2023-11-28 10:38:00
The Brussels Court of Appeal will examine on Thursday a complaint for harassment and insults initiated by Pierre Vandersmissen, a Brussels police commissioner, once morest Alexis Deswaef, lawyer at the Brussels bar, former president of the Human Rights League ( LDH) and current vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). At first instance, on July 15, 2021, the police officer had his action dismissed.
Pierre Vandersmissen accuses Alexis Deswaef of having harassed and insulted him on social networks between 2008 and 2016, during which he was director of the intervention service of the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles police zone and the lawyer president of the League of Human Rights. The latter had criticized the sometimes violent manner in which the commissioner coordinated security around demonstrations in Brussels.
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The commissioner first filed a complaint once morest Alexis Deswaef with the public prosecutor’s office. But he dismissed it. He then filed a direct summons before the court. On July 15, 2021, the latter declared himself incompetent to judge the alleged acts of harassment and acquitted the lawyer for the alleged acts of contempt, the latter having simply exercised his right to freedom of expression.
Commissioner Vandersmissen removed
The police officer then appealed. The trial is now set for Thursday. The public prosecutor’s office considered it necessary to follow the police commissioner in his appeal, which surprises the LDH and the FIDH. “This procedure perfectly illustrates the democratic problem of ‘gag procedures’, which aim to silence or intimidate,” declared Alice Mogwe, president of FIDH, on Tuesday. “The FIDH and the LDH will not remain silent in the face of the problem of police violence in Belgium. We denounce this disastrous signal from the country’s police authorities and the prosecution with this judicial harassment once morest a human rights defender.
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