There is cheering and applause when protest leader Stephano ‘Pakittow’ Biervliet (30) walks out through the steel door of the Santo Boma prison in Wanica around 9 pm local time. His mother Joyce Paiman hugs him with tears in her eyes and wraps the Surinamese flag around his shoulders. A group of about twenty relatives and activists present loudly sing the Surinamese national anthem and then shout very loudly “Freedom!”
“I thank God, Allah, my family and my lawyers,” Biervliet says a little later with a group of journalists around him, while a group of guards watches in the background. “Have prices come down yet? Has the price dropped already? Is the price of petrol already lower? No? Then the battle continues!” he then says confidently. Suriname’s best-known activist was detained for ten days after he voluntarily reported to the police a day after the demonstration on February 17, which had gotten completely out of hand.
During this demonstration, which Biervliet – who has been organizing peaceful demonstrations for years, including against the government of ex-president Bouterse – had been calling for for days, parliament was stormed and destroyed and groups moved into the city and looted shops and petrol stations. According to Biervliet, the peaceful protest, which attracted a few thousand people, was overpowered by a group of violent demonstrators. He himself was “overrun by masked and armed demonstrators” on his truck who violently took over the demonstration and threatened him, he said on his Facebook page just before his arrest.
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Transferred to Santo Boma
But according to the OM, Biervliet himself was guilty of disturbing public order and complicit in assault, arson and theft. An attempt by the examining judge to detain him for another 30 days was rejected on appeal by Pakittow’s lawyers. “They even wanted to charge me with attempted murder, while I always organize peaceful protests and I was also well brought up,” he says fiercely.
“I think the investigation should now mainly focus on the role of the police and the security services. Why were they with so few people when they know that if I organize a demonstration, thousands of people will come?” says Biervliet critically. “And why did they intervene in the looting so late and why didn’t they send soldiers there? They failed, not us!”
Initially, he was held in custody at a police station in a neighborhood not far from his home. But after a few days he was suddenly transferred to the Santo Boma prison, 45 minutes outside Paramaribo. This prison is known for holding especially serious criminals. According to his lawyers, he was in a cell with sixteen fellow prisoners. Although human rights organizations have been critical of the conditions in Surinamese prisons for years, it was not too bad, according to Biervliet.
Free from charges
“I was treated well, the conditions were not so good in the first days with many people in a cell, but there was no room because so many people had been arrested. In the end, things improved,” said the activist, more combative than ever. He is not thinking about stopping the demonstrations for the time being. “For me it’s all over when Santokhi really listens to the people in the neighborhoods, in the ghettos where they hardly have anything to eat.” According to Biervliet, he is now completely free of all charges, and it is clear that he is innocent. However, the question is whether the OM sees it that way and whether he is still part of the investigation into the riots of February 17.
In addition to Biervliet, a number of demonstrators are still detained. In recent days, pressure has also been exerted on other activists who have not been arrested, but were considering new protests. For example, Curtis Hofwijks, an activist who demonstrated for years on his own on Independence Square during the Bouterse government, had to report to the police on Sunday. “I volunteered,” says Hofwijks, who came to the prison with a large Surinamese flag to encourage his fellow fighter Biervliet.
“They wanted to know what we are up to. And whether demonstrations are still being organized. We are not obliged to apply for a permit, that is part of our freedom for the right to demonstrate and I have made that clear to them,” said Hofwijks. After hugs from relatives and supporters, Pakkitow’s mother pulls him to the car. “I will first rest and sleep, then I will continue the fight,” says the protest leader, and gets in.