Around 400 people, many from the Afro-Belgian community, gathered on Place Poelaert in Brussels on Sunday, in front of the Palace of Justice, to show their support for Mathis, a boy who was a victim of racism at a school in Wallonia.
With the show of support, the collective of associations behind the protest condemned structural racism and reiterated that school should remain a place of learning and not a place of racial violence.
“We need to talk more about the specific problem of racism in schools, and I think it was a first today to raise it,” said Véronique Clette-Gakuba, one of the action’s coordinators. “It’s also the first time that associations that fight racism have come together to mobilise quickly in the face of an episode of racial violence.”
Victim of racism
On 5 September, Mathis, aged 9, was subjected to racist insults by one of his classmates at a specialised primary school in Nalinnes, in the province of Hainaut.
He was then arrested by the teaching staff, who called the police in response after the boy was visibly distressed by the insults. A police patrol intervened and tackled the child to the ground, with a police officer pinning him down with his knees on his back.
The Charleroi Public Prosecutor’s Office decided not to press charges against the police officers but opened an investigation into the child’s case.
The collective in support of Mathis and his mother is demanding, among other things, an end to the criminal and disciplinary proceedings against the young boy and are asking for a condemnation, by the Minister of Education in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, of the acts of violence and racism against the boy.
The Minister has already indicated that she has requested a detailed report on the facts from Wallonia-Brussels Education and has spoken by telephone with the child’s mother.
