A lawyer from an international firm was arrested in Brussels Friday for peacefully displaying a sign that read: “Children are never born in the wrong body [1].”
Lois McLatchie Miller, a Senior Legal Communications Officer with ADF International, was detained alongside Canadian child protection advocate Chris Elston while surrounded by an angry mob.
Despite the pair’s peaceful conduct, police chose to arrest them rather than address the aggression of the crowd that had encircled them. The two were then transported to separate police stations where they were ordered to remove their clothes and were searched.
They were ultimately released without charge after several hours but police said the signs were going to be destroyed despite neither person being charged or convicted of any crime.
Paul Coleman, Executive Director of ADF International, said: “This is the type of authoritarianism we challenge in other parts of the world, and it’s deeply disturbing to see it here in the very heart of Europe. While we are grateful our colleague has been safely released, we are deeply concerned by her treatment at the hands of the police in Brussels.”