Concerns in Europe January June 2001
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Deaths and dangerous methods of restraint
Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
Amnesty International September 2001 from police actions in Hvitfeldska and Schillerska schools, where many of the people participating in the events surrounding the summit were attending meetings or sleeping on floors. Allegations of ill- treatment were also made in connection with the police actions. AI received the following accounts of what allegedly occurred in the two schools.
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Hvitfeldska Gymnasiet (school) was apparently roped off in the late morning on 14 June by the police who were reportedly searching for weapons. All the people inside were detained and not allowed to leave. People outside were not allowed to enter; instead many of those who tried to enter were reportedly searched (including female protesters being searched by male officers), put on buses, driven away from the area and told not to return to the school. There was apparently no explanation given and people began to get angry about the police action and to protest. That same evening, those people who were at Hvitfeldska school, who refused to show their identity cards or to allow themselves to be searched were arrested and transferred to buses where they were held in detention until the next morning. About 240 people were held on the buses. Some people claimed that they had been detained for about 19 hours, at the school and then in the buses. ·
16 June, armed police entered Schillerska Gymnasiet (school) and shouted at those present to lie down on the floor. After about 20 minutes the police led the people out of the school and ordered them to lie down on the ground, which apparently was wet because it had rained. People lay on the wet ground, some of them crying and shaking, for about an hour. Some people claimed that if they tried to look up, they were told to keep quiet and look down. Eye-witnesses claimed that some people were beaten with batons as they lay, with their hands tied behind their back, on the ground. One person claimed he was kicked because he did not hold his hands behind his neck properly. A Greek journalist told AI that although he twice informed police that he was a journalist and in the school to interview people, he was also arrested and forced to lie face down on the wet ground with his hands tied behind his back for an hour; he alleged that, while lying down, when he tried to talk to a policeman he was hit with a baton on the head and on the arms. The beating resulted in the journalist suffering from concussion. Around 70 to 75 people were detained, identified, filmed and released a few hours later. Newspaper reports afterwards stated that the police had searched the school and everyone present because they were looking for three people who were said to be heavily armed.
over 500 people were detained or arrested by police, the majority of whom were subsequently released. AI has received reports that among those still detained pending investigation or trial some people were kept in isolation, and that they were denied their mail or books sent from their families. AI asked to be informed by the government of the nature of the investigations into allegations of police use of ill- treatment and excessive force towards demonstrators, and of arbitrary detention.
S W I T Z E R L A N D
during forcible deportation operations
(Update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2001)
seeker, died in a detention centre attached to Crêtelongue penitentiary, Granges (Valais Canton) in the early hours of 1 May 2001, at the start of a forcible deportation operation. A first attempt to deport him in March 2001 was abandoned after he refused to board a regular passenger flight departing from Zürich- Kloten airport. Two police officers of the Valais Canton’s special intervention squad entered his cell to carry out the deportation by force and a struggle ensued. The police officers, with the assistance of a prison officer, eventually brought him to the floor where he lay face- down, with one hand pulled behind his back in a handcuff and with an officer on top of him, pressing down on his thorax and trying to handcuff his other hand. After he had been fully handcuffed the officers observed that he had stopped moving and - after wetting his face and trying to drag him upright - realized that he had lost consciousness and stopped breathing. They attempted artificial respiration and heart massage and called for emergency medical assistance which arrived some 20 minutes later. However, further efforts to revive Samson Chukwu were unsuccessful. In a letter sent to the Valais authorities following the death, AI welcomed the prompt opening of a judicial inquiry into the death under the direction of an investigating magistrate, as well as the news that an initial autopsy had been ordered and entrusted to the Lausanne Institute of Forensic Medicine. The initial autopsy was unable to establish the exact cause of death: therefore, further forensic tests were ordered. AI also welcomed reports that the investigating magistrate had proceeded promptly to the questioning of the police officers involved in the deportation operation, of relevant prison personnel and of Samson Chukwu’s cell-mate. AI sought the cooperation of the Valais authorities in informing the organization of the eventual findings of the forensic tests and judicial investigation and of any further criminal or disciplinary proceedings arising from them. AI’s letter recalled that since 1993 the organization had been aware of the deaths of six other individuals during or immediately following forcible Yüklə 1,36 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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