we are put in another garage, a huge one this time. We get some food, two meat sandwiches and a cheese sandwich, with lots of butter and a bit of water. A lot of the activists are vegetarians, so they can eat just one of the sandwiches and those who are vegan cannot eat anything at all. Only after insisting for quite some time the vegans get some food they can eat, a dry loaf of bread. There is nothing to do but hang around, some people start playing soccer with a ball made out of the aluminium foil from the sandwiches. Some people start to juggle balls and cones, someone tells some stories. The guy that got upon the roof organised transport for after we got released. Someone else organises a meeting point for after the release and people form Ghent are asked to provide sleeping place for those who cannot find a place in the cars. Most of us are really tired and we just sit around and talk. We are in for a long wait again.

Sunday, 02:00am

I get released, along with the person I went to Melsele with yesterday and the people that offered us a place to sleep. We get into a van and are taken outside the police post, some more people are waiting there and the group starts walking to the meeting point. There we meet some of the noisemakers from Beveren again that had followed us to Ghent, including the IMC-ista that had escaped arrest. Someone from IMC-be that didn't get arrested because he was going to join us later in the afternoon took four of us back to Melsele to pick up our cars. We picked up our cars and drove back towards Ghent as a group, it ‘s getting late and we're all tired so we drive in a row and don't drive very fast. In Ghent I leave the others behind and go home. It's 05:15 am when I walk into my living room.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)