DYAB ABOU JAHJAH's REPORT FROM BELGIAN COURT

A short record of a day in court

Before heading to court today I was reading the Belgian
newspapers and I could only notice that the media was
trying to redeem itself by posting some columns denouncing
the political process against us. Also some Opinion
articles were published written by opponents and supporters
of the AEL but all agreeing that the whole thing is a
political process.

In this atmosphere we entered the court room, to be present
at a trial that in a democracy should not even take place.
The session was opened with some technical communications
and the court agreed on hearing the defence witnesses and
watching the uncut TV footage of that night.

First the footage was played and it showed clearly that:

1- You could not really speak of real riots and that the
situation was rather tense at the scene but not more than
that

2- The AEL militants were clearly calming the youth and
trying to create a buffer between them and the police

3- My arrival did not have any escalating effect on the
crowd

4- we tried to negotiate calmly with the police but the
response was individual pepper-spray deployed against me
and others around me.

5- after the pepper-spray incident we kept our composure

After the tape was played came the turn of the witnesses,

the first witness was Luc Lamine, the chief of police of
that time with whom I had a verbal confrontation after I
was attacked with pepper-spray. Lamine had been cited
saying that my role was aggressive and negative. Later he
declared the opposite of that in an interview. Today he was
confronted with this contradiction in his story, he said
that he didn’t sign the declaration that was accusing me of
incitement, and that it doesn’t represent the complete
truth as he knows it. He said that before my arrival the
police was ready to intervene and the situation was
extremely tens, and that upon my arrival I asked the crowd
to sit down and recite a sort of a prayer for the murdered
brother, and that helped in calming the situation. Lamine
added that during the verbal confrontation we had he could
clearly see that my eyes were red and the symptoms of
pepper-spray were visible on my face, he said that
pepper-spray was used before the confrontation I had with
him. He was asked by the Judge if he felt insulted by my
words he denied that he felt insulted and said that me and
him understood each-others function. He finally said that,
after the verbal confrontation, I helped in calming down
the situation and lead the demonstration into a nearby
mosque.

An interesting detail is that when Lamine was saying that
he wasn’t insulted by me, the judge was trying to convince
him that he was. The judge was telling him that he must
have been insulted as police-chief and he kept repeating
that while Lamine did not say that. At that moment our
lawyers intervened and made it clear to the judge that he
has no right to put words in the mouth of the witness. This
is a very disturbing indicator.

However, the testimony of Lamine came close to the truth
and destroyed the case of the public prosecutor on
incitement completely.

After Lamine, Jef Lambrecht a journalist that is known to
be a critic of our movement testified that my role there
was not negative and that he was following me the whole
evening and did not see any incitement from my part at any
moment.

Then came Ludo De Witte who testified as second hand
witness in the name of the anonymous officer who also was
observing me and said that i played a calming role the
whole evening and that the other officer that testified
against me was lying and was not even in the neighborhood.
The officer testifying in our favour wants to stay
anonymous out of fear, this alone says enough about the
whole matter.

After the witnesses, and due to a surrealistically dumb
court-clerk that can not type and can not print and needs
an hour to understand and report a testimony of 10 minutes,
the court was out of time. So we had to adjourn the process
till September. So because of the incompetence of a clerk I
have now to take the plane again in September and come to
Belgium and lose more of my time on a political scandalous
process that should not even be there from the beginning.

After seeing its amateur and tendentious way of working, I
am strengthened in my distrust of the judicial system in
Belgium, and I believe that they are after a conviction,
maybe one without a prison sentence in the light of the
partly shifting public opinion, but either way they are
looking for a conviction in order to give the
establishement a way out. I hope I will be proven wrong by
this court, but I doubt it. Either way we will fight any
conviction and take it all the way to the European court of
human rights in Strasbourg.


Police racism in Belgium: They are falling apart!

After the declaration of police chief Luk Lamine in our
case on Monday things started moving, another police chief
who is facing charges of excessive use of violence and who
was convicted to 4 years in jail felt provoked by the
performance of Lamine and declared the following ” we
received the orders from Lamine to operate hard that
night…. he rounded up several police chiefs and told us to
intervene in a hard way…. everybody who was from Moroccan
origin that day was a target and could be dealt with heavy
handedly and arrested….. it had no importance whether he
did something wrong or not, being Moroccan was enough…. it
was party-time within the police force….. some agents even
came back from vacation especially to participate in the
action against the scum, several platoons operated in the
neighborhood of Borgerhout heavy handedly and believe me
the youth felt this very well”.

Debie told us what we already know, there is racism within
the police corps and the witch hunt against ethnic
minorities is a continuous fact, However it is the first
time that such a clear testimony is made from within the
police. The AEL always tried to confront the Belgian
society with this racism and when we organised our civil
patrols to observe the police in order to document its
abuse, the whole country was defending the men in blue and
attacking us. They claimed that we were doing a provocation
and they have the nerve to tell that still. The real
provocation is racism and abuse, and if the society is not
provoked by that, then there is something wrong with this
society.

Now that the AEL is on the offensive and raising the
pressure on the people responsible for these crimes against
society, they are starting to panic and expose each-other.
We are putting them under pressure and they are making
mistakes. Therefore the AEL will initiate judicial steps
against the police in Antwerp based upon the declarations
of Debie. Another time the AEL is proving why it is there
and what is its function.

DYAB ABOU JAHJAH & AZZUZ DEFIANT IN FACING SENTENCING

Regardless of any court decision, The struggle will go on

Tomorrow myself and Ahmed Azzuz will appear in front of the court of appeal of Antwerp, after long years of criminalisation and repression we will begin the last chapter in a long fight to clear up our name and that of our organisation.

For us it has never been an issue of our own selves and there have never been anything personal about it, this whole matter is about a struggle for basic rights, identity and solidarity with our peoples in the homeland. It is an anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle. And there for racists, imperialists and Zionist-colonialists all joined forces to destroy us. And tomorrow we will tell them that they failed, and that we still stand tall, unbroken and more defiant than ever.

Some voices in our community are breaking the barrier of fear and coming out with clear support to our cause and to the AEL as an organisation. Some others are again being instrumentalised by the establishment that finances them through subsidies to attack us and play down our role and our principals. Tomorrow we will hear the voice of solidarity and courage, but we will also undoubtedly listen to the dogs of the establishment barking at the AEL caravan, but no matter what happens, the dogs will bark and the caravan will carry on its way.

Tomorrow Belgium is tested, and the main question will be, is it a democracy or a dictatorship? Democracies can only be called such if they tolerate dissident opinions and they respect the rights of minorities. It is not an accomplishment to have freedom of speech guaranteed for the main stream that goes along with the structures of power, in dictatorships also you have the freedom of speech to agree with the main stream and with the government.

But can a dissident opinion condemning the main stream and condemning the government be tolerated? And can its right to political organisation and mobilisation be respected? Our experience has been that such an opinion and the people who carry it will be persecuted, marginalised and criminalised.

The people who were recuperated by the establishment, the ones who started as radical as us in their demands of equality but eventually fell into line and today they work for the establishment, they are tolerated and promoted. The organisations that were critical to the racist establishment but that have been absorbed by means of generous subsidies into that same establishment are tolerated and promoted. But an independent and assertive emancipation movement that rejects subsidies and rejects state funding and can not be put in check within the frames of the establishment is dangerous and must be destroyed. Such and organisation is dangerous because it can actually trigger a real emancipation and because it prevents the assimilation of the second generation immigrants originating from the third world, hence preserving the organic link with the causes of the oppressed south in the heart of the oppressive north. Having ambassadors of the exploited masses of the third world in the streets of what is supposed to be the bastion of Capitalism is something that can not be tolerated and must be destroyed.

The struggle of the AEL is deeper than most people think and is related to the wealth and justice deficit in our world, it is a mirror of the struggle of the peoples of the south against imperialism, colonialism and by extension against the very nature of the capitalist system. It is a joke to believe that a court decision, no matter what that decision is, will end the struggle. It can only be either a victory along the road, or a blow that we will endure and will eventually make us stronger in our convictions. The struggle for Basic rights, Identity, and international solidarity is unstoppable, and the AEL is unstoppable because its Ideas are now flourishing in many brave hearts and minds and will multiply.

BELGIAN JUDGE GIVES JAHJAH AND AZZUZ ONE YEAR

Another Scandal In Belgium:
One year in Jail for Abou Jahjah and Azzuz

[from Abou Jahjah's Blog]

Once more Belgium proved to be the example of a banana
republic in Europe and above all lacking an independent
judiciary something without which no democracy can be
properly functioning. Today, the judge in the correctional
court of Antwerp issued a political verdict sentencing
Myself and Ahmed Azzuz to one year in jail for our so
called involvement in the riots that took place 5 years ago
after the murder of Mohamed Achrak. We reject this sentence
and we will go in appeal.

An interesting detail in all this masquerade is that the
court reverted to a 19th century law that was used to clamp
down on the Belgian workers movement of that time lead by
the famous rebel priest Adolf Daens and used this law
against us almost two hundred years later. By doing this
Belgium has propelled itself back to the time of
dictatorship and repression.

If they believe that this will frighten us or keep us away
from Belgium, they will be disappointed, I will attend the
appeal session and will serve any sentence and will not be
a fugitive. But one thing is sure, I will also not let any
chance to expose this kind of repression for what it is
really: a flagrant act of dictatorship.

The fact that our role was the opposite of that claimed by
the court makes this verdict even more painful and more of
an illustration on how deep Belgium as a democracy have
sunk. This is nothing than a political retribution in
judicial dressing, and if this sentence is upheld by the
court of appeal and carried out, Belgium will have two
political prisoners who will be in jail only for having a
dissident opinion.

Nevertheless, We will go to appeal and will wait and see if
there is still some judicial independence in Belgium. Maybe
the court of appeal will be more difficult to manipulate
politically and will speak justice and not only annul this
verdict but even order us to be compensated for all the
defamation and hardship we have endured on the hands of the
Belgian establishment since 2002. As I hav already said,
this is a trial for the AEL as a movement and for the
emancipation movement of the Arab-Islamic communities in
Europe, it is also a blow for every voice that is critical
to the system.

The struggle continues.

In Solidarity,

Dyab Abou Jahjah

ARAB CIVIL-RIGHTS CAMPAIGNERS GO ON TRIAL IN BELGIUM

Belgium’s ‘Arab Malcolm X’ on trial

By Sukant Chandan

The deaths of two youths in a Paris suburb this week whose
vehicle collided with that of a police vehicle sparked
riots that once again demonstrate the volatility of the
relationship between youth of immigrant communities and the
authorities in Europe. These young people are resentful
against society against which they have a sense of
injustice which leaves them marginalised and in poverty.
Belgium, which hosts the capital of the European Union, is
no exception. What Belgium lacks in size, it seems to make
up for in its hatred for immigrant communities. Like many
young working class Muslims across the West, Belgian
Muslims, many of whom are of Moroccan descent, live in an
atmosphere of prejudice and exclusion from white society
compounded by the Belgian state’s disdain for a community
confident of its own identity and one which demands equal
rights with that of white Belgians. The two main national
components of Belgium, the French-speaking Wallonians of
the south and Dutch speaking Flemish of the north can
hardly get along themselves, with the country witnessing a
rising demand of the better-off Flemish to separate from
the French speakers. So unsurprisingly in the early 2000s
Belgium was hardly ready for the Arab European League and
its articulate and charismatic leader Dyab Abou Jahjah who
led Arab youth from the ghettoes of Belgium in a struggle
for self-respect and solidarity with Palestinians and
Iraqis, inspired and informed by an Arab Nationalist and
radical yet democratic Islamist discourse.

Belgium is perhaps better known internationally as a small
country of quaint pubs, beers, and chocolates, and as a
liberal country due to its foreign policy which is seen as
non-compliant with that of the US’s. However, race
relations in Belgium remain some of the worst in Europe
between whites and Muslims, and more generally between
Belgian whites and the African, Arab and Muslim
communities. While Belgium had known civil disturbances and
controversy in the past following the shooting of youth
from immigrant communities by police, the emergence of the
AEL became a cause for mass xenophobic hysteria across the
white population whipped up by the media and political
elite.

So what was the AEL? Who was this supposed firebrand from
Lebanon - Dyab Abou Jahjah? The Belgian media spun stories
such as Jahjah was a Wahhabi supported by the Saudis,
others claimed he was a crypto-Maoist, others that he was
an agent of Hizbullah intent on bringing down the Belgian
state through the stockpiling of weapons and the creation
of a private militia. None of these stories were true of
course, although the nature of the state crackdown of the
AEL showed that state institutions and large sections of
the public outside of the immigrant communities believed
these slurs to be true.

In reality Jahjah and the AEL were very possibly the first
contemporary mass grass-roots political movement of Arab
youth in the West that demanded an end to discrimination of
Muslims and Arabs, and stood in solidarity with those in
the Middle East. Those who bothered to talk to and listen
to Jahjah, putting aside the media hype for a moment, would
find a person who is at one with Arab youth from the
ghettoes of Brussels and Antwerp, and on the other hand can
also engage with good humour and firmness with Belgium’s
political class in national TV debates. Jahjah was not
well-informed of the Black radical Black Panther Party and
Malcolm X / Malik El Hajj Shabazz until the media dubbed
him Belgium’s ‘Arab Malcolm X’ and the AEL the ‘Arab
Panthers’. Subsequently Jahjah came to know more of the
struggles of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, and
immediately saw the parallels with the struggle of
oppressed Blacks in the US and Arabs in Europe. Jahjah was
the leader of a movement that gave Belgium a real
opportunity to confront and resolve the challenges of
race-relations in this small country. The opportunity was
missed in an Islamophobic frenzy that was of the media and
political class’s own making.

Belgium’s second city Antwerp is a stronghold of the
far-right fascist party the Vlaams Blok, now Vlaams Belang,
who has successfully invested much effort in marketing
themselves to white Flemish Belgians as ‘respectable’
politicians. The ever-growing and powerful Vlaams Blok has
many members and supporters in Antwerp’s police force. In
late 2002 Vlaams Blok leaked documents from the police to
the media which exposed ethnic profiling in the Antwerp’s
police force, this document was entitled ‘Integrated plan:
Moroccans’. In response the AEL decided to launch civil
patrols which monitored the police in immigrant areas, a
campaign that started on the same day as the plan was due
to come into effect, November 15th. These patrols were
attacked by the establishment as militias aimed at setting
up no-go zones in immigrant areas. While it was later
proved in court that the AEL were doing no wrong, but were
actually exercising their democratic right to monitor a
public institution, this didn’t stop the press and
government representatives accusing the AEL of attempting
to create a militia, although the patrols were often
conducted by young Moroccan women armed with nothing more
than notebooks, cameras and leaflets explaining to members
of their community their rights vis-à-vis the police.

It was in this atmosphere of state intimidation of the AEL
and Arab and Muslim community that on November 26th in
Borgerhout, a poor area of Belgium’s second city of
Antwerp, Constant Van Linden, a man known for his racist
views shot dead 27 year old religious teacher Mohamed
Achrak while shouting ‘Taliban!’. Achrak also
coincidentally happened to be the younger brother of
Jahjah’s close friend Satif Achrak. Spontaneous small scale
rioting by Moroccan youth in the city followed the killing.
The only reason the rioting was not more widespread and
devastating was that the AEL and particularly Jahjah
managed to calm the clamours of the youth for vengeance in
order to avoid further blood letting. The police reacted by
pepper spraying Jahjah and other members of the community
in Borgerhout while well-known activists of the Vlaams Blok
stood behind police lines goading the local Arab population
at this time of grief and anger.

The Belgian state and media went into anti-AEL overdrive
and ransacked Jahjah’s home spreading false reports that
weapons were found. Jahjah handed himself in, and was
arrested by police snipers and helicopters. He was jailed,
but eventually found innocent of inciting to riot. The
tense social situation in Belgium and the Moroccan youth’s
fast diminishing patience that could have put the whole
country upside down in a show of uncontrolled anger may
have contributed to Jahjah being released relatively
quickly from prison.

In a recent phone interview with Jahjah in Brussels he
stated that police allegations against him and the AEL were
‘rigged and manipulated’ and that Antwerp city police chief
“Luc Lamine himself admitted in press interviews that my
role that evening [of Achrak’s killing] was constructive
and reasonable. We even know that he insisted to be present
during the search of my apartment because he was suspecting
other colleagues of planting evidence in order to convict
me”.

Now Jahjah along with former AEL leader Ahmed Azzuz and
Youssef Rahimi are being put on trial accused of blocking
police investigations into the disturbances following
Achrak’s killing which starts this Friday, 30th November in
Belgium. Perhaps the prosecution are hoping that after five
years from the time that AEL rocked the status quo in
Belgium, that the AEL will now be criminalised for their
political stance that they took and scores will be settled.
Jahjah is calling this a straight-forward political trial,
a trial he says that “puts in the dock the whole liberation
movement of oppressed communities in the Europe” and is
appealing for progressive and democratic forces to come to
the support of the defendants. Jahjah explained later in
the interview that there are “many things that were
revealed in the last couple of years about that period
showing un-constitutional maneuvers by the government and
also breaches of our rights committed by the police force
and media manipulation that took place in the public
debate”.

Jahjah believes that there is no case against Rahimi, Azzuz
and himself, and hopes that the judge will see the
prosecution “for what it is, unfounded and ridiculous”, but
he is also familiar with Belgian politics which makes him
doubtful of the impartiality of the political atmosphere
which will inevitably accompany the trial. This trial will
show what kind of message the Belgian authorities would
like to send out to Muslim and Arab people the world over
as to how Europe treats those who stand up for their
democratic rights.

-----------------------------------------------------
Sukant Chandan is a London-based freelance journalist,
researcher and political analyst. He runs two websites:
OURAIM and Sons of Malcolm and can be contacted at
sukant.chandan@gmail.com