For constraining laws on minima rights of the prisoners in the European Union

I. Introduction

1. EU prisons are lawless zones, from where many prisoners only leave dead or handicapped, in full discretion, without having been able to reach the recourse, which were to clear them.

II. BASIC FILES

2. France has known the OUTREAU case, a paedocriminal network whose circuit of distribution of child pornography was occulted by false miscarriages of justice. An innocent man died in prison by an overdose of drugs, which was administrated to him by the prison staff.

3. Mrs. POUPARD, who claimed charges in the paedocriminal ZANDVOORT dossier, was imprisoned in good health. She was released only with handicap estimated between 50 and 80%, which did not make it possible for her to start the recourse to the Court of Human rights in time.

4. Belgium beats all the records, insofar as its authorities can knowingly, wilfully and publicly lead an innocent man to death, which shows the intolerable fate liable to be imposed to any prisoner, in full discretion.

III. MODEL OF A FALSE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

5. Mr. Marcel VERVLOESEM is a Belgian citizen, member of the board of directors WERKGROEP MORKHOVEN, the civil organisation that exposed the paedocriminal network ZANDVOORT. He was condemned to four years of prison, in spite of the expertises, on scientific basis (electrocardiogram and blood analysis), proving that his cardiac dysfunctions would not have able him to survive the sexual stimulants that his diabetes would have imposed to carry out the rapes of which he was accused.

6. Nine doctors, including the expert appointed by justice, opposed this imprisonment in reason of a health condition which would not allow him to survive it. He is in the physical incapacity to represent a danger at the society, which could justify at most, an electronic bracelet.

7. Mr VERVLOESEM' medical dossier indeed exposed a cancer and three metastases; a cardiac deficiency which had requested three open-heart operations; a renal deficiency which had requested three surgical operations; a deficiency of the pancreas which had requested two surgical operations and a diabetes that made him dependent on insulin.

8. The Ministry for Justice decided that Mr. VERVLOESEM would be imprisoned at the prison of Turnhout, which does not have an infirmary. Such a judgment in Belgium is an automatically a sentence that the social rights and the right of access to health care of the prisoner is transferred from the supervision of the ministry for health and social affairs, to the supervision of the ministry for Justice. The prisoner then depends on half dozen services and commissions, which are only fractions of the sole and indivisible ministry for justice.

9. The Order of the Doctors was asked to explain how a legal expertise could omit to stigmatize a physical incapacity to carry out a crime and if it was normal for a prison doctor not to advise a patient of a cancer. The Order of the Doctors answered it did not to intervene in cases dependent of the justice department. The Belgian medical community is thus divided between the normal doctors who depend on the Hippocratic Oath, and the doctors of justice, who depend on the ministry for justice.

10. No answer was given on the questions raised on the doctors who have assured Mr VERVLOESEM that his cancer could not be treated by chemotherapy in reason of his diabetes, which occurs to be false. These doctors, who depend on the Hippocratic Oath, are presumed to have been threatened, by the criminal network that their patient is fighting.

11. Mr. VERVLOESEM introduced two recourses to the European Court of the Human rights on August 8, 2008, one for the initial judgment, the other in an emergency procedure, to release him from the imprisonment, comparable to torture, considering his health condition.

IV. EXAMPLE OF TOLERATED DEADLY TREATMENTS

12. Mr VERVLOESEM has then knocked on the door of the prison on September 5, 2008, to begin a hunger and thirst strike there, with an aim of shortening his sufferings and of dying for what he has lived: in asking the application of the constitutional laws of the victims and witnesses of the paedocriminal networks.

13. The Doctor of Justice estimated that chance of survival was of ten days. A service of the ministry promised that Mr VERVLOESEM would have an electronic bracelet in the month of May, eigh months later, that is to say when he was expected to be dead and buried.

14. Another fraction of the ministry intervened from Brussels at the fifth day of the imprisonment, to prohibit the hospitalization the doctor prescribed. Mr. VERVLOESEM was transferred to the medical centre of the Bruges prison, where he stopped the thirst strike, but carried on the hunger strike.

15. He was then imprisoned in a medical isolation cell without sink, therefore without running water, where he was prohibited any other beverage than boiling water during 20 days. Boiling water on an empty stomach causes heavy pain, from where dehydration causing the blocking of the kidneys, the destabilization of the glycaemia and of the blood-pressure.

16. The friends of Mr VERVLOESEM where banned from their rights of visit, thus not allowed to convince him to live during eighteen days, though the doctors expected he could not survive more than ten days. They only took a week to convince him to live. He decided to eat again on September 30, 2008. The ministry opposed to the hydration protocol during eight days, until he fell into a diabetic coma.

17. On the hundred ninety-three first days of detention, Mr. VERVLOESEM was imprisoned one hundred and eight days in penitentiary medical centre, of which twenty-seven days in arbitrary isolation sentence; thirty-four days at the hospital, of which twenty-nine in intensive care, at the time of fifteen hospitalisations. He underwent seven surgical operations, including five in urgency and six under general anaesthesia, without justice not wanting to consider the electronic bracelet, in order to give him back his rights as a patient.

18. The doctors of justice remained impassive vis-à-vis 50 days of blocking of Mr. VERVLOESEM' kidneys. The process is visible at naked eye. The water, which the kidneys do not manage any more to filtre, is stored in the legs, then in the absence of adapted care, rises and reaches the heart. The legs inflate like balloons, on which the pressures leave a print.

19. The hospitalization of Mr. VERVLOESEM was authorized only on the thirty first day of defect of treatment of his kidneys, when he did not have any more than 24 heart beat per minute. Two of his cardiac valves had been wounded by then and the reproduction of the cells of his blood was handicapped, at the point to cause a leukaemia. Justice however did not authorize to treat his kidneys and to do the cardiac catheterization recommended by the cardiologist, to define the necessary surgical operations. He was brought back to the infirmary of the prison of Bruges five days later.

20. Mr. VERVLOESEM made a request for euthanasia, because of the detention conditions incompatible with his final diseases and the impossibility to get the medical treatment ordered by the specialists. A doctor of the commission of the euthanasia then incited him to suicide, by explaining him that it was enough for him to stop his medications and to continue to eat normally to die in ten days. He followed his indications.

21. The new appointed Doctor of Justice negotiated the catheterization, then object twelve days of delaying tactics, in exchange of this second suicide attempt. Mr. VERVLOESEM had been previously transferred in the cell of man who protested by spreading his own excrements everywhere. He was brought back in this cell with an internal bleeding, on the very same day of this surgical operation, which had revealed the necessity for two open-heart operations.

22. Justice will oppose again to the hospitalization, before he fell into a coma. Three surgical operations will then be necessary, at 24 hours interval each. His chances of survival obliged to compress the internal bleeding to treat his kidneys first. The second operation was reserved for the internal bleeding and the third one to insert a tube which will be necessary, amongst other, for the transfusion of three litres blood. He will be dialysed, but until he got back only 60% of his renal capacities.

23. The eleven post-surgery days were ensured in the cell of the man spreading his excrements everywhere, until Mr. VERVLOESEM contracted gangrene. This gangrene was also left without useful treatment, until he awoke in a blood bath, a foot shackled to a hospital bed. Two surgical operations will be necessary in emergency, one to cauterize the haemorrhage, the other to chop off the flesh and bones with gangrene.

24. Mr VERVLOESEM was maintained eight days shackled and under an electric light 24 hours a day, that is to say a very unusual torture in the service of intensive care of a university hospital, of a prisoner whom the prison authorities recognize the defect of risk of escape.

25. The fact that Mr. VERVLOESEM survived beyond all that was conceivable raises curiosity (not any intervention) of many governments and universities on world level. His Doctors of Justice negotiated the cauterizations of his cardiac valves against the withdrawal from Internet, of an article of the foundation Princesses de Croÿ et Massimo Lancellotti, concerning the first five emergency hospitalizations which were made in secret, that is to say without warning his family, as the regulation requests. The deal was concluded in exchange of two hospitalizations at three weeks from interval per recommended operation, without shackles, or light 24 hours a day and without limitation for the revalidation.

26. One of the fractions of the ministry threatened Mr. VERVLOESEM of sanctions, if the ONG that exposed his situation did not withdraw from Internet, information published about another fraction of the ministry. The request for censure was refused. Mr. VERVLOESEM was sanctioned by isolation, a ban from visits, telephone and even to go to the mass during one month. A third fraction of the ministry then deprived him of any medication during four days.

27. Justice will not respect its share of the deal for the open heart surgeries. Delaying tactics deferred the cauterization of 131 days, until when Mr. VERVLOESEM have four wounded valves. The ministry authorized only one surgery, thus multiplying by four the risk that he may not survive it. He had a foot chained and shackled to the hospital bed and was sent back to prison after ten days, with a three months revalidation prescription.

28. When it appeared that Mr. VERVLOESEM survived the operations, to the deprivation of his drugs, to the suspensions of the revalidation care, the promise of electronic bracelet for May, was deferred to August, and then deferred again to an unspecified date.

29. The totality of the ministry of justice fractions has operated delaying tactics to prohibit him from any penitentiary leave. He thus cannot consult a doctor dependent on the Hippocratic Oath, without that he may be locatable by the ministry of justice, and consequently at the risk of reprisals.

30. Mr. VERVLOESEM is surviving since four years and half, to a cancer without chemotherapy. The ministry has not informed him of the least control of the possible formation of a new metastasis. He is just informed of the level of destabilization of his glycaemia and also of his blood-pressure that is left between 19 and 20, that is to say a mortal threshold after such operation. This results to headaches, fainting and nosebleed. The water retention is again visible at naked eye.

31. The doctors of justice react only following alerts from the NGOs on Internet, which raises sensitivity on the international level, but also on the prison level. Mr. VERVLOESEM is imprisoned in Bruges, in theory for medical reasons, but outside from the medical complex. He is currently at block 35, reserved to the most dangerous criminals of Belgium, with the heaviest penitentiary regime that can be imposed on people in good health, therefore insupportable to such a sick man.

32. His fight against the paedocriminal networks exposes him to aggressions of people who were employed by these networks. The other prisoners ensure his protection against violence. Last week again, fourteen prisoners intervened when two men lack of respect to Mr VERVLOESEM. They said to them: "If you start again that, we will reduce you into pulp. That man is supported by the Werkgroep Morkhoven. He is innocent and if you do not know it, we will make you understand it". They demanded apologies, which where readily presented.

33. The prison warders are particularly attentive and human with him, understanding his innocence and the difficulties of prison in such circumstances. They have order to check every fifteen minutes if he is not dead and they say big trouble is expected at the moment it happens.

34. The doctors of justice just prescribed Mr VERVLOESEM cardiac electric shocks to stop an arrhythmia considered dangerous since three weeks. The hospitalisation, which for a man allowed to an electronic bracelet would be immediate, is deferred of a week, showing that the ministry decided that he had to die in prison, puting up a good show.

35. A procedure is currently in hand, to expel Mr VERVLOESEM from his home and to evacuate his belongings, as if he were already dead.

V. RECOURCES

36. THE LAWYER. The lawyer of Mr. VERVLOESEM contacted all the fractions of the ministry, without obtaining the least useful intervention to ensure him proper health care. He reminds that there is violation of the fundamental provisions of the international laws, that the death of his client will be the responsibility of each person who will have refused to intervene, but in vain. It seems that there is strictly no recourse.

37. RELEASE ON PAROLE FOR HEALTH REASONS. In Belgium, the release on parole for health reason depends in theory on article 72, which concerns the judge of application of the sentences, but who is not applicable, by lack of royal signature. Meanwhile, it depends on Dr. VAN MOL, chief consultant of all the prisons, which has the role to judge alone, the totality of the requests of an incarcerated population of almost 10.200 prisoners.

38. This doctor, without the least auscultation of Mr. VERVLOESEM, “diagnosed” that he could perfectly be treated in any prison, and omitted to mention the least of his hospitalisations. The responsibility for his health issues would fall on him, owing to the fact that he would be smoker, according to him, whereas this prisoner has an aversion for smoke.

39. THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE. The Ministers for justice who followed one another along the procedures answered only one mail out of three and a half question out of ten. The current Minister for justice does not claim to consider the urgency to ask for to the King of the Belgians to sign the law, yet voted, allowing to present the release on parole to the court of application of the sentences, with a proper right to a defence and medical expertises independent from the ministry of justice.

The minister advised Mr. VERVLOESEM that the President of the Commission of the Euthanasia would meet him to judge appropriateness of prescribing him a pill to cause him a deadly heart attack. He answered to the WERKGROEP MORKHOVEN not having "any objective reason to intervene" owing to the fact that the file would be object of investigations, or that Mr. VERVLOESEM would have the ad hoc contacts with all the fractions of his services.

40. SENATE, ELECTED OFFICIALS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS. Nearly all of the Belgian officials are advised week after week, of the treatments to which Mr. VERVLOESEM survived only by miracles, without a sole deputy having raised the question of the separation of the capacities between justice and the medical community.

41. The UN Committee Against Tortures has highly criticised the treatment of prisoners in Belgium, but refused to intervene to save the life of Mr VERVLOESEM, in the reason of the introduction of the urgent procedure to the European Court of the Human rights, on August 6, 2008, that is to say more than nine months ago today.

42. NGO such as Amnesty International or the League of the Human rights do not even answer the mail which is addressed to them. This behaviour is explained by the nature of calumnies.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

43. The application of the European recommendations would be enough to protect the prisoners of these practices, but these recommendations are not applied because they do not act of constraining laws.

44. The violations of the fundamental provisions of the international laws are assured by the impunity to the civil servant and doctors of justice. This impunity allows a restoration of an outlaw capital punishment, however under conditions of a cruelty which exceeds the practices which preceded abolition of the capital punishment.

VII. REQUEST

45. We ask the European Parliament to consider the emergency to establish constraining laws for the protection of the physical and psychic integrity of all the prisoners, as well as for the protection of the acquisition of the people condemned, until they can benefit from last the recourse guaranteed by the EU.

46. We ask a priority given:

46.1. To the time limit for judging the recourse to the European Court of the Human rights, when the life of a person is in danger;

46.2. To the rights of the prisoners in the fields:

46.2.1. Of the health care in prison and to the application of the sentences of the sick prisoners;

46.2.2. Of the sanctions applicable in prison and the coercive measures (shackles, chains, isolation);

46.3. To consider reduced sentences in the event of violation of the rights of a prisoner.

47. Considering the indifference on both media level as well as the political level regarding the number of prisoners presumed in danger of death or handicap by lack of constraining laws to protect them, we ask that this petition be treated in extreme urgency, with the outmost vigilance.