The noise of the fan is almost deafening. I’m lying on a madras covered in plastic with a brown blanket over me. Around me are gray concrete walls and metal bars. The cell is big – maybe three times four meters. Probably to be able to hold many people, but today I’m alone. My Belgian friend Daphné is in the cell beside me but I can’t see or hear her. My pants are almost falling off me since the police took away my belt. “Come here” a police man says with a French accent. We go to a machine where he puts my fingers on a glass plate. On the screen my fingerprints appear. More times than not a red screen appears and the police man has to do it over again. They also take prints of the middle and sides of my hands. Next is photo shoot time. I go over to the X on the floor. “Look into the camera” says the police behind the computer. A shot goes off. “Turn to the left” “Good, now turn to your right”. The camera shoots again and then it is off to my cell. The keys sounds of metal when they are turned around in the big door made out of bars.
When I woke up this morning I couldn’t imagine that later today I would be behind bars at a Belgian police station. I came to Brussels, Belgium, to attend the Veggie World to look for people interested in starting up Save-groups in Belgium. It was two great days with lots of people interested to join our movement! Today started with a meeting over Skype this morning to decide who will be win the next Martin Luther King award in Sweden (can’t tell you who we chose because it won’t be official until sometime in December). Because of my meeting I was late to the slaughterhouse. I had decided to go there with my friends Andrew, Nicole and Daphné in the Save Movement to check it out so that we knew what it is like for coming vigils with a Save-group in Brussels. We also wanted to see if there came any trucks with animals and if we perhaps could get a brief contact with them and film them from the trucks before they were sent to their death. When my friends arrived one worker told them that all the trucks had already arrived for the day. They walked around the market where you usually can buy meat but today it was closed. Behind the market was the slaughterhouse and a door to it was open and no one was around. So they went in to see if they could get any contact with the animals. This is what they saw:
When I woke up this morning I couldn’t imagine that later today I would be behind bars at a Belgian police station. I came to Brussels, Belgium, to attend the Veggie World to look for people interested in starting up Save-groups in Belgium. It was two great days with lots of people interested to join our movement! Today started with a meeting over Skype this morning to decide who will be win the next Martin Luther King award in Sweden (can’t tell you who we chose because it won’t be official until sometime in December). Because of my meeting I was late to the slaughterhouse. I had decided to go there with my friends Andrew, Nicole and Daphné in the Save Movement to check it out so that we knew what it is like for coming vigils with a Save-group in Brussels. We also wanted to see if there came any trucks with animals and if we perhaps could get a brief contact with them and film them from the trucks before they were sent to their death. When my friends arrived one worker told them that all the trucks had already arrived for the day. They walked around the market where you usually can buy meat but today it was closed. Behind the market was the slaughterhouse and a door to it was open and no one was around. So they went in to see if they could get any contact with the animals. This is what they saw:
After a while they walked out of the slaughterhouse and out through the main gates of the market. That’s where I met them when I arrived. Andrew and Nicole had to go but Daphné was kind enough to go in again to show me what it looks like. I didn’t expect to be able to go inside the slaughterhouse because that the workers might have their eyes on us after the visit before. And right I was because when we had passed the meat market a worker stood in the doorway to the slaughterhouse where they had gone in before.
Sheep waiting for someone to take their life.
When we came closer to slaughterhouse we saw a worker with blood on his clothes and a stick in one of his hands and we decided to turn around. We didn’t know what they would do with us if we went closer. When we came to the parking lot close to the main entrance of the market a person with a nice shirt came up to us and soon three workers came from our behind. “We have called the police and you have to wait here for them” the middle-aged man in the nice shirt said to Daphné and me. It took a while for the police to arrive so we had quite a long discussion. “What if I came to your home and filmed, how would you feel about that?” one of them asked. “I don’t kill anyone in my home” said Daphné. I asked if they had something to hide and that we only want to make people aware about what, or rather who, they are eating. They said that they follow every regulation and that we shouldn’t try to convince anyone about our views. He even called us terrorists for coming to their killing factory and filming it.
A machine to kill cows.
After some 20 minutes the police arrived, a man and a woman in their 20s. They didn’t say much, but after a while they asked us, or rather told us, that they needed to check our bags and then did a thorough search of our bodies. “Do you have any weapons on you?” asked the police man. “No, I’m always nonviolent” I answered. They put handcuffs on us and took us to the police car. The police man put on the sirens and drove superfast through the narrow streets of Brussels while the cars and pedestrians jumped to the sides. I was a bit worried for the police officer beside me who didn’t have her seat belt on because we couldn’t find the thing to attach it to. Luckily we all survived the short trip to the police station. Still wearing handcuffs Daphné and I were sat down at two plastic chairs attached to the wall. “Are we charged with any crime?” I asked. “No, we just want to ID you” said one police. I thought they would just check my passport, Daphné’s ID and maybe get some contact info to us. But later they said that we were suspected of illegal trespass and that they would call the prosecutor and ask if we would be charged or not.
After a while I was asked to go into another room where I was asked to strip down to my underwear. Then I got to take on my clothes minus my shoes and the belt. One police took me by the arm and led me into the cell I described in the beginning of this story. After almost two hours we were let out of our cells, given back all of our things and asked to go upstairs to talk to a higher ranking officer. We were told that they had called the prosecutor and that he had decided not to charge us for anything. And that we were lucky this time but that we shouldn’t do this again!
“All I could think about when being locked up in the cell was the pigs and the horrible fate they are meeting every day at the slaughterhouse” said Daphné when we left the police station. Isn’t there something strange in a society when you are arrested and put in a jail for exposing violence and the ones who are actually committing the violent acts are allowed to continue with the killing?
After a while I was asked to go into another room where I was asked to strip down to my underwear. Then I got to take on my clothes minus my shoes and the belt. One police took me by the arm and led me into the cell I described in the beginning of this story. After almost two hours we were let out of our cells, given back all of our things and asked to go upstairs to talk to a higher ranking officer. We were told that they had called the prosecutor and that he had decided not to charge us for anything. And that we were lucky this time but that we shouldn’t do this again!
“All I could think about when being locked up in the cell was the pigs and the horrible fate they are meeting every day at the slaughterhouse” said Daphné when we left the police station. Isn’t there something strange in a society when you are arrested and put in a jail for exposing violence and the ones who are actually committing the violent acts are allowed to continue with the killing?
Here the pig is killed. All the pictures are from inside the slaughterhouse today.
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