Month: February 2024

An English local council has witnessed chaotic scenes at its recent budget debate after pro-Palestine protesters staged a demonstration before scuffles erupted.

Video footage from the meeting in Chorley showed events take a turn after a Tory Councillor attempted to restore order.

Following on from pro-Palestine activist Jenny Hurley, Councillor Craige Southern shouted: “It’s Chorley, not b****y Gaza.”

Southern was also heard calling for the protesters to “get out”, adding: “Go on.”

The Conservative Councillor attempted to physically escort Hurley from the meeting.

Councillors, officials and protesters then got up close and personal with each other as voices continued to be raised.

“BECAUSE THIS IS CHORLEY, NOT BLOODY GAZA! GET OUT!”

The Tory councillor is spot on. These mobs and cranks truly believe that Chorley passing a motion for ceasefire will change history. Pure virtue signaling. pic.twitter.com/1CW0BSG8oH

— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) February 28, 2024

Hurley had asked a question about housing in the Lancashire borough but later opted to turn her attention to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

She told Chorley Council: “I do find they’re painting over the cracks of the problem the housing market, much in the same way the Labour group painted over the cracks with their release of a private statement claiming their support for a ceasefire in Gaza, but they refused to follow this up with any public action.”

Another activist also held a sign which said: “Chorley Borough Council: Silent on Genocide.”

Sharing the footage on social media. Hurley said: “Tory councillor, Craige Southern, ASSAULTS me when we challenge Chorley council on why they have not passed a motion for ceasefire in Gaza during the horrific genocide.

“First Hoyle stops our voice, now this! Chorley will be heard.”

The incident comes just days after Chorley MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who is also Commons Speaker, received a backlash for breaking with parliamentary convention on a ceasefire vote amid concern about MPs’ safety.

However, Councillor Southern defiantly fired back against the “baying mob”.

He told The Daily Mail: “I wish to make clear I did not attack anyone and I would be very careful suggesting that I did.

“I was in fact protecting myself and others from these threatening and anti-democratic bullies who did all they could to try and disrupt the meeting to get their way over an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with Chorley Council.

“This baying mob was so threatening the meeting was suspended and the mayor had to be taken to safety. Some councillors were in tears.”

Southern, who expressed his sympathy towards the people of Gaza, added: “Chorley Council has no opinion on what’s happening to people 1,000 miles away in Gaza, we are there to talk about Chorley Borough.

“Of course we care about Gaza – I have sympathy for Gaza, I think it’s terrible – but we can’t do anything about it.

“And these people coming to protest couldn’t find Gaza on a map if you pointed to it.”

He also voiced support for the democratic right to protest but expressed concern with any attempt to “hijack” an elected chamber.

Lancashire Police has since confirmed an investigation is underway after a complaint of assault was made but no arrests have been made at this stage.

Rishi Sunak has echoed Southern’s concerns about the so-called “baying mob”.

The Prime Minister said: “There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule.

“And we’ve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently.”

https://www.gbnews.com/news/palestine-protests-chorley-council-meeting

A trans-identified male has been sentenced to death by a Mumbai court after being convicted of raping a three-month old infant in a case that the judge has called “barbaric and inhuman.” The perpetrator, a “third-gender” individual whose identity has not been disclosed in order to protect the victim, abducted the baby girl, sexually tormented her, and murdered her in an act of vengeance against the family for not offering him the customary gift money, or “badhai,” after the child’s birth.

The man had asked the family for a new sari, ₹1,100 (approx. $13 USD), and a coconut, reported NDTV, as part of a long-practiced custom wherein hijras, or eunuch-transvestites, dance at weddings and childbirth ceremonies and perform ritual blessings in exchange for gifts. The tradition has been declining in recent years, while hijras’ participation in organized crime, particularly sex trafficking, has skyrocketed in the past decade.

The court was told that the man’s intent was to create terror within the community in order to secure more gift money from residents. Injuries found on the body of the totally defenseless infant were a reflection of “extreme brutality and depravity” said Aditee Kadam, special judge for cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).

“Safety of a girl child is of paramount importance to society… Accused had planned to commit the crime and executed it meticulously,” the judge remarked, emphasizing that he buried the body in a marshy area in an effort to destroy evidence.

“The barbaric and inhuman manner of committing the offense made it the ‘rarest of rare case.’ It is a crime that would send a chill down the spine of every parent of a girl child, especially in a poor locality,” the court said.

Hijras, who are increasingly referred to as “transgender” locally and in news reports, have traditionally taken part in an initiation rite into the community called “nirvaan,” which involves the removal of the penis, scrotum, and testicles. For this reason, the term has previously been translated into English as eunuch or eunuch-transvestite, in accordance with their habit of wearing clothing typically associated with women.

Men belonging to the hijra community have documented connections to organized crime and sex trafficking. Since as early as 2009, associations between the male hijra demographic and the mafia have been on the rise, prompting accusations that male criminals are “masquerading” as transgender.

“They resort to human trafficking, by luring the unemployed and forcing them to undergo sex change surgery, and inducting them into beggary and sex work. Some of them run microfinance too. They keep the victims in their control by lending amounts at high interest rates,” said G. Krishna from state-sponsored NGO Suraksha Society in 2016.

In July of 2021, it was discovered that a group of hijra men in Assam organized a sex trafficking racket that involved forcibly castrating young boys and pimping them out in Delhi. The man behind the organization, named as “Pinky” in news reports, would take a percentage of the profits the boys collected after having been dressed as young girls and forced into prostitution.

The year prior, a similar instance was reported after a 14 year-old boy was abducted by a group of trans-identifying men, made to consume alcohol, and forced into prostitution. According to The Hindu, “The minor had been brainwashed by a group of transgenders into abandoning his family in Dindigul with the promise of funding his sex-reassignment surgery if he accompanied them to Tiruchi… The boy was made to consume alcohol, subjected to sexual assault, and forced into prostitution.”

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark ruling, the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgement, which granted trans-identified individuals the legal status of belonging to a “third gender,” neither male nor female, and granted sex self-determination in accordance with “gender identity.”

Last year, Reduxx reported on the case of a trans-identified male who was found guilty of raping a teenage boy in the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram. Samson’s legal defense had reportedly attempted to use his “transgender” identity to argue his innocence, claiming he was now known as “Shefina” and had undergone “gender affirming medical procedures.” He was handed a seven-year prison sentence and reportedly detained in a women’s prison. The region of Kerala, where the assault was committed, is known as being one of the most “transgender-friendly” places in India.

https://reduxx.info/india-trans-identified-male-who-raped-3-month-old-baby-girl-sentenced-to-death/

A growing number of British politicians fear for their safety over their positions on the war between Israel and Hamas, Reuters reported today (Wednesday).

Reuters spoke to more than 10 British politicians who spoke on the condition of anonymity and said that they have been subjected to increasing abuse related to the war.

One Labor MP said that he began to fear for his safety within 10 minutes of expressing support for the State of Israel as he faced shouts and accusations from anti-Israel activists in his district.

“It feels like it could just need one spark to flip from someone giving you tuppence (criticism) in the street to escalating to actual violence,” the MP stated, adding that the police had advised him to take measures to protect himself such as installing a partition at his office.

Another MP said he was considering installing a saferoom in his home.

The report comes one week after the genocidal slogan ‘From the River to the Sea,’ along with other anti-Israel messaging, was projected onto the famous Big Ben clocktower, without any police reaction, in London during a Parliamentary debate on resolutions calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Parliamentary Speaker Lindsay Hoyle upended normal procedure during the session by allowing the largest parties to present their amendments to an SNP resolution calling for a ceasefire. Hoyle claimed later that he was motivated to do so by the threats MPs faced on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war, rather than dealing with the threats.

Following the incident in and outside of Parliament, Jewish Tory MP Andrew Percy said that he feels safer in Jerusalem than on the streets of London due to the rise in antisemitic incidents and demonstrations in the UK since October 7.

MP Percy said, “I was in Israel last week, meeting with friends and survivors and hostage families, and I actually felt safer in Israel than I do in this country at this moment in time.”

Percy declared that “Nobody in this house has any business, agency at all in telling the state of Israel where it is able to operate to seek to rescue hostages who are being raped by Islamic terrorists who hold them!”

He warned that the threats against MPs meant that if Parliament debated resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza again, “members will not vote with their hearts because they are frightened and they are scared.”

“What do we expect?!” he asked. “For months I’ve been standing up here talking about the people on our streets demanding death to Jews, demanding Jihad, demanding intifadas as the police stand by and allow that to happen!”

Earlier this month, MP Mike Freer announced that he would be leaving politics after years of death threats, in part due to his support of Israel.

“As you can imagine this has not been an easy decision,” the Conservative politician wrote in a letter announcing that he would not seek reelection as MP for the Finchley and Golders Green sections of London.

Last month, Freer’s office was targeted in an arson attack damaging three floors at the back of the building.

Freer also narrowly escaped murderer Ali Harbi Ali, who went on to kill Tory MP Sir David Amess in 2021. Before killing Amess, Ali had visited Freer’s consistency office.

Report: British MPs fear for safety over Gaza war | Israel National News – Arutz Sheva

EU member states will likely be forced to designate at least 20% of their land area as unfarmable over the coming decade, after MEPs gave their backing to the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) at a plenary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday. This passed despite hopes that a populist alliance with the centrist European People’s Party (EPP) could scupper the Bill at its last legislative hurdle.

The NRL, which was first proposed by the European Commission in 2022, imposes strict regulations on land, river, and sea use, ostensibly to prevent further environmental degradation.

Regarded as the last major piece of EU green legislation before June’s European elections, the NRL had previously prompted disunity within the EPP group. Against a backdrop of Europe-wide protests from farmers, agricultural groups fear that Brussels was recklessly endangering their livelihood as well as jeopardising the food supply during a period of price inflation.

Regardless, the NRL easily passed a session of the European Parliament with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions. It now requires final approval from member states at the European Council before becoming law.

Despite rumours in EU circles that the EPP and even some MEPs from the liberal Renew group could listen to farmers’ concerns and vote against the NRL, the bill cleared the Parliament with the support of green, Left and centrist MEPs as well as some votes from the centre-right.

At a time when the EPP and its Christian Democratic affiliate parties would gladly tone down the green rhetoric ahead of the upcoming elections, EPP chiefs had previously given orders to vote against the NRL. One Romanian MEP, Siegfried Mureșan, warned against “more forms of bureaucracy and reporting obligations for farmers.”

A combination of abstentions and 25 EPP MEPs voting in favour of the NRL—despite the demands of party chief Manfred Weber—meant that the last-minute attempt to thwart the bill was in vain. The EPP’s five-person Irish delegation indicated their intention to rebel against the party line earlier in the day and vote for the NRL.

In a statement to The European Conservative, Irish MEP Seán Kelly said that previous reservations over food security had been met and he denied it represented a type of EU or statist “land grab.”

This sentiment was countered by farming representative Francie Gorman who warned following the vote that “uncertainty on the potential impact on farmland and production” would hamper the rollout of the NRL across Europe.

Similarly, the conservative ECR parliamentary group issued a statement prior to the vote warning about Brussels’ continued “top-down approach” when it came to the environment, adding it was “unwise to rush through this legislation hastily just before the end of the term.”

French nationalist MEP Aurélia Beigneux was also adamant in her opposition to the NRL, warning that national competencies were being stripped away from member states as part of an ideological mission to incapacitate EU agriculture. 

“If we are in favour of preserving nature, we oppose all standards which interfere in our national policies and which penalise even more so our agriculture and our economy vis-à-vis other powers” Beigneux said, adding that MEPs had rejected an earlier draft of the NRL last year at committee stage.

On Monday morning, protesting farmers took to the streets of Brussels to make their voices heard on the effect EU green policies were having on their industry. 

Separate from the NRL, on Tuesday afternoon MEPs also gave their approval to impose new financial penalties on corporations found violating environmental laws. Today’s votes are seen by many as the last gasp of the EU’s post-2019 green agenda ahead of an expected surge for the Right in June’s European elections.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/centre-right-caves-as-meps-pass-nature-restoration-law/

A police operation is currently underway on Dahlstraße in the Marxloh district of Duisburg. The emergency services were alerted at around 12 noon because two children were seriously injured; they escaped to a nearby school. They are currently being treated in hospitals. Police officers have arrested a 21-year-old who is suspected of having attacked the pupils. There is currently no danger to the public.

The area around the crime scene is currently cordoned off. The object with which the pupils were injured and the background to the offence are now the subject of ongoing investigations.

https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/50510/5724171

The attacker is said to be a young German-Bulgarian (21).

https://www.bild.de/regional/ruhrgebiet/regional/alarm-in-duisburg-zwei-schueler-verletzt-messer-attacke-an-grundschule-87332816.bild.html

Police are on the hunt for a man described as having a “North African” appearance who stabbed two 17-year-old girls in the German town of Erkrath in a robbery attempt.

The two girls were sitting on a sheltered bench on a remote dirt road when a car pulled up and a man demanded their handbags. When both victims refused, the man reacted by brutally stabbing them both, resulting in severe injuries to both victims.

The man then fled in a Mercedes silver-gray coupe. Despite their wounds, the two girls managed to call emergency services. Paramedics arrived on scene and transported the victims to the hospital, with one of them in critical condition.

According to the police, the man was accompanied by an accomplice who did not interact with the girls. They searched the area, including with a helicopter, but officers were unable to locate the perpetrators, according to German newspaper Welt.

A homicide squad is now on the hunt for the suspects in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with one of the men accused of attempted murder.

The attacker is described as being between 15 and 22 years old, 1.75 meters tall (5’9″), and of North African appearance.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has already responded to the attack.

“Both victims are seriously injured, and one of the girls is now in danger of dying. Reports like these are unbearable, and they demand immediate and consistent action: Stop mass migration, punish perpetrators harshly and deport foreign criminals immediately,” wrote the party in a statement.

Germany has seen a surge in knife attacks and robberies in recent years.

https://rmx.news/crime/germany-north-african-man-stabs-two-17-year-old-girls-in-robbery-attempt-1-in-critical-condition/

On 27th February (local time), it was reported that BBC apologised to the parents of a young person who complained the now-suspended BBC presenter Huw Edwards in the matter related to cash for explicit photos. In the apology, BBC admitted they should have acted more swiftly on the mother’s complaint of the young person.

Reports suggest that BBC launched a review into the complaints procedure following the scandal that came to light in July 2023. BBC group chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva apologised and said in a statement that the organisation found specific process shortcomings in the complaint made about Edwards. She said, “The initial complaint in this case was not escalated quickly enough to senior management, and we have apologised to the complainant for this.”

BBC apologised after an independent report found process shortcomings

The organisation further added that it would improve its procedures for dealing with non-editorial complaints after a review found that there was a need for greater consistency across the organisation while dealing with the most serious complaints. Deloitte partner Simon Cuerden reviewed the organisation’s procedures.

As per the report, the complaint was made on 18th May, but the matter was not escalated despite the investigations team seeking to contact the complainant. The case was not even logged into the BBC system at the time, meaning there was “no opportunity for wider visibility of the case within the BBC”. The report pointed out that the course of action was unclear due to a lack of documentation of the contact and follow-ups.

Edwards never made a public statement himself about the allegations, but his wife did and said he was suffering from “serious mental health issues”.

Huw Edwards allegedly paid a teenager thousands of pounds for explicit images

On 8th July 2023, The Sun published the shocking story of an unnamed BBC presenter who allegedly paid a teen 35,000 Pounds over a period of three years for sexually explicit images. The publication cited the victim’s mother’s version while publishing the story against the BBC presenter. Later, he was identified as Huw Edwards after his wife issued a statement.

On 10th July, it was reported that the TV representative, who was identified as a male staffer of BBC, called the young person and asked, “What have you done?” in panic. The BBC presenter called the young man twice after the allegations were published in the publication. The report adds that the BBC ‘star’ asked the victim to drop their complaint or stop the ongoing investigation.

BBC confirmed the reports that it had known about the complaint way back in May 2023. However, the state-run British Broadcaster claimed that the new allegations were of a “different nature”. It added that it had suspended the male staffer accused of these wrongdoings.

While the young person who received money for sexually explicit images denied the claims made by the mother and the stepfather, the parents rubbished them. They said they wanted the BBC presenter to stop sending him money. The young person’s mother accused the BBC presenter of pushing the young person, who was only 17 when it started, towards drugs.

On 12th July, Vicky Flind, the wife of Huw Edwards, named him as the BBC presenter accused of paying a vulnerable young person in exchange for sexually explicit images. Edwards, who was one of the network’s highest-earning anchors, was suspended by BBC pending an investigation.

In a statement, Flind said Edwards was getting treatment at the hospital for his “serious mental health issues”. The statement was given on his behalf “primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children”.

Flind said that her husband was suffering from serious mental health issues and pointed out that it was well-documented he had severe depression. There were no details on the allegations against Edwards in the statement. She “hoped” that the statement would end the speculations being raised in the media about other BBC presenters.

https://www.opindia.com/2024/02/bbc-apologises-to-family-of-young-person-sexually-exploited-by-presenter-huw-edwards/

Nearly three-quarters of all transgender prison inmates in Britain were convicted of sexual offences or other violent crimes, which campaigners say demonstrates the dangers of housing biological males in female prisons.

According to Ministry of Justice figures, 74 per cent of British transgender prisoners, or 181 out of 244, were convicted of sex offences including rape and child sexual assaults. The data, reported by The Telegraph, goes on to say that currently 144 biologically male transgender prisoners are being housed in male prisons in Britain compared to five being housed in female jails.

The figures were revealed after a whistleblower complained of a violent male claiming to be transgender was put in a female prison. “She was not huge but very athletic and very strong and had all the physical features of a man. She was a bully and was very threatening and intimidating,” the insider said.

“The belief that she should have been housed in a male prison was unanimous, not just among the prisoners but also the staff,” she added.

Commenting on the need for prisoners to be separated by sex, former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss said: “It is always an issue to have males who identify as women in women’s prisons. It’s not necessarily always the physical threat that they experience but the re-traumatisation because many women in prison are already traumatised at the hands of men. They are also faced with constant gaslighting when they are forced to call these men ‘she’.

“The vast majority of men who identify as transgender in prison did not do so before they came into contact with the justice system.”

The executive director for Sex Matters, Maya Forstater added: “The presence of men in women’s prisons immediately makes every female inmate feel unsafe. Even if men do not commit actual violence, they may threaten, bully and sexually harass women.

“Their very presence is intimidating. This testimony is important and HM Prisons must take heed. It has already implemented policies that keep many trans-identifying men out of women’s prisons, but it needs to finish the job and ensure all prisons are truly single-sex.”

The issue of male sex offenders being housed in female prisons has been a longstanding controversy in Britain. In one notable case, convicted rapist Karen White, born Stephen Wood, sexually assaulted several female prisoners shortly after being transferred to a women’s prison in 2018.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman told the Daily Mail: “Well over 90 per cent of transgender women in custody are held in the men’s estate.

“We changed the rules last year so transgender women who’ve been convicted of sexual or violent offences – or who retain male genitalia – cannot be held in a women’s prison unless in truly exceptional circumstances.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/02/28/three-quarters-of-transgender-prisoners-are-sex-offenders-or-violent-criminals-in-britain/

German non-profit news group Correctiv has been hit by the courts over its report about an alleged “conspiratorial” Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) meeting.

At the “secretive” gathering, the news outlet claimed several politicians and others discussed the possible deportation of 2 million migrants from Germany.

A number of those attending the meeting subsequently sued Correctiv. On February 27, the regional court of Hamburg issued a preliminary injunction against the news outlet over falsely reporting on one participant, according to Apollo News.

Ulrich Vosgeraus, a lawyer, was present at the alleged “secret meeting” where remigration plans were said to have been discussed.

Vosgeraus stated that quotations were taken out of context in the Correctiv article. He demanded the removal of three statements.

The judge agreed with the removal of one passage, the core point of the plaintiffs’ objections.

Regarding a lecture on the German electoral system, Correctiv had written: “Vosgerau considers the suggestion that a model letter could be developed before the coming elections to cast doubt on the legality of elections to be conceivable: the more people participate, he agrees, the higher the probability of success.”

The judges ruled that the final sentence, for readers, would foster the belief that Vosgerau had essentially stated “that the likelihood of success of election challenge complaints would be greater the more complaints were filed”.

“This is procedurally untrue,” stated the court.

That was because Vosgerau had argued “that he had actually expressed that a mass approach to election challenge complaints is not advisable and the success of an election challenge complaint does not depend on how often it is filed but rather on how well it is substantiated”, the judges concluded.

The court decided in favour of Correctiv on two other points of objection.

Vosgerau told NIUS media outlet he regarded the ruling as a “huge success”.

Correctiv was compelled to acknowledge, for the first time, that it had only made “assessments” rather than factual accusations in its report when seven participants at the gathering had submitted testimonies.

This undermines apparent claims that the purpose of the meeting was fundamentally motivated by overt racism.

The whole affair made national news after it became widely known that the German outlet had stated the “deportations” of migrants was discussed at the “clandestine” get-together.

Correctiv‘s “revelation” of the seemingly secret meeting in November, following wider media reference, led to the eruption of mass protests across Germany over the weekend of January 19-21, followed by further demonstrations.

The news outlet later backtracked on its story.

It also turned turned out the magazine had previously engaged in several of its own “secret meetings” with the Federal Government, including allegedly with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/02/german-court-hammers-news-outlet-correctiv-over-secret-meeting-story/

In a surreal scene revealed by Flemish anti-jihad researcher Peter Velle, on January 13, a Pakistani Islamist preacher came to the Brussels Regional Parliament in Belgium to chant verses from one of the most radical and anti-Semitic suras, Koran 33. The presentation provoked several reactions of indignation, particularly from the centre-right Mouvement Réformateur party (MR).

This sura, which contains 73 verses, was chanted by Pakistani imam Muhammad Ansar Butt. The sura refers to three significant events: the Battle of the Trench (or Al-Ahzab: Against the Clans/Coalition), which supposedly took place during the month of Shawwâl, in the year 5 A.H. (after hegira, the journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in year 622 A.D.); the attack on and subsequent massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banû Quraydhah, carried out in Dhul-Qi’dah, in the year 5 A.H.; and the Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab, celebrated in the same month of the same year.

The Koranic reference to “coalition” is meant the confederation of pagan Arabs, “hypocrites” — people falsely claiming to be Muslims, without conviction — and Jews. Generally speaking, this “coalition” ostensibly acts and fights against Islam under the leadership of the Jews, though historically it is usually the other way around.

The tribe that dominates the narratives of this sura is that of the Jewish Banû Quraydhah. Even though not its exclusive focus, Sura 33 celebrates the massacre of the men of that tribe, and the enslavement of its women and children after their surrender to the Muslims.

The verses chanted by this Pakistani preacher from the perch of the Brussels Regional Parliament were taken from a sura whose main purpose is to celebrate the victory of the Muslims over the “coalition” and the massacre of the Jews. This is something of which the Islamist preacher, who presumably knows the Koran from memory, was presumably aware.

In other words, three months to the day after Hamas’s bloodthirsty massacre of Jews, an Islamist preacher from Pakistan comes to the rostrum of the Brussels Regional Parliament, in the capital of the European Union, to chant verses from a sura celebrating the defeat, surrender and massacre of Jews and the enslavement of Jewish women and children.

Bruxelles : un imam pakistanais radical récite une sourate du Coran au micro du Parlement bruxellois avant de recevoir un prix des mains de la socialiste Nawal Ben Hammou, secrétaire d’État bruxelloise à l’Égalité des chances https://t.co/ut1s1sAp0R pic.twitter.com/TEKW7YJf0K

— Fdesouche.com est une revue de presse (@F_Desouche) February 16, 2024

The blowback began when a video circulated on social media showing the imam chanting in the parliament. The event provoked several reactions of indignation.

In the video, Muhammad Ansar Butt, dressed in Taliban style, talks about Islamic victory over the “coalition” for three minutes without the slightest interruption. Given that Belgium is a country that practices the separation of religion and state, the scene, immediately made the rounds of the Belgian press.

To put it plainly, freedom of expression and opinion is the definition of democracy, and members of the Brussels Regional Parliament enjoy it to the full. The problem is that, in this case, a Pakistani preacher who has nothing to do with parliamentarians was given access to the parliamentary rostrum and jumped at the chance to chant a sura whose main purpose is to celebrate the massacre of Jews.

The president of the Brussels Regional Parliament, Rachid Madrane of the Parti Socialiste (PS), immediately reaffirmed the neutrality of public institutions, and stated that “Parliament is no temple to anything other than democracy”. He said that he intended to remind Hasan Koyuncu (also PS), an MP of Turkish origin who was behind the Butt’s invitation to chant in the parliament, along with other group leaders, in a letter. Madrane continued that he also plans to put the issue on the agenda for the next meeting of the Parliamentary Bureau and to propose that respect for neutrality be explicitly included in the Rules of Procedure.

The MR party said it was shocked by what it saw as the intrusion of religion into the very heart of parliament and called for assembling a parliamentary committee.

“We have been fighting for years for the neutrality of the State”, said David Leisterh, chairman of the Brussels MR party. He called for a commission to be set up immediately to withdraw any decorations awarded to Butt for his integration into Belgian society; to clarify who had invited him and why; to determine whether the imam receives public subsidies; to review the list of those awarded decorations and to ensure that there is no contradiction with “our fundamental values”.

The incident sparked outrage from the political class, with calls for swift accountability. Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the MR party, condemned the left’s use of sectarianism as an electoral weapon, while federal MP Darya Safai (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie party), who is of Iranian origin, expressed her concern about a “very dangerous development” in Belgian democracy.

Unfortunately, these reactions remain superficial, to say the least. For his presentation, Butt was awarded a medal at the end of the same ceremony by Nawal Ben Hamou (PS), Secretary of State of the Brussels-Capital Region, who congratulated the Islamist preacher on the “quality of his integration” into Belgian society.

It is worth noting that this Islamist preacher of Jew-hate does not speak a word of French or Dutch, Belgium’s two national languages. What a heart-warming story of “integration”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20437/imam-jew-hate-belgiam