human rights watch

lördag 19 maj 2018

Death of a Kurdish child in Belgium: Call for resignations A 18 month old girl lost her life when the police opened fire on a vehicle transporting refugees they were pursuing in Belgium. Authorities first attempted to cover up the mater, but the autopsy has revealed the truth.



Death of a Kurdish child in Belgium: Call for resignations
A 18 month old girl lost her life when the police opened fire on a vehicle transporting refugees they were pursuing in Belgium. Authorities first attempted to cover up the mater, but the autopsy has revealed the truth.


On Thursday morning, the police started to pursue a vehicle coming in from Namur. The police opened fire during the chase, and over 30 people (26 of them adults) got out of the vehicle, including a two year old wounded girl. The girl lost her life in the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Authorities first claimed that the child could have hit her head, or the dangerous actions of the refugees could have caused the death. The police attempts to cover up the murder were uncovered with the autopsy, which showed that a bullet went through the Kurdish girl Mawda’s cheek.
That afternoon dozens of refugees cut off both directions of the A16 highway on the Grande-Synthe commune in protest of police brutality. The police intervened and detained some 20 refugees.
Civil society and the political sphere also protested Mawda’s death. Six organizations including Mrax and the Undocumented Coordination are asking for the resignations of Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Migration Minister Theo Francken.
Over 200 people attended a protest in front of the Foreigners Office in Brussels on Friday. NGOs protested the use of excessive force by the police when they blindly opened fire on a truck with migrants on it.
The Organized and Fighting Youth organization held a demonstration in Mons. The organization made a statement on Mawda’s death and called it “a synthesis of the inhumane policies implemented by the government”. They added: “This is a policy of pursuit, return, mark and criminalize.” Activists in Mons also demanded the resignations of Jambon and Francken, and issued a reminder that the minister at the time Louis Tobback had resigned after the death of Semira Adamu in 1998.
The Solidarity with Refugees Citizens Platform demanded “safer and legal ways” for migrants, and demanded the resignation of politicians responsible for the tragedy to date. The platform stated that Mawda’s death is the result of a skewing of migration policies.
  • ANF

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