This morning the police came to my door again to question me about allegedly racist articles on The Brussels Journal. I was not in. Tonight the local police phoned to “invite” me urgently to the police station. In Belgium any leftist or totalitarianist can lodge a complaint against “internet racism” through a Belgian government website and the judiciary starts an investigation. Apparently someone in Ghent has lodged a complaint against this website. I am not allowed to know who this person is, but I am requested to come to the police station to be interrogated. I told the officer that I refuse to justify my writings for anonymous complaints. “I am not living in the Soviet Union,” I told him (though I fear I am).
As a matter of principle I will not go to the police station. I defend the freedom of the press, which implies the right of journalists not to be questioned by the authorities about articles and opinions that they write or edit. I told the officer that if the police wants to question me they will have to arrest me. The Belgian authorities are clearly intent on intimidating us and closing down this website.
What kind of a "Belgian government website" is Mr. Belien talking about? It's Cyberhate, a site where one can fill in forms with the URL and the email of persons deemed "racist". Checks are not needed, and the only forms accepted are those from the left. And so it can happen that a hatesite like the one from the Arab European League, where the murder of 6,000,000 jews is ridiculed, remains online, while a decent conservative site like The Brussels Journal is increasingly coming under attack. It is not an isolated case in Europe: in Sweden, possibly the worst European PC country, several rightwing sites have been shut down. Up north in Holland, Dutch Disease Report, which was something like a local LGF, mysteriously went offline several months ago and remains so to this day.
Cyberhate is an initiative of this CEOOR organization, an outfit with far-reaching powers, able to invoke Belgium's notorious Anti-Racism Law, and directly responsible to the Belgian government. CEOOR is led by Jozef De Witte, a radical leftwing apparatchik who - what a coincidence - happens to be the brother of the socialist governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, Lode De Witte. When one scrutinizes the careers of people like Jozef De Witte, one is always struck by how these creatures manage to secure fancy posts with resounding titles which have little or nothing to do with decent management but everything with nasty tutelage.De Wittes assignment prior to his "promotion" to Chief of Belgian Thought Police was Chairman of 11.11.11, a radical leftwing NGO, virulently anti-American and viciously free markets-opposed.
One of the more "memorable" initiatives developed by 11.11.11 with De Witte at the helm was the Boycott Israel Action of 2004, which exhorted consumers not to buy Israeli products. The campaign poster to the left says "Israeli Fruit tastes bitter - Boycott Israeli products" while the key graphical element is an Israeli orange leaking (Palestinian) blood. Sympathy for the Paleostinian cause with total disregard for the historical background of Israel admittedly harsh, but totally understandable policy in the West Bank, is a recurring theme among leftists everywhere on the globe. I have argued many times on these pages that it is crystal-clear that in the current global crisis surrounding the whole War on Terror, the left is unconditionally allying itself with radical islamism, and the inquisition against Belgium's prime conservative journalist who frequently laments the erosion of Western Values under the incessant attacks the Leftwing/Islamic alliance, is further proof of that.The way Mr. Belien is increasingly being "visited" by police and "invited" to come to police bureaus to "explain matters" and alleged racist articles on The Brussels Journal - and, as you may recall, he already had to remove an article to avoid prosecution under the Anti-Racism Law - is very saddening news to me. It is a sign that the "powers that be" have decided to use all means necessary to stifle the rise of the Right in Belgium, both in Flanders with the Vlaams Belang and in Wallonia with the Front National. Small wonder, for opinion polls suggest big wins for both parties in the October 8 municipal elections. In Wallonia, the FN chairman, Dr. Daniel Féret, even had his civil rights stripped for a period of ten years.
While the predecessor of the Vlaams Belang, the Vlaams Blok, was outlawed, while the Belgian government tries to dry up the financial resources of the VB, while Belien has to shut up and while Féret has now less rights than Sharia-practicing muslims in Molenbeek, sympathizers of Hizballah have come out TWICE in Brussels over the last ten days, namely on July 30 and on August 6, the last time with an 8,000 strong demonstration. More info on Flemish site Kapingamarangi. (while there, notice also the many banners with hammer and sicle). The flags of an organization which murdered 241 Americans in Beirut in 1983, killed hundreds of Israeli citizens with coward suicide attacks, butchered close to 100 Argentinian Jews in 1992 and 1994, and deliberately and with impunity lobbed some 2,500 missiles thus far to Israeli civilian targets, fly freely in the capital of Europe.But it's Paul Belien who has to come to a police bureau to explain.
MFBB.
P.S.: credit for the photos of Paul Belien, Jozef De Witte and the 11.11.11 poster to Luc van Braekel, credit for the Brussels photo to LGF.