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Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
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.
·
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.
·
AI also received reports that on Saturday evening,
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.
According to reports received by the organization,
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
Deaths and dangerous methods of restraint
during forcible deportation operations
(Update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2001)
The death of Samson Chukwu
Samson Chukwu, a 27-year-old Nigerian asylum-
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