2023-12-19 14:08:00
In a widely relayed Instagram post, Edgar Szoc, the president of the Human Rights League, spoke regarding his arrest for several hours on Saturday, December 16. The man was covering the Code Red civil disobedience action at Antwerp’s private jet airport, as a legal observer. Another action was taking place in parallel in Liège, targeting the airport where the Chinese company Alibaba has large warehouses. The Code Rouge collective wanted to block the tarmacs of the two airports for almost 24 hours. This is to denounce the disastrous consequences of the use of private jets and the mass commerce of large chains like Alibaba on the environment and climate.
The president of the Human Rights League arrested during an action of the Code Red movement
No private jets took off from Kortrijk and Antwerp that day. Through this action, Code Red demanded a ban on private jets, an end to subsidies for the aviation industry and massive investment in public transport.
Edgar Szoc’s open letter
”Thank you all. you. s for your expressions of support following my administrative arrest in Antwerp this Saturday. I was one of three legal observers from a group of the Code Red action, staying away from the demonstration and filming the police interventions with a view to documenting – and therefore limiting – the disproportionate uses of violence. .
I was arrested at 2:20 p.m. on the public highway when all the activists (who had not left the public highway either) had been surrounded and had complied with the injunction to sit down. I was able to continue filming for regarding ten minutes while remaining outside the group of activists, before a police officer ordered me to join him and sit down, too.
Hundreds of activists arrested during Code Red movement action in Liège and Antwerp
The policeman who put the collars on me an hour later declared: “I saw clearly that you did not participate in the action and that you did nothing. But you filmed and if there are elements that can harm us, you are going to use them. I give you the choice, either you delete the images, or I arrest you” – blackmail – need we specify? – without any legal basis and which in my opinion constitutes the most problematic aspect of the sequence.”
Edgar Szoc then explained how his incarceration took place. “I then spent seven hours with the prisoners behind my back before being released at 9:30 p.m. without taking identification. The experience was long and boring. , but not traumatic. And then, as I have often had the opportunity to say, there is no reason to be proud of being white, but there are circumstances where it is reassuring.
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