The Brussels police has been accused of racial profiling groups of young men who were preemptively detained over the weekend, amidst civil unrest and protests over the killing of 17-year-old Nahel by French police, BRUZZ reports.
After violent protests broke out following the emergence of a video which showed French police shooting Nahel at point-blank range in a traffic spot, protests also emerged in Brussels with 94 arrests over two days of protests.
Over the weekend, reports emerged that the Brussels police had been arbitrarily rounding people up, many still underage, in so-called "preventive" arrests.
The first reported incident saw five teenagers being arrested on Friday by a dozen police officers as the group was sat on benches at Place de la Monnaie. The arrests were filmed and subsequently posted on social media, but it was unclear why the teenagers were targeted.
Tweet translation: "This is what the arrests of minors looked like in Brussels. Teenagers sitting on a bench were brutally arrested. Preventive, as Brussels police call it."
The Brussels-Ixelles police zone responded to the claims by telling BRUZZ that the widely circulated video "reflects neither the full context nor the precise circumstances of the intervention." They also stated that the images do not take into account the exact information available to the police, which they did not explain.
Moreover, a 13-year-old student was allegedly arrested by police on the same day while he was walking to school in the neighbourhood of Anneessens. The student's teacher, Zahra Chouha, wrote on social media: "Preventive arrests. Yesterday a student of mine was arrested by the police. Handcuffed. Mobile phone was taken away. He was near Anneessens."
Quick arrest
On Saturday, another arrest occurred when three young men, aged between 17 and 22, were arbitrarily detained by police near Avenue Louise. The group had intended to eat at the Quick fast food restaurant on Saturday evening when a group of police officers violently arrested them.
In response, various lawyers have accused the police of racially profiling those arrested in the three incidents – accusations that affirm the sentiments of protesters who denounced police racism and discrimination towards ethnic minorities following Nahel’s death.
Credit: Belga / Hatim Kaghat
Speaking to BRUZZ about the preventative arrests in Brussels, human rights lawyer Alexis Deswaef stated that "it is always young people from certain neighbourhoods, with a specific skin colour that are targeted" by the police.
According to Deswaef, the solution to restore trust between law enforcement and these communities is "for police to earn their respect," with the recent cases of racial profiling "doing exactly the opposite."
