The mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, after discussions with the police and other services, decided to ban a demonstration against the “progression of the practices of Islam,” saying he feared the event would trigger incidents between the demonstrators and the foreign population of his city, media reports said.
“I decided to forbid the September 11 demonstration ‘against the Islamicisation of Europe,” he said. “Such incitement to discrimination and hatred, which we usually call racism and xenophobia, is forbidden by a considerable number of international treaties and is punished by our penal laws and by the European legislation. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly pronounced judgments condemning this type of acts,” he was quoted as saying.
“The intention is obviously to confound the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists on the one hand and Islam as a religion and all Muslims on the other hand,” Thielemans added. “With regard to the planned demonstration of September 11 ‘against the Islamicisation of Europe’ my mind is made up.
And my decision is final: it will not take place,” Thielemans concluded.
The organization known as SIOE, “Stop the Islamisation of Europe,” wanted to organize a rally in front of the European Parliament on September 11, exactly six years after the attacks on New York. The organisers insisted that they have no connection to the parties of the extreme-Right, but their desire is to stop the “invasion” of Islamic practices in Europe. Their anger is directed at Islamic law, which they say violates equality and democracy.
Udo Ulfkotte, one of the organizers of the anti-Sharia demonstration in Brussels, went to the European capital to confer with lawyers about legal steps to counter last week’s decision to ban the demonstration.
Ulfkotte gave interviews to some of the major Belgian newspapers. Ulfkotte expected that thousands of Europeans, from all of the 27 EU countries, would have come to Brussels on September 11 to support the
demonstration’s demand. When asked what the organisers would do if the Belgian authorities uphold the ban.
“In that case we still ask people to come to Brussels, where we will stage a ‘birthday party’ for Mr Thielemans and everyone else who happens to be born on 11 September,” he said.
Three organisations are behind the planned demonstration; the Danish anti-Islam party SAID, the British group No Sharia Here and the German organisation Pax Europa.
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