Rise in Power, Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie
Sunday, 01. June 2025

Statement Against the Systemic Killings of Black People in Switzerland
by mo wa baile

What do we know about Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie, who died in police custody on Sunday, May 25, in Lausanne? As usual, the police version has already been sold to the media to echo to the public. Soon, the so-called justice system will also adopt the same narrative. And we, the people, will continue reporting and documenting this scam.

A month earlier, on April 25, 2025, 21-year-old Lorenz A. was shot multiple times to death by German police in Oldenburg, with one bullet striking him in the back of the head. The police claimed he threatened them with a knife, yet the body cameras of the officers involved were mysteriously turned off, and witnesses say he did not have a knife. This pattern is familiar. Hervé Mandundu was shot dead by Swiss police in Bex on November 6, 2016, and they claimed he had a knife. Roger Nzoy was also shot dead in Morges on August 30, 202, and again, the police said he was threatening them with a knife.

If a knife is not claimed, then it is death in custody. That is what happened to Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie. It is also what happened to Lamin Fatty, who was taken into custody in Mont-sur-Lausanne on October 23, 2017, but did not come out alive the following morning. When it is neither a knife nor death in custody—where most of the time the narrative becomes suicide—the police often allege it to be the result of “jumping from a window” or “resisting arrest.” Yaya Bakayoko died in Basel on June 3, 2004, and the Swiss police claimed he fell from a window after they stormed his room. Mariame Souaré was found dead outside her home in Geneva on August 25, 2007, and again, police had broken into her home and said she “fell.” And Mike ben Peter was breathless after six police officers pounced on him and knelt on his upper body for several minutes around Lausanne train station on February 28 2018.

The formula is predictable: the police tell their version, the media repeat it, and the courts approve it. This shows how deeply racism is embedded in Swiss institutions. The state violence and inequality we see today in Switzerland are rooted in colonialism and slavery. Even when Switzerland claim innocence by saying it never had colonies or plantations, its position in Europe and its wealth are products of its colonial complicity. Its refusal to acknowledge this past is part of a broader pattern of racist exceptionalism.

In Switzerland, I am constantly forced to show my ID on the streets, at the train stations, inside the trains, outside the shops. This replicates the apartheid era in South Africa and military checkpoints in occupied Palestine. Black people, especially those with illegalized status, know all too well the spaces where they are not welcome, the streets they should avoid, and the places where waiting too long can be dangerous. These everyday experiences mirror the systemic oppressive tactics used around the world by state apparatuses.

When Black people are killed by police, and the media cheer, and the judiciary refuse to hold anyone accountable, it reflects a wider culture of dehumanization. What is happening to Black people in Switzerland is not separate from the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people or what happened to Jewish people in Europe’s history. Our struggles are connected through shared systems of racist exclusion and violence. The systemic dehumanization of Black people through racist policing and migration policy is part of a continuum that began with slavery and colonialism and continued with the Holocaust and the Nakba. That history is neither exclusively about the past nor has it passed; we are living its consequences today with the continuing killing of marginalized people.

Therefore, the killing of Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie is not an isolated incident. It is part of Switzerland’s ongoing colonial legacy. As the media will also applaud and the court will excuse this latest killing—as always happens with the killings of Black people—we take inspiration from the Palestinian people and their resistance. We will not stop organizing. We, the people, will continue to upset this legacy by forcing institutions to reckon with their past. We do this by organizing, documenting, and amplifying every case, like those of Wa Baile, Wilson A., Mike Ben Peter, and Roger Nzoy. The case of Wilson A. and the case of Roger Nzoy against the Swiss police will go upto the European Court of Human Rights, as in the Case of Wa Baile.

Our struggle for a Switzerland free of racism and discrimination grows stronger through organizing, solidarity, and resistance. We remember Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie, as we remember Mike Ben Peter. Both Black men were part of collectives advocating for migrant housing rights. Both cried out for help while being violently restrained by the police before they died close to Lausanne train station on the same spot.

Rise in Power, Michael Kenechukwu Ekemezie.