Free Republic

BRUSSELS — Flemish Interest leader Filip Dewinter has called his extreme right party an "Islam phobic" organisation in an interview with the US daily newspaper 'Jewish Week'. Dewinter said Europe is becoming just as dangerous for Jews as Egypt or Algeria, turning blame away from his party to the Islamic faith. He also said the Flemish Interest is no different than its predecessor, the Flemish Block, which was convicted for racism and xenophobia, newspaper 'De Morgen' reported on Wednesday. According to Dewinter, the separation of powers no longer exists in Belgium and there are few judges who can withstand political...

The Derb has already had plenty to say about the decision of Belgium's supreme court effectively to ban the country's largest political party under 'anti-racism' laws, but it's also well worth noting that one of the leaflets used to justify the ban was (according to the Daily Telegraph) a pamphlet written by a Turkish-born women denouncing female genital mutilation in Islamic countries. It's also well worth asking whether Belgium (a country that sent 'observers' to the US elections) is, in any real sense of the word, a democracy. It doesn't seem so. And if that's case, what is it doing...

Belgium's most popular political party was banned as racist by the country's high court yesterday, fuelling concerns that the judicial branch is being used to eliminate political enemies. The Vlaams Blok, a Flemish independence party promising to abolish Belgium as a nation, now cannot receive funding of any kind, and will have to disband. Frank Vanhecke, the party's chairman, accused the ruling elite of using totalitarian tactics to stop legitimate political expression and vowed to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. "This is an attack on democracy and free speech. Our political opponents have changed the...

An attempt will be made this week to ban Europe's most successful far-right nationalist party, Belgium's Vlaams Blok. A quarter of voters in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, support its policies for independence from Belgium and repatriation of many immigrants, especially Muslim ones. It is now the biggest party in Flanders, kept out of power only by an agreement among all the mainstream parties to exclude it from any coalition government. But tomorrow Belgium's highest court is expected to rule that the party is racist. The ruling will mean that the Vlaams Blok will have to disband. But...

BRUSSELS - A Gent court has ruled that Belgium's far-right Flemish party, the Vlaams Blok, has repeatedly broken Belgium's anti-racism laws by publishing overtly racist propaganda. The court made its ruling on Tuesday evening at the end of a landmark case brought by two Belgian anti-racism groups. In its judgement the court said the Blok deliberately tried to stir up "hatred against foreigners, with the principal targets being north Africans and Turks." Quoting Vlaams Blok propaganda, the court said the party described foreigners as "criminals who take the bread out of the mouths of Flemish workers, take advantage of the...

The Prime Minister makes much of the “scare stories” and “myths” which opponents of further deepening of the EU supposedly propagate. They are based, apparently, on paranoia, and are products of not-so-latent xenophobia. Well here’s a very scary story which is not speculation but fact. This week democracy — the right to vote for the party you wish to support — ended inside one EU member state. On Wednesday, the Belgian judiciary banned a political party from operating in Belgium. The reason? The country’s political establishment dislikes its views. The party it banned is not some obscure fringe organisation but...

French-speaking enemies call him a "designer fascist", with his air of having just stepped off a plane from San Francisco. Filip Dewinter, the strongman of the Vlaams Blok, the Right-wing anti-immigration party that is poised to do well in tomorrow's Belgian election, is a man who provokes that sort of angry reaction. His Flemish front poses a mortal threat to the Belgian state and the welfare apparatus that keeps the French-speaking regions afloat. Filip Dewinter Each year, the Dutch-speaking majority in the north pay a bigger share of GDP to subsidise their former masters in Wallonia than the west Germans...

Right-wing tide surges straight to the heart of EuropeBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 22/04/2002) EUROPE'S rising Right-wing tide swept into the core countries of the European Union yesterday, rocking Germany's Social Democrats and threatening France's socialist government.Over the last two years, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and Norway have all turned against the centre-Left consensus that had such a lock on Europe during the 1990s, opting instead for law-and-order parties promising tax cuts, deregulation, and a much tougher line on immigrants.But the pace is now quickening as ever more radical figures build mass support, often outflanking the conventional centre-Right...