Belgian Prison Policy

Almost half a century ago, in 1973, I was locked up for a month in the prison of the Begijnenstraat in Antwerp.I was 20 years old when I got to know for the fi rst time about the interior of a police station, then a cell in the basement of the Antwerp courthouse, followed by a prison cell, the one in Begijnenstraat, 1 and fi nally with a courtroom.As a young activist, I had joined about 20 other people from Alle Macht aan de Arbeiders (AMADA, All Power to the Workers), a Maoist organization, in the dockers' strike of April-May-June 1973 in Antwerp and Ghent, a so-called wildcat strike -that is to say, a strike not recognized by the trade unions.It was the period "after May 68".AMADA was looking for a candidate to be its spokesperson in this strike and that is how I became the man with the megaphone.This would lead to my arrest and imprisonment, after a violent clash between police, strikers and activists on May 14, 1973. 2 The incident took place during a demonstration in which women dockworkers were beaten by the police armed with truncheons, to prevent them from going to the building of the ABVV (Flemish FGTB) union offi ces to claim strike pay.Some of the demonstrators, noticing that a police car from the specialist surveillance unit -the Brigade de Surveillance et de Recherche (BSR) (Surveillance & Research Brigade) -was tailing the demonstration, broke off .The violence they had just seen infl icted by truncheon-wielding offi cers on the mothers and sisters of the strikers had provoked anger and a culprit was needed.A few hours later, after the gendarmerie hermetically sealed the dockers' recruitment offi ce, the public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant in my name.But a dock worker had hidden me under a blanket in the back seat of his car and I was able to escape, although not for long.On May 15, I was sent to prison.One month later, on the day the strike ended, I was released. MEMORIES OF THE BEGIJNENSTRAATShort as my prison stay was -many of

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