The Freddy‘s women-prison report

Translated into English – for our English speaking readers. English speaking blogs are invited and encouraged to add a link.

PI-Reader Amazone travelled to Brussels on 9/11with an Israel flag on her backpack. She was arrested by Thieleman’s policemen far away from the demonstration scene on Schuman square and Luxemburg square at a subway station and kept in prison for eight hours (PI report). Today she has sent us a report about her personal experiences in Europe’s capital on the 9/11 Memorial Day, which we publish unabridged.

When we arrived in Brussels after a six hours drive, we (my fellow passengers and I) went to the subway station to get from Maelbeek Station to Luxemburg Square. In the upper area of the station I was stopped by policemen together with one of my fellow passengers. They accused us of intended participation at the Demonstration. The other two fellow passengers behaved inconspicuously and managed to escape. According to police information they had to take us in administrative custody. The order was confirmed by wireless radio. When we asked for more details they told us the reason for the arrest had been the showing of the European flag, the colors black-red-gold on one of the signs, and my Israel flag. The German flag in postcard size, which was attached to my backpack also remained unnoticed.
Even long negotiations at the Subway station with the policemen, who were mostly, (luckily for us), Flemish, (the present French-speaking policemen had treated my fellow passenger quite rudely), led to no results. The suggestion to cover the sign, to store the flag in the backpack and to walk away, was useless. There was no send-off, no instruction, nothing. Please note: we hadn’t even left the subway station at the time and were neither on Schuman Square nor on Luxemburg Square. At least we managed to convince them that we didn’t need to wear shackles and we were allowed to mark our personal belongings, which shouldn’t get “lost”.

Then they brought us from the station to the palace of justice in a car, for the transportation of prisoners, with a flashing light. There we had to wait for some time, because of the number of detainees .About ten to 15 minutes later, they told us to leave the transport and to follow the other detainees. We went through rows of policemen as we would have been on our way to the hangman. They pushed us to the cells, shouting “faster, faster”. The cells were already quite full.

I was put together in a cell with two elderly ladies.We introduced ourselves.The older of the two was 60 years old and was one of the demonstrators from Vlaams Belang.(By the way, she is married to a Brazilian of Indian origin, so much for the so called right-wing extremists in Vlaams Belang). The other lady was very delicate, about 40-50 years old dressed in a distinguished manner, of a Christian background. Both had been bound with cable ties on their backs when they were arrested. You could still see the traces of that, especially on the Christian woman: her hands were red and swollen. The marks from the cable ties disappeared only after some hours.

I had been separated from my fellow passenger, but could see him in another cell. We communicated by shouting. The complete cell block was quite full – there was barely a cell (2m x 1,5m), which was not filled with three to six detainees. The noise in the cell block war was almost unbearable. A gang of seven to eight French- speaking neo-Nazis drew attention with speaking choirs (most of them luckily incomprehensible to my ears). They beat at the cell room doors for hours. The imprisoned Flemish drowned them out with Flemish songs or spurring on their captured members of Parliament. None of the captured Flemish prisoner showed any sympathy fo these neo-Nazis. I was singing the German national anthem, was rebuking the neo-Nazis, who were jailed right next to me, and was debating with my fellow prisoners.

After several hours they gave us water (but not to my fellow passenger, despite several requests), another hour later they brought us a waffle to eat. The neo-Nazis used their drinking bottles to produce even more noise. The Flemings ignored them meanwhile, because an elderly man had had a breakdown, presumably due to the stress. I barely saw through the bars of the cell, but he was lying down on the bare stony ground of the lowest level for some time, surrounded by several policemen/law officers who were watching r him. It took quite a while, about an hour, until professional paramedics arrived. They teated the man with injections and oxygen. Half an hour later he was more or less able to be moved and they carried him on a stretcher out of the prison wing.

At about half past four p.m. my former fellow traveller came to my cell room door and told me he would be released soon. The policeman or law officer accompanying him promised to see to my release soon, as well. At about 6 p.m. I was led out of my cell, searched, heard and brought back to another cell with a young woman from Vlaams Belang. In conversations I learned how they had been arrested on Schuman Square. Again, the smallest and most delicate woman (she was about 1,60 cm) was thrown to the floor by four policemen. She even had to hold her hands behind her head while one of the policemen was kneeling over them. Thus jammed, it took some time until she was bound with cable ties as well. There were two other women who were just about to take off their burkas to tread upon these symbols of oppression. There were two policemen for each of them. They were apparently enough to overpower them roughly.. Now I had to wait again. I noticed that they had no laces on their shoes and asked the women about that. I was told that, they had to hand over all their shoe-laces, belts, necklaces and bras.

I thought this was quite ironic, because I still had all these dangerous objects. When I had been searched I hadn’t been told to take off these objects. I guess this was a quite arbitrary action. In the meantime It my fellow passengers was out of sight. It was calm now in the cell wing; most of the men – even the neo-Nazis – had been released. Only the women were still in custody. Gradually, they were released as well, and I was the last one to sit in my cell. At almost eight p.m. I was finally picked up. At the time there were two other women still with me in the cell wing. At a counter, I had to confirm the receipt of my belongings. I had been searched at the subway station and there they had taken my ID, my purse, my penknife and my backpack. In the second search they had taken my other things: car keys, coins, my stab-proof vest and my hair ribbon. They first gave me the things from the first search. I refused to sign just like that, because I neither speak Flemish nor sufficient French. Moreover, there were still some things missing.

Then somebody brought the things from the second search.. Again I refused to sign. Then finally they gave me my backpack. I carefully checked everything until I was absolutely sure, everything was still there. Meanwhile a group of policemen/law officers was watching me. When they saw the Israel flag, I saw clear antipathy in almost every policeman’s face – two of them in the Palace of Justice whispered something, and pointed at the flag. One of them said something like: “Here comes trouble!”

Shortly after 8 p.m. I could finally leave the Palace of Justice. By the way, at no time did they offer me any contact with the German consulate or anything like that. Nobody read me my rights. First the young women from Vlaams Belang kindly waited for me and led me to the subway station. Not one of the women with whom I was jailed spoke negatively about the flag, Israel or anything like that. But they advised me not to show the flag in Brussels so openly, if I wanted to travel on alone in the subway after changing trains. Of course I couldn’t be taught otherwise, but I realized quickly, why they had given me the advice.

In the subway train I sat down on one of the free seats and placed my backpack next to me. The Israel flag was tied on the outside of the backpack and I gathered it a bit, because I didn’t want it to get on the dirty floor. This made two men of about 40 years old, curious. From the looks of their clothing and from their language I could identify them as Muslims. Unasked, one of them stood up and grabbed the flag on my backpack. I reacted quickly with a heavy strike upon his fingers and shouted a loud and angry “Hands off!” He looked around a bit irritated (the train was quite full) and sat down together with a second man on the seats in front of me. Both began to talk to each other in Arabic. I heard the word “Jahud” (Arabic word for Jew), several times.. Saying it, they grinned at me in an evil way and I looked back angrily.
Sometime later they left the train. When I reached my station I went to my car. There I met a rowdy man on his motorbike. It was already quite dark. First he ‘only’ inconsiderately changed his way from the footpath to the street and back again. He quickly noticed me and drove some circles around me to get a closer look at me. I couldn’t recognize him, because he was wearing a helmet. I gave him no attention. When he was eventually bored, he sped on the pavement through the people walking by, and finally disappeared. At about nine p.m. I finally met my three fellow passengers at my car and we could drive home again.

» Contact information (Freddy Thielemans): cabinet.bgm.thielemans@brucity.be
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