A huge tarpaulin in support of Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian humanitarian worker from Tournai imprisoned in Iran, will be unfurled on the belfry of the Walloon city on Thursday 12 January.
Arrested last February, Vandecasteele was officially accused of espionage by the Iranian regime after working for international NGOs in Iran for more than six years. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
On Thursday at 2.30pm, Mayor Olivier Delannois and the municipal college of the City of Tournai will unveil a huge tarpaulin in support of the humanitarian worker, in the presence of Olivier Vandecasteele’s two sisters.
The tarpaulin, 12 metres high and 4 metres wide, will be unfurled from the first floor of the belfry, symbol of communal freedoms and a stone’s throw from Tournai’s main square. Vandecasteele’s face will be printed on it, together with the words “imprisoned arbitrarily.”
