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Police accused of homophobic violence outside Brussels Summer Festival

12:39 12/08/2013

Police in Brussels have received an official complaint for serious homophobic offences committed by police officers on Friday night outside the Brussels Summer Festival, a police spokesperson has confirmed. Two gay men said on their Facebook pages that they had been verbally abused and beaten up by police officers as they were leaving the Brussels Summer Festival. Tristan Schotte, a Brussels comedian, and his partner also lodged a complaint with the P Committee, the parliamentary police watchdog. "My friend has a broken wrist, a black eye and had a number of blows on the back. We requested medical assistance, which was denied to us; instead we were put in a cell for ten hours," Schotte said on Facebook. The organisers of the BSF stressed that the facts “did not take place on the festival site, and had not committed by the festival’s security”. “It happened on a public road; it’s up to the police to comment, " said the BSF’s artistic director, Denis Gérardy. The police confirmed that an internal investigation would be conducted but did not wish to comment any further.

Written by The Bulletin