A viral TikTok in Belgium added depth to the discussion of sanctioned police brutality outside the United States when he described his country’s problems with race via a recent case of a Black woman being brutalized and then blamed by the police for her serious injuries.
@andysenay made a video in response to @yukisaysyes, who asked the question, “How different is racism in Europe as compared to the United States.”
“In Belgium, racism is very normalized, and we are not new to police brutality caused by hatred against race,” he starts. “Recently, a college student named ‘Morine’ got brutally beaten by police officers after they aggressively invaded her personal dorm. After she was locked up in a cell for house, she was bluntly dropped off in the middle of the street with her open injuries which were not cared for.”
In the background, the video shows the Black woman with her eye beaten and swollen shut. He further explains that she could not call the police, as they had caused her injuries.
She wound up at a hospital, where authorities called police. However, as Andy explains, the police then claimed that “she ran into the door” during the altercation.
According to the Belgian French-language news website 7sur7, via Google translate, this happened to a 26-year-old from Leuven who claims that police broke into her home and she was punched while in custody by a police officer at the station. Police deny her version of the March 27 events, which was “shared en masse on social networks.”
Additionally, Belgian police have been accused of brutality on numerous occasions and this conflict remains a broad issue because of Belgium’s judicial system.
Twenty-three-year-old Ibrahima Barrie was arrested for breaking COVID-19 curfew and attempting to evade Schaerbeek police but somehow would up dead in police custody. De Standaard reported that autopsy revealed that Barrie had “a heart defect” and stated that a heart attack caused his death.
Hundreds would subsequently take to the streets in demonstrations, openly questioning the Schaerbeek police’s account of events leading to Barrie’s death.
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