Most CRIES sentences increased on appeal

The appeal against sentence by Phillipe [Philippe] Carpentier and the others convicted in the CRIES trial in Belgium took place late last year. [...] Phillipe Carpentier's sentence was increased from nine years to ten, and most of the other sentences were also increased by one year. This was made possible by particularly vicious prosecution tactics; for instance, the day after Phillipe lodged his appeal, the prosecution lodged its own appeal that the sentence was too short.

The CRIES affair seems to have signaled a wave of moral repression in the Belgian courts. Some doctors who had carried out abortions - technically illegal but previously tolerated - were, against all expectations, convicted. And the publishers of Tel Quels, the magazine of the gay radio station Antenne Rose, are being charged with "facilitating acts of debauchery" by publishing lonely-hearts ads. Meanwhile, in the 'Edegem affair,' the neo-fascists of the Vlaams Blok were acquitted of physical violence against gay activists who distributed information leaflets by a Catholic school in Antwerp; the court accepted that the assaults were provoked and justified.

source: 'Most CRIES Sentences Increased on Appeal' by Leo Adamson; NAMBLA Bulletin, vol. 10, n. 5; June 1989