It’s cold and the rain doesn’t stop. In 2018, as on many other nights, Anouk Van Gestel (Antwerp, 1956) is with a group of volunteers giving food and water to the people in transit who seek shelter in several parks in Brussels, while waiting for the right time to continue their journey to the UK.

Most of them are sub-Saharan young men, tired after a long journey. Some have crossed Africa, the Strait, and Spain. Some have left behind Tunisia, Algeria, or Libya, arriving in Europe through Italy and then France. When the camp of Calais was dismantled in 2016, they were forced to adjust their schedule and ended up in a cold park in Belgium, Brussels’ Maximilien Park.

Five hours with the police

Anouk had nothing to hide, but she was facing a possible 10-year prison sentence. She showed up in the police station of Dendermonde, a small town in the east of Flanders. “I never imagined what was about to happen”, she remembers. During the five-hour interrogation, Anouk realized the seriousness of the accusations: human trafficking with the aggravating circumstance of danger to life. Assisting immigrants on humanitarian grounds is considered in the Belgian law. “There is no trouble as long as they are adults. With minors things get complicated”, she says as she admits that she didn’t know that Moha was under 18.
“I couldn’t believe it. They were accusing me of human trafficking for having asked Miriam about the possibilities for Moha to get to the UK”, she explains. To Anouk, time went by slowly and frantically at the same time. “They asked me all sorts of questions so I admitted things that I didn’t do”, she analises. Her lawyer, who at that point was aware of the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t believe it when she explained to him what happened.

In Belgium there are no legal descriptions of crimes related to solidarity, so this prosecution could set a precedent for other citizens who, like her, just want to help migrants and protect them from violent and repressive policies.

Most of them are sub-Saharan young men, tired after a long journey. Some have crossed Africa, the Strait, and Spain. Some have left behind Tunisia, Algeria, or Libya, arriving in Europe through Italy and then France. When the camp of Calais was dismantled in 2016, they were forced to adjust their schedule and ended up in a cold park in Belgium, Brussels’ Maximilien Park.

One more in the ribbon of solidarity

Anouk Van Gestel was just a link in the chain of mutual support between the Belgians and the migrants and refugees who were in the Maximilien Park of Brussels. “I didn’t go to the park on a daily basis, only when there were people who needed to be hosted.”, explains Anouk, well informed about the migration flow and the consequences from the neglect of the institutions.

“These boys come from Calais to Brussels with nothing, so we organise ourselves to help them.”, she admits with a smile of pride that lights up her face. “We wanted to show them that not all Belgian are racist and xenophobic.”, she argues. On cold nights, like the one when it all happened, Anouk and other volunteers hosted people in transit so they didn’t sleep out in the open.

The mistake that changed it all

“I made only one mistake.”, recognises the Belgian journalist. In the autumn of 2017, Anouk hosted Moha, a young Sub-saharan boy she met at Maximilien Park who only wanted to have a better life with his family and friends in the UK. After a few conversations, she decided to call her friend Miriam Berghe, another journalist accused with the same charges. Unfortunately, her phone was tapped by the police.

Like in an action film, or in a bad dream, that call triggered the wave of events that took place on the 20th of October 2017 early in the morning.At 6AM, seven policemen armed with guns and bulletproof vests burst into her place and took her to the Dendermonde police station, as she still remembers with fear.More than four years have passed, but the memory of that episode still casts a shadow over her face.

Worried, the human rights defender turned to Alexis Deswaef, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights and one of the most renowned lawyers in Belgium. Together with Anouk, three other volunteers were charged for hosting migrants in an irregular situation. After a four-year prosecution process, two of them ended up in prison.

Five hours with the police

Anouk had nothing to hide, but she was facing a possible 10-year prison sentence. She showed up in the police station of Dendermonde, a small town in the east of Flanders. “I never imagined what was about to happen.”, she remembers. During the five-hour interrogation, Anouk realized the seriousness of the accusations: human trafficking with the aggravating circumstance of danger to life. Assisting immigrants on humanitarian grounds is considered in the Belgian law. “There is no trouble as long as they are adults. With minors things get complicated.”, she says as she admits that she didn’t know that Moha was under 18.

“I couldn’t believe it. They were accusing me of human trafficking for having asked Miriam about the possibilities for Moha to get to the UK.”, she explains. To Anouk, time went by slowly and frantically at the same time. “They asked me all sorts of questions so I admitted things that I didn’t do.”, she analises. Her lawyer, who at that point was aware of the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t believe it when she explained to him what happened.

In Belgium there are no legal descriptions of crimes related to solidarity, so this prosecution could set a precedent for other citizens who, like her, just want to help migrants and protect them from violent and repressive policies.

A political trial and four years of litigation

While explaining the prosecution process against her client, Alexis Deswaef puts his hand on Anouk’s report. He has a pile of other documents staked on his office desk, located in Brussels and close to the famous Madou station. The office is painted in maroon and the Article 1. of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands out in white over the red-coloured background:

“Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits”

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

As Moha arrived by land from France, the trial against the eleven defendants (seven migrants and four volunteers) had to be held in the Wallonia region of Belgium. The other three members of the citizen platform that were prosecuted included Myriam Berghe, a journalist at Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, Zakia S., a social worker with Spanish and Moroccan nationality, and Wahlid, a native of Tunisia and resident in Belgium since she was 17.

“It was essential to move the case to Brussels, as they are more open-minded”, adds the lawyer. To do so, he referred to their right to have a trial in French, their native language. “At the hearing, tension escalated when I confronted the court by mentioning that it seemed like a political trial” He recognizes, expressing his irritation for the first time. “Non-Belgians might not understand the implications of holding the trial in Wallonia. There has been a strong drift towards the right in this part of the country, and migration has been used as part of the political agenda” he explains. According to him, “Anouk is well-known in Belgium, so we were afraid that her case was used as an example for other human and migrant rights defenders.”

The use of the trial for political ends, which undermines the democratic principle of separation of powers, has been condemned by several human rights organisations. As it has been the unequal treatment of the investigation files, which proves the political opportunism in the prosecution of solidarity with migrants in Belgium.

Since his designation in 2014 and in breach of both his national and international legal obligations, the far-right Minister Theo Francken (member of the New Flemish Alliance) has spread anti-immigration discourses, promoting the stigmatisation of organisations and collectives supporting migrants. As a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights and of the Geneva Conventions, Belgium has the obligation to protect people in transit and to guarantee the right to migrate.

Anouk Van Gelsel in his restaurant in Brussels. Photo: Lucía Muñoz and Cristian Pirovano.

​Racist bias during the judicial process

The first hearings took place in November 2018. Even though the four hosts, including Anouk, were acquitted and the prison sentences of the migrants who were arrested were cancelled after pretrial detentions, an eighth migrant was condemned. Joy didn’t last longer than three months. In January 2019 and in a new attempt to prosecute solidarity with migrants, the Italian prosecutors decided to appeal the sentence. The judicial decision was delayed until the 26th of May 2021, when the acquittal was confirmed as well as the fact that hosting migrants is not a crime in Belgium. During the process, several human rights organizations condemned the judicial discrimination against the defendants, based on their origin and nationality.