The death of a Belgian-Tunisian woman in police custody earlier this month has been rejected by her family as a case of suicide, while casting a spotlight on the treatment of minority ethnic citizens by Belgium’s police.
Sourour Abouda, a 46-year-old NGO worker, was found dead in a police cell early in the morning of 12 January, after being arrested several hours before. She had been found drunk in the fashionable district of Place Châtelain in Brussels and taken to a police station in the city centre, according to local media reports that have not been officially confirmed.
