Karin Spaink
xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xx
1018 LP Amsterdam
tel.: 020 - xxxxxxx
fax: 020 - xxxxxxx
e-mail: kspaink@xs4all.nl
Amsterdam, 3 September 1998
To the Permanent Commitee of Control of the Police Forces,
to the attention of Mr George Peijl,
Wetstraat 50 - 52
1040 Brussel
Honourable members of the Committee
I regret that I feel obliged to file a complaint with you against the
gendarmerie in Antwerp. Earlier this week I wrote about this affair in
de Morgen.
On Saturday 29 August shortly after 18.30 h, Zenon Panoussis and myself
were arrested by the gendarmerie of Antwerp on illegal grounds just after
we had left the train from Amsterdam and were walking on the platform.
We were thereafter lead to a side-room of the train station, where - after
a short argument between a gendarme on one side and Zenon Panoussis and
myself on the other - Panoussis was taken to a separate room. There, he
was battered by two gendarmes in the presence of a third one. He was
beaten in the face and on the body, he was kicked on the body, someone
stepped with one foot on his chest and someone with one foot on his throat.
A visit to the GP on Thursday morning showed that he now has a broken rib.
No protocol was made over our arrest, and neither
were we informed of the reasons why we were arrested. Yet less was
Panoussis informed why he had to be searched and was ordered to undress
himself. Only after he was battered was Panoussis informed that our
arrest was based on 'disturbance of the peace'. I myself was never
given a reason. It is remarkable that neither of the two gendarmes
that were involved in our arrest had ordered us before the arrest
to do or abstain from doing anything because our behaviour was
disturbing the peace; neither did they inform us that persisting
in our behaviour would lead to our arrest.
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