“The reason we are here is the death of a Slovak man in a Belgian police cell”, said Vladimír Bilčík (EPP, Slovakia) on Tuesday 20 October, introducing the European Parliament debate on police violence in the EU.
No light has yet been shed on the case involving Jozef Chovanec, a Slovak citizen who died in February 2018 after being restrained by the Belgian federal police in a cell at Charleroi airport.
The case was “covered up” - as several MEPs criticised on Tuesday - until the family of the deceased decided, in August 2020, to broadcast a video surveillance clip.
This lack of reaction has been strongly criticised by several political groups. “The question is why was there no investigation?” said Sophie in ‘t Veld (Renew Europe, Netherlands), who said it was “horrible” that Jozef Chovanec’s widow was “forced to publish the video of the violent death of her husband” before the Belgian authorities would react.
Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová (ECR, Slovakia), after naming victims of police violence in the EU, also paid tribute to the woman without whom “nothing would have happened”.
“Without pressure from MEPs and the media on these events, we would not be talking about them here today”, said Vladimír Bilčík, stressing that ignoring police violence would not put an end to it.
Responding to violence
“Incidents will always occur but what sets apart democratic rule of law from dictatorship for example is that there is a follow up, there is no impunity for excess of police violence”, said Sophie in ‘t Veld.
She reiterated, on behalf of Renew Europe, the call for a police code of ethics, already formulated by the European Parliament last summer (see EUROPE 12511/21), and called for better training of police forces.
The S&D, for its part, called for independent investigations into extremism within the police and for support for victims of police violence. Finally, the Greens/EFA Group called for an independent system for monitoring police violence as part of the rule of law mechanism. Only the ID group denounced “systematic attacks by the police”.
The German Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, representing the EU Council, and the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, for their part, called for “proportionate and justified” use of violence by the police and insisted on the need to prosecute any criminal acts.
European values in question
Asserting that “police officers who carry out this kind of violence can never be the guardians of democracy”, Mr Bilčík declared this a “test” of European values.
Irish GUE/NGL coordinator Clare Daly strongly questioned these values, denouncing police violence against Catalan demonstrators, fatal Flash-Ball shootings in France, the support of Bulgarian police officers for neo-Nazi groups targeting Roma or LGBTI people, and - with a photo - the “acts of torture” involving Croatian police officers last week. “Is this what European values are all about? It's a disgrace!”, she concluded. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)