Olivier Dupuis

Olivier Dupuis is a Belgian-born politician, and former Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party.

He was born in 1958 in Ath (Belgium). He graduated in Political and Social Science at the University of Louvain. He first joined the Radical Party in 1981, and took an active part in the campaign against famine, undertaking nonviolent actions which led to his arrest and detention on numerous occasions in Brussels. In 1982 he went on a hunger strike lasting five weeks in order to obtain the effective implementation of the so-called "Survival Law", which had been passed by majority vote by the Belgian parliament. In the same year, he was arrested in Prague (Czechoslovakia) for demonstrating and handing out pamphlets with other Radical activists in support of freedom and democracy. After being arrested with two other Radical activists in Dubrovnik (Yugoslavia), he was kept in prison for three days before being expelled from the country and banned from returning for three years. Declaring that neither military defense nor the civilian alternative are capable of facing the real threats to peace and security represented by the lack of democracy in Eastern Europe and the non-respect of the right to life in the South of the world, he was arrested in October 1985 and charged with desertion. Sentenced to two years in prison, he was released in August 1986 after spending eleven months in the prisons of Saint-Gilles and Leuven.

From 1988 he lived in Budapest, where he helped to organise the TRP Congress in April 1989. From 1989 to 1993 he coordinated the activities of the Radical Party in the countries of Central Europe. In December 1991, as the European Community obstinately refused to recognise the republics of the former Yugoslavia, he went with Marco Pannella and other Radicals to the trenches of besieged city of Osijek, and wore the Croatian uniform.

In Sofia, in July 1993, he was elected President of the General Council of the Radical Party.

In March 1994 he held a day of dialogue (which lasted twenty-eight hours) with the members of the V Commission of the United Nations to obtain an agreement on the funding of the ad hoc Tribunal on crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.

In April 1995, he was elected Secretary of the TRP by the 37th Congress in Rome.

In April 1996, following the resignation of Marco Pannella, he became a member of the European Parliament. He was a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission, a substitute member of the Public Liberty Commission, and a member of the Delegations with South East Europe and with Transcaucasia.

In the summer of 1998 he launched the Transnational Radical Party campaign in favour of the indictment of President Slobodan Milošević for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court on crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. In spring 1999 he handed the Deputy Attorney of the Court, Graham Blewitt, a petition with over 100,000 signatures from people all over the world asking for the indictment of Slobodan Milošević.

He was re-elected to the European Parliament in June 1999 in the North-West Italy constituency (Milan-Turin-Genoa). He is a member of the Constitutional Commission, a substitute member of the Foreign Affairs Commission and a member of the Delegations with South Asia and with Transcaucasia.

In June 2001 he demonstrated together with the Radical Martin Schulthes in favour of democracy and the freedom of religion in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), outside the Pagoda of Tinh Minh, where the Venerable Thich Quang Do, the number two in the Unified Buddhist Church (not recognised by the Hanoi authorities), was detained. After being arrested, they were questioned for several hours before being put on the first plane to Bangkok.

On the occasion of the second anniversary of the "26 October 1999 Movement" and as a sign of concrete solidarity with the five student leaders arrested and not heard of since, Olivier Dupuis, Silvja Manzi, Massimo Lensi, Bruno Mellano and Nikolaj Khramov demonstrated on 26 October 2001 in Vientiane (Laos) for "freedom, democracy and reconciliation in Laos". Arrested by the Lao authorities, they were questioned at length and then detained for two weeks in Phontong prison. Sentenced to two and a half years in prison after a brief, farcical trial, they were immediately expelled from the country.