The forced placement of mixed-race children in orphanages in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s cannot be qualified as a "
crime against humanity
", a Belgian court ruled on Wednesday, December 8, dismissing their action against the state five mixed-race women today in their seventies.
The alleged crimes and violations of fundamental rights prosecuted before a civil court in Brussels relate to the period 1948-1961, until after the independence in 1960 of the current Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Read alsoBelgium undertakes to return looted works to the Democratic Republic of Congo
Five Métis women, at the time aged 2, 3 or 4 years, born of the relationship of a white man with a black woman, had been torn from their maternal family to be placed in a religious institution where they say they were victims of ill-treatment.
These five women, four Belgians and one French, had decided last year to sue the Belgian state, held responsible for these forced placements at the time of colonial power.
"No one can be punished for a crime that did not exist"
The charge of “
crimes against humanity
” for acts dating from the colonial period was a first in Belgian law. The lawyers of the five women denounced a "
generalized system
" implemented by the Belgian administration and motivated according to them by racism. "
During colonization, the mestizo was considered a threat to the supremacy of the white race, it had to be removed
", pleaded lawyer Michèle Hirsch during the trial in mid-October.
After a deliberation of nearly two months, the court ruled Wednesday that, "
unacceptable as it is today, the policy of placing Métis children in religious institutions for racial reasons was not, between 1948 and 1961, considered by the Community of States as a crime against humanity and incriminated as such
”.
As a result, continues the judgment, according to an extract sent to AFP, the court "
decided that under the rule that no one can be punished for a crime that did not exist (at the time of the alleged offenses) , the Belgian State could not today be punished criminally on the count of a crime against humanity for acts which at the time did not qualify as such a crime
”.
The judgment underlines that the criminalization of the count of crimes against humanity only appeared in Belgian law with a law of 1999.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/LMLUYDJBJGF5EZP36F4UXBLLKA.jpg)
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/OADNJHA33STDSSDCLLQNLNFBWQ.jpg)
