Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Belgium.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Belgium. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** Anti-torture
committee calls for improved prison conditions, better care for psychiatric
internees and stronger action against police brutality Council of Europe
COE, 19 June 2018 [accessed 2 June
2020] The report notes
that, while prison staff generally seemed to set store by maintaining good
relations with prisoners and being able to rapidly defuse any risk
situations, there were credible allegations of recent physical ill-treatment
of male prisoners by certain prison staff, including team leaders. 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Belgium U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/belgium/
[accessed 5 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The constitution
and law prohibit such practices. There were some reports, however, that
prison staff physically mistreated prisoners. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Administration:
Authorities conducted proper investigations of credible allegations of
mistreatment. The federal mediator acts as an ombudsman, allowing any citizen
to address problems with prison administration. The federal mediator is an
independent entity appointed by the Chamber of Representatives to investigate
and resolve problems between citizens and public institutions. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/belgium/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 11 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Although conditions
in prisons and detention centers meet most international standards, many
facilities continue to suffer from overcrowding. Torture is illegal, though
human rights organizations have criticized Belgian authorities for holding
prisoners in terrorism cases in prolonged solitary confinement. 23rd General Report
of the CPT - European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment - 1 August 2012 - 31 July 2013 Council of Europe,
Strasbourg, 6 November 2013 www.west-info.eu/files/Council-of-Europe-23rd-General-Report-of-the-CPT-20131.pdf [accessed 7 Nov
2013] 35. During this first
ever visit by the CPT to Forest Prison, the Committee’s delegation observed
that some of the establishment’s cells did not have running water or sanitary
facilities and that prisoners in other cells had to
sleep on mattresses on the floor. The CPT makes a number of recommendations
in order to remedy these problems: the setting of a maximum cell occupancy
rate and the partitioning of the toilets in C and D wings, the ending of the
use of toilet buckets in A and B wings, etc. As well as the difficult material
conditions, the Committee expresses concern about the almost complete lack of
activities available to prisoners, the length of time that it takes to obtain
a “table visit” and the impossibility for prisoners to wear their own clothes
(in contravention of the provisions of the “Dupont
law”). The CPT also recommends an increase in the staff/inmate ratio – which
was low at the time of the visit – and the taking of measures to enable the
Psychological/Social Service (SPS) and the Inmate Assistance Service (SAD) to
carry out their statutory tasks, even during periods of strike action by
prison staff. Pluto author
arrested and tortured in Belgium Pluto Press, 7
October 2010 plutopress.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/pluto-author-arrested-and-tortured-in-belgium/ [accessed 16 Jan
2014] www.pambazuka.org/activism/pluto-author-arrested-and-tortured-belgium [accessed 19 July
2017] Last Friday, October
1 2010, during the No Border Camp: a convergence of struggles aiming to end
the system of borders that divide us all, Marianne Maeckelbergh
(US citizen and professor at the University of Leiden, Netherlands), a former
Red Pepper worker, current contributor and a long-time global justice
activist and the author of The Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalisation
Movement Is Changing the Face of Democracy, was arrested for taking pictures
while police were making arrests in Brussels, Belgium. Having just entered
Belgium, some two hours earlier, she witnessed violent arrests on the street.
When Marianne began taking pictures, she was arrested. She was taken into
police custody where she was violently dragged by her hair, chained to a
radiator, hit, kicked, spat upon, called a whore, and threatened with sexual
assault by the police. She also witnessed the torture of another prisoner
also chained to a radiator. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/BEL/CO/2
(2009) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/belgium2009.html [accessed 22 February
2013] 11. While it takes
note of the explanations provided by the delegation of Belgium with regard to
the independence of Committee P and welcomes the extensive investigations
undertaken, the Committee regrets that many of the members of Committee P are
police officers and individuals seconded from police services, which raises
concerns as to the guarantees of independence to be expected from such an
external oversight body, in particular with regard to the handling of
complaints concerning police conduct and any disciplinary action taken
against police officers. This problem
has grown to the point that Committee P itself, in its annual report for
2006, stated that “police officers seem to receive extremely favorable
treatment from the criminal justice system”.
The Committee is likewise concerned at the persistent inconsistencies
between complainants’ and police versions of the facts, and in particular
that the laying of charges against complainants by the police may in fact be
an attempt to cover up unacceptable police conduct (art. 13). 13. The Committee
notes with concern that NGOs continue to submit reports alleging
ill-treatment at the hands of the police, including arbitrary arrest, racist
insults, refusal to follow up complaints, physical abuse and other inhuman or
degrading treatment, in particular in the Bruxelles/Ixelles
(5339) and Bruxelles Midi (5341) police
districts. The Committee is also
concerned at the increase in the number of complaints of discrimination
brought against the law enforcement authorities (art. 16). Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=belgium+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61639.htm [accessed 21 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61639.htm [accessed 3 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, and there were no reports that government officials
employed them. There was violence
towards Muslims and Jews (see section 2.c.). A delegation of the
Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) visited the country between April 18
and 27. The delegation followed up on a number of issues examined during
previous visits, in particular the treatment of persons allegedly deprived of
their liberty by the police, the procedure and methods applied during the
repatriation of foreign nationals, as well as the conditions in prisons and
psychiatric hospitals. The CPT had not released its finding by year's end.
The investigation into the 2003 death of a prisoner at Lantin
penitentiary continued and was still pending at year's end Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/belgium [accessed 21 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 11 May
2020] The judiciary is
independent, and the rule of law generally prevails in civil and criminal
matters. In July 2004, a UN Human Rights Committee report expressed concerns
about a number of human rights abuses, including acts of brutality and racial
discrimination by the police. The report also cited the treatment of rejected
asylum seekers and illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, who were often
held in unsanitary conditions in Brussels national airport, sometimes for
several months. The European Court of Human Rights in 2008 ordered Belgium to
pay two Palestinian asylum seekers 15,000 Euros each (roughly $22,000) in
damages after they were detained in the airport in 2002. All material
used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for
noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Belgium", http://gvnet.com/torture/Belgium.htm, [accessed <date>] |
