After a two-year inquiry, Belgian police are no closer to solving the case of Slovak national Josef Chovanec, who died in police custody one day after having been arrested at the Charleroi airport. Hungarian political analyst Tamás Fricz looks at the implications of the case:
Now that the video was made public, it is clear that Belgian police acted brutally at a Charleroi Airport against a confused Slovak man, Josef Chovanec, in the airport detention center.
The disturbing video shows the police beating the victim’s head against the wall for minutes, then kneeling on it for about a quarter of an hour. Afterwards, the man became ill, fell into a coma, and died three days later.
There can be little doubt that Chovanec’s death is linked to police brutality, and it can be presumed that his death, which tore him away from his family, was directly or indirectly caused by the Belgian police.
The incident is horrific and eerily resembles the circumstances of the death of the Black George Floyd, after which sparked an uprising in the United States and — mainly due to the activities of the Black Lives Matter Movement — has brought the United States to the brink of a civil war.
Should we now launch a “Central European Lives Matter” movement in Brussels and in European capitals? Because at their core, the two cases are identical.
The European Commission is supposed to be the guardian of the EU treaties, especially those pertaining to human and civil rights. And the most important thing about human rights is the protection of human life.
It seems that by February 2018, that there was a massive human rights failure for Charlero less than a hundred kilometers from the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels.
Is it perhaps the case that Belgian police reverted to their old habits of treatment of Blacks in its former African colonies? Certainly not, right?
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the profound contempt and arrogance towards the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe manifested itself at the airport?
This is where all hell breaks loose and the EU — where democratic decision-making is still in place, at least in principle — becomes an infinitely hypocritical and inherently anti-democratic institution. Sadly, the only EU institution that can be exempted is the European Council, at least for the time being.
We have a European Committee that is constantly attacking Hungary using a script of the global elite — including George Soros — based on pretexts that have been refuted a thousand times.
In contrast, here is Charleroi, where the right to life of a Central European citizen has been most brutally violated, and the answer from the EU is grave silence.
I won’t even mention double standard anymore, because this clearly is the case of a conscious alliance of defense and defiance between Western and Brussels liberals.
Beyond that, perhaps it is also the “small” problem that at the time of the terrible case, Didier Reynders, the current Belgian commissioner for the rule of law, was the foreign minister of the Belgian government. At the same time, Charles Michel, the current president of the European Council, was serving as the Belgian prime minister.
It also became clear that said government was aware of the video but said nothing at all. Is it perhaps the committee led by Ursula von der Leyen who is protecting them then?
I am convinced that this case is both a scandal and a milestone. Through its silent complicity, the European Commission went against existing EU treaties.
In conclusion, it is the European Commission itself that should be subject to an Article 7 procedure.
And that says it all about our “state of the union”.
Title image: Belgian police officers on patrol.
