Reuzegom was a Flemishfraternity, part of the Antwerp Guild of student societies, known for a 2013 case of animal abuse and a 2018 case of psychological and physical abuse of three of their members resulting in the death of one and the dissolution of the fraternity. The case constituted Belgium's first recorded death by hazing.
History
The fraternity was founded on February 21, 1946 by Frans De Meester, Remi Verselder and Hugo Schiltz. The original name of the society was OXACO-Leuven, an abbreviation for "Leuven chapter of the Xaveriuscollege Alumni". It was a reunion of students at the Catholic University of Leuven who were alumni of Xaverius College, a secondary school in Borgerhout, Antwerp. In 1957, the name of the society was changed to "Reuzegom": a reference to the reuzekes in Borgerhout folklore. In the seventies, the fraternity grew to be one of the leading fraternities among a dozen societies in the Antwerpse Gilde. At the time of their dissolution in 2018, the club counted approximately thirty active members. All of their members were students law, engineering, and business engineering from the University of Leuven. The fraternity was considered elitist, and the fraternity has claimed to protect its exclusivity through a tradition of extreme hazing. The fraternity was exclusively white up to 2015, when the first non-white member was introduced. The second person of color to apply died during his initiation in 2018 as a result of abuse by seventeen other Reuzegom members. The Reuzegom emblem consists of the Flemish Lion and the green and white house colors.
Cruelty complaint
In 2013, animal rights group GAIA lodged a complaint against the club, after a video was leaked in which the fraternity had filmed themselves abusing and killing a piglet as part of the Reuzegom hazing ceremony. No one was charged.
Later in 2013, after the animal cruelty incident, KU Leuven drew up a "hazing charter" to be signed by student societies, fraternities and sororities, in an attempt to make hazing practices safer. Signing the charter would have been a pledge to notify the city of the place and time of the hazing ceremony, and to abstain from violence, racism, extortion, bullying, sexual assault, discrimination, and the use of vertebrates. Reuzegom, as well as the other fraternities and sororities of the Antwerp Guild, refused. In April 2019, the 28 remaining fraternities in Leuven signed the charter.
Death of Sanda Dia
In 2018, the twenty-year-old student Sanda Dia died as a result of the physical abuse he underwent during the two-day-long Reuzegom hazing ritual in Leuven and a cabin in the woods in Vorselaar. He was admitted to Malle Hospital on December 5 at 9:15PM. At arrival, his body temperature read 27.2 °C. He was presented bleeding from nose and mouth, and he was found to have extreme levels of blood salinity resulting from forced consumption of fish sauce and his peers' refusal to let him drink water or soda. A few hours after his arrival in the hospital, Dia died from multiple organ failure. While Dia was being treated in the hospital, the Reuzegom members, in a few hours time, attempted to clear the hut and the surrounding domain in Vorselaar of evidence of the abuse. When a police commissioner arrived at the scene at 4AM, he noted the scene was "completely clean": not a garbage bag had been left behind. The pit in the ground in which Dia was later proven to have lain covered in ice water for hours had been filled in. The members of the club had also attempted to erase their digital traces, but some videos and photos were recovered. They showed Dia unconscious on the ground, a Reuzegom member defecating on someone in the pit, and the group chanting "Chop off those little hands, the Congo is ours" to a homeless person of color on the street.
Dissolution and judicial investigation
Following Dia's death, Reuzegom was dissolved. The identity of all Reuzegom members present and past have been, and remain, successfully removed from the internet and media, even though the names of the members, alumni and presidium were public knowledge, and even though Reuzegom alumni were known to hold positions of power and responsibility in society. No member of the club, past or present, has issued a statement of apology to the family of the victim, either collectively or individually. Although initially it was said the students present at the 2018 hazing ceremony would be suspended from the university, this did not happen. Instead, the suspension was replaced with a disciplinary sanction of thirty hours of community service: the possibilities included writing an essay on the history of hazing traditions, providing free tutoring, and attending a holiday program. Judicial investigations concluded in July 2020, after which, in September 2020, a decision will fall on whether or not the Reuzegom members will be tried for negligent homicide, humiliation, and premeditated administration of dangerous substances. Because one Reuzegom member involved in Dias' death is the son of a judge in Antwerp, the case could not be filed in Antwerp: to avoid conflicts of interest, the case has been moved to Antwerp's neighboring district Limburg.
Public opinion
In July 2020 a reconstruction of the 2018 Reuzegom initiation rite was published, culminating in public outcries. The hashtag #JusticeForSanda circulated on social media, encapsulating the concern that if the seventeen implicated Reuzegom members—enjoying total anonymity—are not charged with felonies, they can continue their studies and, like their predecessors, continue towards positions of power in society and in the legal system.
