A demolition site next door to her flat had been causing hassle for the occupants of her student accommodation, with asbestos contamination and cracks appearing in their walls. Renata complained about it several times but to no effect, and when they brought in a new very loud machine she went down to the site to complain directly to the builders this time. The argument became physical as the driver swung the machine around so that it almost hit her and another builder pushed her to the ground, so Renata threw some rubble at them. At this point they said they would call the police, to which she replied, “Good do that so I can complain about the nuisance”.

When the police called on her a little while later they immediately announced that she was being arrested for destroying machinery. She couldn't believe they were actually serious, and tried to just continue making her dinner, but the male police officer stepped in trying to stop her, proclaiming “I will use violence” and barged into her. She began to panic because she had nowhere to escape. She had the knife she had been using to prepare her dinner and pointed it at him, trying to make him step back. She did not try to stab him, she just wanted him to keep his hands off her, acting from a survival instinct. He grabbed it off her and then pepper sprayed her in the face, followed by dragging her out and the female police officer searched her flat without a warrant while she was held down. They picked her up by her arms and trousers and carried her down the stairs head first, and all throughout her arrest she was manhandled; they also pulled her trousers down in the car with nothing she could do about it.

When in the cell they took her trousers off completely and locked her up for two days. She had bruising just above her pubic bone and had marks and a cut from the cuffs. She was having her period, but there was no toilet in her cell and she was given no sanitary products, she had to go to the toilet on her cell floor. She was hardly given any water, none at all on the second day, and when she asked for some they told her to “Fuck off”. Although she told them she was vegan they kept throwing meat into her cell to torment her and beat her hands when she pushed it back out. She saw a female duty solicitor who was helpful and found her a support group for vegans in prison. After two days in custody a judge came and she had a hearing through the cell window, where she found she was being charged with attempted murder.

During her transfer from the police cell to a prison the police used unnecessary restraints and violence against her and she walked through the prison gates naked from the waste down. She was put in a cell and only brought food she could eat the next day. She spent another 2 or 3 days in isolation on suspicion of having tuberculosis because she was Polish, which she has been inoculated against as most people in Poland are. She told them that X-rays cause cancer and that she was very unhappy to have it done to her but she was forced to have an X-ray of her chest to be allowed into the normal cells.

Now she is in the normal cells in pre-trial detention. She could get 6 years or more for attempted murder. She has missed her exams and lost her job. She will now have to pay back her student grant and for the language course, both were free only if she kept attending. There are services to help people save their jobs and housing but since she is not Dutch she does not qualify, although she was paying taxes in that country. She had a very short court hearing recently for 15 minutes where she was not told her sentence but told that she was a danger to the public and needed to be locked up, and that she had caused a disturbance to public order.

Renata said in her letter, “He came into my home and threatened me with violence. I picked up the knife without thinking about what I was doing. Do I really deserve 6 years for trying to save my life? Is this justice? I received a beating, I was starved, refused water, tormented, ridiculed, kept in isolation, X-rayed and now locked up. When I am released I will have no education, no where to go, I will be in debt, mentally disturbed and physically destroyed. All because I wanted some peace and quiet in a flat I was paying a lot of rent for. I have lost all hope, I look in the mirror and see death in my eyes. I have lost weight. I'm just skin and bones. I don't know if I'm alive any more”.

What You Can Do:

- Please write letters of support to:

Renata Zelazna
Penitentiare Inrichting Ter Peel
T.A.V. Renata Zelazna 7138606 cel 1/10
Paterstraat 4
5977 NM Evertsoord
Netherlands

- There's a "Free Renata Zelazna" page on Facebook that people can join where updates about her will be added. You will also soon be able to find a sample letter of complaint to send on her behalf and translations of this information into Polish and Dutch on these pages:

 http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121038371247468

Plus this website: www.free-renata-zelazna.webs.com

- A PayPal account has now been set up for money that has been raised, please send money to Renata via Paypal at www.paypal.com to  free.renata@ymail.com

- Please write to the Dutch Government to complain about what has happened to Renata and demand her release:

E.M.H. Hirsch Ballin, Minister of Justice
Postbus 20301
2500 EH Den Haag
Netherlands
General telephone number
+31 (0)70 3 70 79 11
General fax number
+ 31 (0)70 3 70 79 00

And please write to the Polish Embassy in the Netherlands to ask them to support Renata:

Embassy of Poland in The Hague, Netherlands
Alexanderstraat 25
2514 JM Den Haag
City: The Hague
Phone: (+31 70) 360 2806

Legal Update and Letter Appeal For People That Personally Know Renata

From a recent letter from Renata:

“I'm charged with “Intent to Kill”. This was upheld by the court during the second hearing I had in Arnhem on the 22nd April. The verdict was that I tried to kill a policeman and I'm also suspected of mental illness. They were trying to freak me out on purpose while in the cells so that they could say that I am mad and dangerous. They are threatening me with imprisonment of 12 years or more. Now everything depends on how well my lawyer can do her job to prove that I am not dangerous to the public and that I acted in self defence. I did not start the aggression and did not try to kill the policeman. The police acted illegally, they did not inform me about my rights when they came to arrest me, they entered my flat and touched my things, escalated the situation, threatened me with violence, beat me up (including on my head and belly) and finally searched my flat without a warrant. They acted improperly and if they had done their job as they were supposed to the thing with the knife would not have happened.

And the reason they came to my house in the first place was probably also not sufficient to arrest me. It was because I threw mud and rubble at some machine that was shaking my flat and had caused structural damage to the place I lived. The demolition next door belonged also to the university who had ignored all my previous complaints to them and it was brought on the first day of our exams that week. The police came immediately to arrest me as if I was endangering somebody and needed to be locked up. I am told that those police receive an exceptional amount of complaints for their behaviour from many people who were mistreated by them. It is not just me that thinks they acted aggressively. The police lied giving the statement about what happened in my house. But I have no witness to confirm my version and it's my words against the words of two police. Who do you think the judge is going to believe? My sentence could be 12 years or more in prison or a mental hospital”.

Renata needs friends, family, people that know her or have worked with her, studied with her, and volunteered with her to write letters to say that they know or remember her, saying that she is not aggressive, or dangerous, that she has to be given a chance to continue her studying, that she is not anti-social, things like that. As Renata says about herself:

“I worked hard to get into the university, to find a job and a place to live. I was there alone and had to overcome lots of obstacles to sort all these things. I started the course in Animal Husbandry to specialise in Animal Welfare. I was doing very well at school, I found a place for the intern ship already, everything was going well. And now it is ruined! I cannot continue my studies, I lost my job, my flat, EVERYTHING! And I will have the criminal record of a MURDERER! I'm a vegan, I don't kill, this is one of the most important things to me – to respect the lives of others, to do no harm”.

Please send your character reference letters about Renata to us and we will collect them to send onto her lawyer. We can also translate any letters sent in Polish. Renata's court case is meant to be some time in July so please don't delay sending these letters to:

Free Renata Zelazna
PO Box 74
Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 4ZQ
UK
 free.renata@ymail.com