An asylum seeker from Gaza tried to meet a 14-year-old schoolgirl for sex, before getting arrested.
The child, who had been in contact with the Palestinian man over 57 days and had agreed to meet with him, is thought to have been a decoy.
Al-Najjar Amir Abdulrahim, 30, has been arrested and remains in custody.
He has been charged with attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to meet a child following grooming.
The man will appear at Manchester City Crown Court next month.
Despite not being considered a flight risk, he was not granted bail as the court decided there were no conditions to reduce the risk that he would offend.
Appearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court, he did not indicate his plea.
Abdulrahim is believed to have had an interview with the Home Office regarding his immigration status earlier this month, according to The Sun.
It is unclear how or when he arrived from Gaza.
There is no specific visa scheme for Palestinian refugees in the UK.
They are not eligible for resettlement programs like those for Ukrainian citizens.
Advocates argue for a dedicated humanitarian scheme for Palestinians to provide safe and legal routes for those in immediate danger.
The war between Israel and Palestine began on October 7 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel.
Nearly 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed.
A United Nations commission of inquiry ruled that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu firmly rejected these claims during an address to the UN General Assembly on Friday, where he suggested that much of the world doesn’t remember the attacks of October 7 and condemned nations for recognising the state of Palestine.
A man in Switzerland is facing 10 days in prison after refusing to pay a fine for an “offensive” social media post. Emanuel Brünisholz, a wind instrument repairman from Burgdorf, was convicted under anti-discrimination laws for making statement emphasizing skeletal evidence of binary sex.
Brünisholz’s ordeal began in December of 2022 when he responded to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner. In his comment, Brünisholz wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”
The reply, which highlighted the immutable nature of biological sex and played on a popular meme, quickly drew complaints from activists who filed reports with local police, alleging it constituted public incitement to hatred under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. This provision, originally enacted in 1995 to prohibit the dissemination of ideas based on race, ethnicity, or religion that degrade human dignity, was expanded in 2020 to include a broad interpretation of “sexual identities.”
Burgdorf Police interrogated Brünisholz on August 15, 2023, launching a formal investigation into charges of discrimination and hate speech. During the questioning, conducted by the Regional Police Command Mittelland – Emmental – Oberaargau and documented in an official transcript, Brünisholz was interrogated about the “intent” behind his Facebook reply.
To the question, “What did you mean by this comment?” he replied: “Well, that those who think there’s not just man and woman, I want to tell them that there’s only man and woman.” Later, when asked, “What do you think of the LGBTQI community?” he responded: “Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s an extremist bunch. They want to silence me.”
A copy of the questions issued to Brünisholz by police, and his responses.
The Bernese judiciary determined that “through his comment published on Facebook, [Brünisholz] has publicly belittled the group of LGBT(Q)I people based on their sexual orientation and in a way that violates human dignity.” He was issued a penal order fining him 500 Swiss francs (approximately $580 USD), convertible to 10 days of imprisonment if unpaid.
Brünisholz raised an objection against the criminal order, and the case ended up in the Regional Court of Emmental – Oberaargau for review. But on December 20, the Regional Court affirmed the guilty verdict against him, and imposed an additional fee of 600 Swiss francs.
Viewing the penalty as an infringement on his right to express a scientific fact, Brünisholz opted out of payment and accepted the jail term. On September 19, 2025, he publicly announced his impending incarceration.
“It’s happening. On December 2, I’m going to prison for 10 days!” Accompanying the post was an image of the official “summons to serve the sentence” from the Bernese Office of Justice Execution, confirming his transfer to a regional prison.
The ruling has ignited a firestorm on social media, with critics decrying it as a chilling example of “woke authoritarianism” infiltrating Swiss jurisprudence.
Daniel Stricker, a prominent commentator, highlighted the irony in a viral X post: “And the Swiss mainstream media whines about free speech restrictions in far-off America… Total silence on this case.”
Supporters of Brünisholz argue that the conviction ignores biological evidence, such as forensic anthropology studies showing sex dimorphism in skeletal remains, and instead prioritizes ideological conformity.
The timing has amplified the public concern surrounding the case. With Switzerland’s e-ID referendum looming in September 2025, aimed at modernizing digital verification amid privacy fears, the Brünisholz ruling fuels debates on state overreach, including how expanded hate speech laws might leverage digital surveillance. Critics warn that tools like e-ID could further enable monitoring of online speech, turning everyday citizens into targets, especially if “gender” protections pass without robust free speech safeguards.
Legal experts have weighed in, noting the selective enforcement of Article 261bis, which could intensify if the proposed expansion to “gender” is adopted. This effort, which has gained momentum since 2024 through six parliamentary initiatives led by the Social Democratic Party (SP), aims to address gaps in current protections by extending safeguards to transgender and non-binary individuals, a move that has sparked debate over its impact on free expression.
A National Council commission is now drafting the legislation and debating whether “gender” encompasses biological sex or self-decided gender identity, and how to balance it with free expression under Article 261bis. Advocacy groups like the Transgender Network Switzerland (TGNS) have pushed for explicit gender identity inclusion, aligning with ECRI and UN recommendations, while critics warn of overreach, a tension that directly impacts cases like Brünisholz’s where biological facts are at stake.
Brünisholz is just the latest individual to be prosecuted for “transphobic” social media posts in a troubling global trend.
As detailed by Reduxx earlier this week, a Māori women’s rights advocate in New Zealand is similarly facing jail time after being reported to police for “offensive” social media commentary by a trans-identified male. Rex Landy of Mana Wāhine Kōrero was reported her for “transphobic” social media posts criticizing gender ideology, leading to her arrest in December 2024 under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Landy is facing up to 3 months in prison or a $50,000 fine.
Reduxx has also previously covered the case of Karen Mizuno, a Brazilian women’s rights activist who revealed that she was was facing possible criminal charges because she had made a joke about human sexual dimorphism on social media. Like Brünisholz, Mizuno had made a light-hearted comment about the skeletal differences between males and females.
Prince Andrew with young Virginia Roberts Giuffre, his wife Sarah Ferguson, and an older Virginia.
The Epstein curse has caught up with Fergie.
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, is under fire for her close relationship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that was revealed by recent disclosure of an apologetic email that she sent to her ‘supreme friend’.
In her interview to the DOJ, Ghislaine Maxwell also said that Fergie was the one who introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew, and also that the duchess was trying to ‘put the moves’ on the disgraces financier.
'It's utterly disgraceful.'
Royal Broadcaster Sarah-Louise Robertson, says Sarah Ferguson is 'finished' after emails were leaked between her and Jeffrey Epstein.
The email release has led to seven charities severing ties with Ferguson, and that may not be the end of it.
The family of late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre is now demanding that Sarah Ferguson be stripped of her royal title over her connection to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
“In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law spoke out after an email emerged in which the Duchess of York apologized to Epstein and referred to him as a ‘supreme friend’ – even though he had already been convicted of sex crimes.
In the correspondence the Duchess ‘humbly apologized’ to the convicted sex offender for letting him down and said she had been told to speak out if she wanted to save her career as a children’s author.”
“Do you think she should lose that royal title?”
“For sure…”
The brother and sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre call for the Duchess of York to be stripped of her royal title over an email she sent to Jeffrey Epstein. #Newsnightpic.twitter.com/mVPzJXDKCi
“Sky Roberts, Virginia’s brother, tore into her conduct, telling Newsnight: ‘To call Epstein a ‘supreme friend’ after his conviction is indefensible. The public is watching, and this is just the beginning.’
[…] His wife, Amanda Roberts, was equally damning: ‘Every survivor faces defamation. If you’re in Epstein’s circle, it was very obvious what was happening. Minors were around him constantly. For friends to act unaware is preposterous’.”
Four members of the Bundestag, the German parliament, have been banned from an ongoing session after waving a large Palestinian flag.
The four MPs with Die Linke, Vizenz Glaser, Cansin Köktürk, Charlotte Neuhäuser and Lisa Schubert, rose from their places during a speech by Stephan Mayer, member of the parliament’s foreign policy committee, on September 24 and started waving the flag from their bench.
The parliament Vice President, Josephine Ortleb (Social Democratic Party, SDP) intervened and asked them to stop or leave the room. They did not react.
“You are leaving this room now,” Ortleb then ordered and told parliamentary ushers to remove the flag. She also banned a photographer on the visitor gallery, who had been taken pictures of the disturbance.
The four left-wingers left the room and were excluded from all further sessions that day.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (Christian Democratic Union) later defended the ban, telling her fellow MPs: “Those who need posters and flags can show them on the street.”
In case of further rules violations she threatened the left-wingers with a longer ban from parliamentary sessions and monetary fines.
The banned MPs later defended their protest.
Glaser said: “The catastrophic situation in Gaza leaves us no choice but to pull out all the stops to draw attention to the issue.”
Köktürk wrote on Instagram: “Germany is complicit in this genocide in Gaza. Apparently, we still need to remind them of that.
“Take responsibility at last! See you on the streets on Saturday.” She was referring to a large-scale protest planned for tomorrow in Berlin, with support from Die Linke.
Köktürk, who only became an MP this year, is already a repeat offender. She has disturbed parliamentary sessions multiple times with her solidarity expressions for Palestine – in violation of the house rules.
At the inaugural session of the new Bundestag in March, she posed with a Keffiyeh, the headdress popular with Palestinians, including terrorists. In June, she was barred from a parliamentary session for refusing to take off a T-shirt with the slogan “Palestine” on it.
Die Linke is actively pandering to Germany’s growing Muslim voter base and seven out of its 64 MPs are Muslim.
According to a survey by news station ZDF, 29 per cent of Muslim voters backed the party in the latest general election – making it the most popular with Muslims ahead of the SDP with 28 per cent.
Muslims in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein are set to receive two additional public holidays, while preparations are also underway for Islamic studies to be introduced as a regular subject in schools. These measures are part of an agreement between the Schleswig-Holstein state government and the Northern German Association of Islamic Cultural Centers (VIKZ).
According to the Ministry of Culture, officials, employees, and students of the Muslim faith will be able to take time off on the first day of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha.
The agreement was signed on September 24 by Minister of Culture Dorit Stenke of the center-right CDU and Murat Pırıldar, chairman of VIKZ. Muhlis Şahin, vice president of the Federal Board of VIKZ, welcomed the step, saying:
The treaty makes it clear: Islam is a part of our social life. It has taken deep root here and continues to thrive—through people who were born and raised here and who live in this country as their homeland.
Stenke called the contract “an important sign of recognition and equal treatment of religious communities. People of the Muslim faith are part of our society. We are confirming this with this agreement.”
The agreement also lays the groundwork for ‘Islamic religion’ to become a regular school subject, though “certain requirements—such as student numbers and teacher qualifications—must be met for this to happen.”
The VIKZ, founded in 2014, currently comprises twelve congregations in Schleswig-Holstein and represents around 12,000 members. The treaty guarantees the association’s right to operate cultural and educational institutions and to train imams.
Not everyone, however, shares this positive assessment. Islamic scholar Susanne Schröter, director of the Frankfurt Research Center for Global Islam, expressed skepticism in an interview with WELT TV. She described VIKZ as “very conservative,” adding that Germany’s official dialogue with Islam often gives too much weight to conservative associations while liberal or moderate Muslim voices remain underrepresented. Schröter also warned that if Muslims receive formal public holidays, other minority groups might demand similar rights.
What have been called Muslim child rape grooming gangs, and jihadists may be shielded from scrutiny in the public sphere in Britain if the left-wing Labour Party government criminalises so-called “Islamophobia”, a leading Conservative MP warned.
Following the resignation of Deputy PM Angela Rayner earlier this month over a property tax scandal, the task of overseeing the Labour Party’s working group to establish a definition for Islamophobia to institute into law has fallen to Rayner’s replacement as housing and communities secretary, Steve Reed MP.
In 2021, while serving as shadow local government secretary, Reed urged Labour-run councils to adopt the definition of Islamophobia laid out by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims. The definition, which was later adopted by the party as a whole, branded discussions identifying Pakistani Muslims as the chief perpetrators of the child rape grooming gang atrocities as “racist” and an example of Islamophobia.
This conclusion came despite numerousreports finding that the mass sexual exploitation of mostly young white working-class girls was consistently overlooked by police and local officials for fear of appearing racist.
The prospect of formalising the concept of Islamophobia — a term invented by the radical Muslim Brotherhood — into law has sparked warnings that it may further disincentivise police from preventing further grooming gang abuses or even from stopping potential jihadists from committing terror in Britain lest they face accusations of acting out Islamophobic intentions.
Director of the Free Speech Union, Lord Toby Young, told the Daily Mail: “I don’t think it’s at all fanciful to think that if the Government rolls out an official, state-approved definition of Islamophobia, it will make the police and the security services more hesitant about investigating Muslims suspected of criminal offences. It will further entrench two-tierism in the criminal justice system.”
Steve Reed, the Minister in charge of Labour’s Islamophobia definition, wrote to councils in 2021 to urge them to adopt the 2018 definition that said talking about grooming gangs was racist.
Labour councils did so, including Telford, Kirklees, Ipswich and Wakefield, where… pic.twitter.com/vQ3d6b6Cfa
Conservative MP and shadow equalities minister, Claire Coutinho, accused the Labour Party of attempting to provide red meat to its Muslim voter base, which has been shifting away from the leftist party to independent candidates running on explicitly pro-Gaza platforms in recent years.
“In reality, Labour is not seeking to change criminal law. Instead, this is a misguided attempt to stave off the electoral threat that The Muslim Vote candidates pose to Labour seats. If we learn anything from the horrific mistakes made over the grooming gangs and dangerous gender ideology it must be this: we cannot put some groups in society on a pedestal, free from legitimate challenge. Labour must scrap this definition now,” Coutinho wrote in The Times of London.
The Tory MP argued that introducing a government definition of Islamophobia would only “intensify the culture of censorship that allowed the grooming gangs to carry out their crimes with impunity” and would “shut down difficult but necessary conversations about grooming gangs, gender equality, and even Islamist extremism.”
Coutinho also noted that some of the Labour-run councils which adopted the controversial APPG definition of Islamophobia after the urging of Reed in 2021, included the grooming gang hot spots Telford & Wrekin, Ipswich, Kirklees, and Wakefield.
She warned: “It is not clear whether Labour’s Islamophobia definition hindered action — but surely any government would want to know before the same mistakes are repeated.”
A mother, father, and two adult children from a Palestinian family in Örebro are facing trial for unlawful deprivation of liberty after allegedly kidnapping their 20-year-old daughter and keeping her monitored because she wanted to integrate into Western society.
On April 30, police in Hallsberg were alerted after witnesses saw two men forcefully drag a young woman into a car. Swedish outlet Samnytt reported how one witness followed the vehicle and helped police track it down within ten minutes. Officers stopped the car and found five family members inside, including the frightened young woman who showed signs of struggle.
The father, 58, was driving with the 54-year-old mother in the front seat. In the back sat three of their children, including the 20-year-old victim. Though she initially downplayed the incident, saying it had been “a little argument,” investigators soon discovered she had been living in sheltered housing to escape years of strict control.
According to social services documents, the young woman grew up under constant surveillance, forced to wear a headscarf, and never allowed out alone or to choose her friends. She dreamed of becoming a social worker and living independently, something her family opposed.
In 2023, she was taken against her will to Gaza, but managed to return via Egypt when war broke out. Back in Sweden, she fled between women’s shelters, but her family tracked her down repeatedly, even hacking her SIM card, email, and social media accounts.
An initially attempted kidnapping in 2024 failed.
Phone messages and chats obtained by investigators reveal the family’s hostility toward her independence. In one exchange, the father wrote in Arabic: “She must have her head cut off!” He later told police this was not meant literally, claiming it reflected a cultural way of speaking. In other messages, the older brother complained about her embracing Swedish identity, writing that “She loves Sweden and being Swedish.” The older sister suggested smuggling her abroad.
Prosecutors have now charged the father, mother, and brother with unlawful detention over the April abduction, while the sister is charged with aiding and abetting. The father also faces a separate charge for attempted unlawful detention linked to last year’s failed kidnapping, and the brother has admitted to hacking her online accounts.
The family, who came to Sweden from Gaza in the 2000s, are now Swedish citizens, and thus, none can be deported even if found guilty.
Honor-related crimes have become commonplace in Sweden in recent years.
The verdict leaves no one convicted of the killing itself, despite significant circumstantial evidence and allegations of an honor-related motive. All three defendants, however, were convicted of lesser charges related to the killing.
A top-ranked pizzeria in Germany has ignited controversy after banning Israelis from its premises, citing the war in Gaza, Ynet reported on Thursday.
Pizza Zulu (Photo), located in Fürth, Bavaria – a city with deep Jewish roots – posted a sign declaring it would “no longer accept Israelis in the place,” while claiming the move was “neither political nor racist.” The establishment, ranked sixth-best globally by leadersnet, said it would welcome Israelis back “when they decide to open their eyes, ears and hearts.”
Pizzeria’s self-assessment LGBTQ+ friendly Describes itself as ‘“run by women”’ (screengrab google)
The sign, which also stated “we love all human beings” and opposed harm to children, was reportedly removed hours later following criticism from Fürth’s Jewish community.
The city, home to a renowned Jewish museum and a legacy of Jewish tolerance dating back centuries, once hosted Jews expelled from neighboring towns and proudly refrained from imposing population limits on its Jewish residents.
The incident has drawn sharp condemnation, with many pointing to the irony of such a move in a city that historically embraced Jewish life.
The Israeli Embassy in Berlin responded and said in a statement, “The 1930s are back, this time in Fürth. This is neither a protest nor a misunderstanding. This is crystal-clear antisemitism. That’s how it started back then: step by step, sign by sign.”
The Embassy called on police, prosecutors, and courts to take action and added, “Jewish life must be safe and visible in Germany – everywhere, at all times.”
Just last week, a small specialty shop in Flensburg, Germany, came under fire after its owner displayed a sign that read: “Jews are banned from here! Nothing personal. No antisemitism. Just can’t stand you.”
Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, drew a direct parallel to the Nazi era in a post on X, writing, “The 1930s are back! In Flensburg, ‘No Jews allowed’ signs are hanging in shop windows again—in 2025. Just like back then in the streets, cafés, and shops of the 1930s.”
Prosor continued, “That’s exactly how it started—step by step, sign by sign. It’s the same old hatred, just in a different font.” He cautioned that such rhetoric “never ends harmlessly,” adding, “Politicians must not wait until it is too late – they must act now, before words turn into deeds again. Jewish life must be safe and visible in Germany!”
Prosor concluded with a plea for public solidarity, stating, “I hope that no Christian, no Muslim, no atheist, and no Jew ever enters this shopkeeper’s store again.”
With the usual linguistic caution that censors the truth of things, we speak of “incivility”, “violent fringes,” “urban violence” or “youthful excesses” to describe those who set Italian cities ablaze in the name of Gaza, but in reality, this is one of the most alarming symptoms of a phenomenon that far exceeds the limits of a news story or occasional social disorder.
It is, on a Western scale, a real insurrection, intermittent but persistent, led by a significant portion of woke-ized youth and those of Muslim and immigrant origin, against institutions representing democratic order. An internal intifada—not for the sake of provocation, but because the word means what it must: a revolt against a power perceived as illegitimate, hostile, and oppressive.
The obsessive reference to the Palestinian Arab cause shows that it is not about geopolitical mimicry or abstract solidarity. What is at stake in those images is the transposition, onto the domestic stage of European nations, of an imaginary struggle fueled by hatred for the West, its principles, and its symbolic universe.
Just look at how they have turned universities into war zones.
“Charlie refused to wear the bulletproof vest,” Kirk’s widow revealed to the New York Times.
A conservative speaker knew he was risking his life not in a military trench somewhere in Donbass or Gaza, but in Western universities. Friends had even suggested Kirk speak behind bulletproof glass after he had received numerous death threats.
The same bulletproof glass behind which children play at the Jewish school in Malmö, Sweden.
Let us reflect again with the great Victor Klemperer, who wrote: “Words can act like tiny doses of arsenic: we swallow them without noticing, and their effect manifests over time.”
The same goes for the bulletproof vest.
When Danish journalist Flemming Rose, who commissioned the Muhammad cartoons and has a Taliban bounty on his head, was invited to speak at Oxford, the university citadel looked like a war zone. Rose recounts in his book “The Tyranny of Silence”:
“The Oxford Union invited me to a debate on democracy, free speech, and respect for religious feelings. Since its founding in 1823, the Union has brought the most controversial issues of the age—war, racism, religion—to the table for open and free discussion. Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called the forum ‘the last citadel of free speech in Western civilization.’ My visit turned into the largest security operation since Michael Jackson had visited the city years earlier. The head of security met me at the airport and lodged me in a hotel under a false name. The campus was cordoned off by police and visitors were searched and put through metal detectors before entering the hall.”
We Westerners have ended up like Noam Chomsky’s boiled frog: if water scalded us suddenly, we would jump out of the pot, but if the temperature rises gradually, imperceptibly, even pleasantly, and by the time we realize it’s too hot, it’s too late.
Jack Ross, head of Kirk’s organization in England, just wore a bulletproof vest at a vigil for his murdered friend.
Another famous American conservative, Ben Shapiro, revealed on The Free Press:
“My security ordered me to wear bulletproof vests, insisted on the use of metal detectors, and told me to leave places they considered unsafe.”
Now a conservative activist, to speak at Berkeley—the birthplace of free speech in 1964—must wear a bulletproof vest.
$600,000: that’s the cost of security to let Shapiro speak at an American college.
Is it clear what is happening inside Western walls?
We were wrong to think the bulletproof vest was only for Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Gaza and Lebanon borders, an Israeli singer performing at Eurovision, Donald Trump at his rallies and Geert Wilders, who even in TV debates wears a bulletproof vest.
A Conservative UK government minister, Mike Freer, retired from politics after being flooded with death threats and having his office set on fire. “There comes a point where threats to your personal safety become excessive,” Freer said. The MP and his staff wear protective vests when attending public events. Death threats came from Islamic groups such as “Muslims Against Crusades” (imaginative, these Islamists) and they even found Molotov cocktails on the office steps.
When Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was released, employees of his publishing house were asked to wear bulletproof vests. So did the heads of Penguin.
Fast forward to today: even Rushdie’s German-Iranian publisher, Dawoud Nemati, who lives in exile in Essen, western Germany, must wear a bulletproof vest.
One-third of all personalities under police protection in France are so because of Islam.
Some must wear bulletproof vests, like Imam Hassen Chalghoumi.
Across Europe, countless academics are protected by police because of Islamic threats.
Egyptian sociologist Hamed Abdel Samad wears a vest when lecturing in Germany. On Die Welt, Hamed Abdel Samad recounts his visit to the book fair wearing a security vest:
“I travel only in armored vehicles and avoid any contact with people I am not intimately friends with. I was traveling to the airport to present my book at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was supposed to be the highlight of my writing career. The book had just reached number one on the Spiegel bestseller list and my publisher wanted to celebrate at the fair.
“But all of that was overshadowed when my security team leader handed me a bulletproof vest at the airport. ‘You should always wear it when appearing in public!’ The vest was extremely heavy; I could barely breathe. I entered the book fair and noticed that the heavily armed bodyguards were particularly tense. I was sweating profusely and felt the need to hide. I considered it a parody of an open society and a defeat for Western culture that an intellectual in the heart of 21st-century Europe had to fear for his life during a lecture.”
From parody to tragedy, a conservative activist should have to wear the same bulletproof vest during a university event, where he was invited not to speak ill of Islam but to present his ideas about the world and life.
This is the Intifada and the Fatwa against the West.
There will never be enough bulletproof vests for all dissenters. Either we go on the offensive and win this cultural war today, or no one will be safe tomorrow.
The Free University of Brussels (ULB) has been making headlines in Europe. Law students decided to name their class after Rima Hassan, a French Islamist politician known for her anti-Semitic positions and her apologetics for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. That decision came against the backdrop of countless attacks and threats targeting Jewish students on the Brussels campus.
Has the ULB become a breeding ground for Islamist and anti-Semitic hatred in Europe?
1. Anti-Semitic attacks
May 2024 – Physical assaults against Jewish students at the ULB campus. Jewish students, including the president of the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium, were attacked by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The victims were first insulted, then beaten. Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig Abu, shared a video of the attack. Incredibly, campus security removed the Jewish students — the victims, not the aggressors — from the premises “for their own safety”, without immediately intervening against the attackers. Hundreds of people then demonstrated to denounce this gratuitous and indiscriminate anti-Semitic violence.
June 2024 – A Belgian Jew in her sixties was attacked on the ULB campus, for being Jewish. Anti-Israel activists physically assaulted her during a campus occupation sit-in. She was wounded and lodged a complaint. “A Jewish woman in her sixties, walking her dogs on the ULB campus, was insulted and threatened in Arabic and French by a dozen anti-Semitic activists, who said “Yahudi [‘Jew’ in Arabic], we’ll smash your head and your dogs’ too”, “dirty bourgeois”, “you’re an accomplice to genocide”, “you’ll pay for the others” recounted Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism.
Since October 2023, posters denouncing anti-Semitism on campus have been systematically torn down. Any reference to Judaism or Jewish memory is vandalized within an hour. In April 2025, the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium put up hundreds of posters, all defaced the same day.
February 2025 – Jewish students have reported repeated acts of vandalism, physical aggression and anti-Semitic insults in recent months. The climate of hatred and intimidation is so pervasive that, according to them, it is impossible to be Jewish on the ULB campus. One cannot speak or express oneself as Jewish — or simply be Jewish. Just being a Jew is condemned and subjected to violence.
2. Presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkish Islamists (since the 2010s)
According to an academic analysis published by ULB itself in 2024, the Muslim Brotherhood (an international Sunni Islamist movement, designated extremist and terrorist by several European and Arab countries) and Turkish Islamists (linked to organizations such as Milli Görüş) have infiltrated youth and university movements at ULB.
They exploit issues such as wearing a veil, religious accommodations (such as halal slaughter), and political Islam to promote greater visibility for Islam. They recruit freely on campus through student associations, debates on Muslim identity and attacks on secularism. Their aim appears to be to encourage the most exclusive form of Muslim separatism, in direct contradiction with ULB’s founding principles of free inquiry and rejection of religious dogma.
3. Muslim Student Circle (or Muslim Youth) and “clandestine” prayers (since at least 2015, broadened, amplified in 2023)
Groups of Muslim students at ULB, often affiliated with the Federation of Muslim Youth in Belgium (FJM), organize daily collective prayers (salat, the five obligatory prayers: Fajr, Dhuhr, ‘Asr, Maghrib, ‘Icha), in defiance of ULB’s secular rules. These practices are both religious affirmations and identity claims, deliberately contravening the secular foundations of the institution.
For 15 years, prayers have been held in improvised spaces — corridors, staircases of the Solbosch Library, or outdoors — with rugs, veils and invocation texts. In 2023, a video published by the Belgian press revealed a clandestine prayer room inside the ULB. The rector, Annemie Schaus, described them as “spontaneous movements” — a polite way of acknowledging tacit tolerance by the university authorities.
Tellingly, however, ULB has always refused to grant prayer spaces for other religions.
4. BDS-ULB (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Circle since 2012, active in 2015 and beyond
This pro-Palestinian student group, affiliated with the international BDS movement — whose objective is to boycott to try to eradicate Israel, has been officially recognized at ULB since 2012.
In 2015, BDS installed an “apartheid wall” on Avenue Paul Héger, plastered with slogans such as “Fascists, Zionists – you are the terrorists”. Jewish students were directly targeted for being Jews. Despite repeated warnings from Jewish and secular movements, the demonstrators there are allowed to act freely. Their activism has since incorporated openly Islamist demands, including solidarity with Hamas after the October 2023 pogrom, under the guise of “anti-imperialist” rhetoric — despite Israel having been anti-colonialist, combatting the British Mandate there until Israeli independence in 1948.
5. Université Populaire de Bruxelles (UPB) and pro-Palestinian occupations (since 2024)
This radical student movement, inspired by Marxist and pro-Palestinian rhetoric, maintains links with Islamist groups such as Samidoun (a network supporting Palestinian prisoners, and a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and aligned with Hamas, both classified as terrorist organizations by the EU). Samidoun is designated in Belgium as a left-wing extremist group and a threat by OCAM (Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis). Samidoun is also officially recognized as a terrorist entity in Germany and Canada.
From May 7 to June 25, 2024, UPB-Samidoun occupied Building B of ULB (renamed “Walid Daqqa”, after a PFLP terrorist convicted of kidnapping and murder). Their demands: ending ULB-Israel partnerships, denouncing the “genocide in Gaza”. Conferences were hosted, featuring figures such as Khaled Barakat and Mohammed Khatib, who are close to the PFLP. Slogans included “From the river to the sea” (explicitly calling for the eradication of Israel) and calls for “intifada”.
Jewish students were attacked, with damage estimated at €500,000 to €700,000. The occupation, lasting seven weeks, was ended only by a police evacuation in June 2024. All the same, under pressure, ULB had already suspended its collaborations with Israeli universities in May 2024.
6. Promotion of hatred: Rima Hassan
In August 2025, ULB approved the decision of law students to name their class “Rima Hassan” — after a French Member of the European Parliament who is openly anti-Semitic, a supporter of Hamas after the October 2023 pogrom, and who incites hatred and even violence against dissenting voices, including Muslims opposed to her views.
Finally, when Alain Destexhe, long-time Belgian Senator, sought to shed light on this choice by pointing to demographic developments at ULB, citing around twenty first names — without surnames — the university immediately, the same day, filed a complaint against him for “incitement to hatred”. It is questionable how the observation of a demographic evolution — neither good nor bad in itself, but simply factual — could be construed as “hateful”. So much for “free inquiry“, the motto of the ULB.
Conclusion
Out of conviction or cowardice, the Free University of Brussels seems to have chosen the path of complicity with Islamist anti-Semitism.
Voices are now calling on the Belgian authorities and the European Union (notably within the Erasmus program) to take the necessary measures, including the complete withdrawal of funding.
